Start a blog, don't start a blog. Decisions, decisions, decisions.

Inspiration. Perspiration. Determination?

Finally, I've decided to just get started. I'm a person that doesn't recommend things randomly and if I do recommend them, I want them to have a true purpose that can help others. In other words, I don't like to waste people's time. Although, I am a talker. So, here goes. Hope you find it worthwhile. A product recommendation with a purpose!

My first topic will be to tell about a product that I think can be of great benefit to school districts. It's the HP130 DesignJet printer. This printer is now on sale for over half off and is less than $1,000 and the possibilities for a district are endless. In fact $1,000 will get you the roll feed attachment, 2 rolls of regular paper and 2 rolls of glossy paper. We purchased one last year and used it with a cross-curricular integration activity. Originally, the athletic department made about $1,000 on these posters. A company sold the ads, created the posters, and gave a portion of the profits back to the school district.

Here's what our school did. The Sports Marketing class sold ads for the sports poster. They learned about salesmanship, marketing, and created some good PR for our district. They divided up in sales teams. As they ventured out they used a blank mock-up design of the poster to show local businesses what they were purchasing and where their ad would be located on the poster. They used cell phones to keep in contact with each other so that they could tell which ad spots had been sold. They also provided each business with a letter and free tickets to games in recognition of their support of the district. As they sold an ad, they provided the business with a receipt and also picked up any ad copy the business wanted to use for their ad spot. When they returned to school, they worked on creating the ads for the poster. The middle section of the poster was created by the Desktop Publishing class. The entire class worked on their design for the middle section of pictures and the sports schedule. The design we liked best was used for all of the printed posters.

There are a variety of applications for a full color poster printer. In our case we used it for hands-on classroom activities that also secured our school over $5,000. It was definitely a win-win. Students learned valuable skills for their future, our school made more money on something they were already doing, and local businesses got to see 100% of their monies funneled back into student use. Future plans include using it in more hands-on activities that will also raise money that will go back into the classroom curriculum. Hands-on activities provide students with realistic glimpses into the future world of work.