Teachers who attend our Summer Institute in Palo Alto become NGPF Fellows the following school year -- this Fellowship includes presenting with us at PD sessions, offering NGPF feedback on products, writing guest blog posts, ... the list goes on. Today features a Tech Tool Review from Martha Somers of Broad Run High School in Ashburn, VA. Here's what Martha has to say...

Tech Tool: Red Laser app 

Cost:

Free

Use Case: 

Download app for Android or iPhone through Google Play or the Apple Store.  Very easy to use and converts your iPhone or cell phone camera into a barcode scanner and allows the student to comparison shop for items using eBay and Google. There are many other barcode scanners that you can download for free as well, but this one is very easy to use and great for the students to use. It gives information on pricing, reviews, details about the product, etc.  

Implementation Guidance: 

Since most students are familiar with how to download the app there is very little set up involved.  

Pitfalls to Avoid:

Students unable to use it if they don’t have a smartphone.  If that was the case, an alternative assignment was given. Not reliable outside of the US or UK. Not available in older versions of Android phones.

Other Notes:

I created a list of items for Black Friday shopping over the Thanksgiving weekend and actually gave students a week to complete the assignment since many Black Friday sales went live before the actual Black Friday, and some students, due to other plans, were not able to shop on the actual Black Friday.  I assigned it as homework once I showed them the app and how to download. It can identify a wide variety of products and is fast and easy to use. I gave my students a list of things to comparison shop for Black Friday: One had to be an electronic, one had to be an article of clothing worth over $100, and one had to be a toy or electronic game.  They had to get a comparison list of at least two items in each of the three categories. They had to screenshot or print out their comparison list so that I knew it was complete and bring it in after Thanksgiving to submit. 

About the Authors

Guest Post

Jessica Endlich

When I started working at Next Gen Personal Finance, it's as though my undergraduate degree in finance, followed by ten years as an educator in an NYC public high school, suddenly all made sense.