A "very useful hobby" becomes a boon for students
“No thumbdrive? No problem” for SendItHome users
Since students can’t access personal email at school, they face a dilemma when it comes to transferring files from home to school or vice versa. Burning a CD is cumbersome and inefficient, and not everyone has a thumbdrive (portable storage device). Not so much annoyed by repetitive requests to borrow his thumbdrive as intrigued by a challenge, First Flight High School freshman Dodge Story founded SendItHome. SendItHome is a website that provides students with access to homework and project files at school, where personal email is blocked. SendItHome is a solution for any student who needs to exchange research and work files from home to school. “It was quite an undertaking,” Dodge says, “but I’m pretty proud of it.”
Dodge admits he is considered a “tech guru” by his classmates. “People come to me with [their computer] problems, and it seems they would always expect me to have a thumbdrive available for them to borrow,” explained Dodge. And he always had one - unless someone else had borrowed it. “To alleviate the problems that everyone was having, I created SendItHome.”
Meanwhile, at Manteo High School junior Randy Nance caught wind of the project and joined Dodge in the effort. Randy’s expertise in site and graphic design have enhanced Dodge’s brainchild.
“Our talents and skills balance out almost perfectly. Dodge is really good at the public relations and content front, and he has a lot of experience with the platform [software, it’s “Drupal”] on which SendItHome is based. I am much better with graphic design and coding aspects,” says Randy.
(Drupal is a free software package that allows an individual or a community of users to easily publish, manage and organize a wide variety of content on a website.)
Randy recalls that his interest in technology - particularly in web development and design - has its roots in his seventh grade computer applications class at First Flight Middle School. His teacher recommended him to the school technology coordinator, Landra Cartwright, who mentored Randy throughout his eighth grade year. “Dodge and I know each other because of our similar interests and working with Mrs. Cartwright. We were both active on blogs on the Dare County Schools Drupal site. I occasionally checked in on his personal site to see what’s up, and he had a message about SendItHome.net up on the front page. Before I knew it, I was on the team.”
Dodge’s story runs a little differently, although Landra Cartwright’s influence is a common thread. Dodge also worked with Cartwright in his eighth grade year at FFMS.
His dad and uncle taught him the basics, but Dodge says that since he could create a MS Word document, he’s been learning on his own. “My interest was really encouraged at school, since we are integrating technology almost everywhere. As soon as I got my login at school, I knew this was something I’d be interested in doing.”
In addition to the logo and site design, Randy’s role with SIH includes user support and monitoring the site’s traffic.
Thinking ahead, the two-man team hopes to market SendItHome to school systems facing similar challenges with respect to the secure transfer of student files for academic purposes. They are currently rolling out Carbon Wave Technologies (www.carbonwavetech.com/ ) as the parent company of SendItHome and future projects.
Though their interests in technology are great, both young men have other pursuits to which they’re committed.
As a junior, Randy is contemplating his post-secondary options. He is considering Virginia Tech or NC State to study computer sciences. For now, he says he is “heavily involved in our school band and balance my tech projects with my constant onslaught of homework and my band schedule.” He says his parents will attest to the amount of time he spends on the computer reading blogs and technology articles that keep him up to date, along with “constant tinkering with websites and their graphics.” Randy, too, is primarily self-taught when it comes to his technological expertise.
Currently, Dodge is refining his journalist bent through involvement with the FFHS school paper, The Nighthawk News. He is also excited about his selection as a page in the NC Senate for summer 2009. At school he is enrolled in the AVID (Adavancement Via Indvidual Determination) elective. In his “spare time” Dodge serves as a Board member and Chief Technology Officer for the Open Fire Academy, a non-profit based in Ohio (http://www.openfireacademy.com).
The high school freshman says that although he invests time and talent in honing technological skills, his main interest is in journalism, and muses “Technology is just a very, very useful hobby of mine.”