The Nashville Consolidated School District 49 Board of Education met last night.  The focus of meeting was on technology.   To go with this, much of the discussion was the possibility of moving into the technological world with laptop computers for the students with the possibility of their textbooks being digital.  Superintendent Mike Brink had a presentation with a digital science book from Pearson.  He explains that students would have on their chromebook or other laptop and it would allow them to take notes while going page to page.  It also allows for quizzes and tests online, as well as progress monitoring and links to external sources.  One downside is that the book page doesn’t completely fit on the screen, so the user would have to scroll down to get the bottom part of the page.  Pricing on such a digital book for Math, Science, Social Studies and Language Arts would be approximately $54 per student, much lower than a textbook.  Brink then threw out some numbers for the Board to think about, such as upgrades to the wireless system of $25,000, professional development for the staff and faculty to use the computers and digital textbooks being approximately $70,000, as well as the $38,000 spent for a new server, licenses and other programs. Currently, the 8^th graders each have a chromebook to use in the classroom to supplement the textbooks, while other grades have a few in each room to be used.  Brink listed off some points that the Board needs to keep in mind, such as needing to visit a school that very similar to Nashville Grade School that currently uses the same systems and how they did it.  Also, they should get another demonstration on a math digital textbook.  Other points included what to do about substitute teachers using this technology, allowing the devices to be taken home, insurance on them, and if so, what about those without devices or internet at home.