Traditional Idea, Techno Twist
More and more secondary schools in Australia are adopting a Learning Management System to allow students to access vital information online but also providing functionality for testing and reporting and alike. Delivering content online, as supplementary to traditional teacher-student contact, is a fantastic use of technology and screams of benefits for both teachers and students.
While thinking about this I wondered why school canteens didn’t provide an online shopping portal for making lunch orders. This again would be an ideal usage of technology. A student and/or parent logs on and shops, as they would any other online shop, for lunch the following day (or perhaps a few days into the future) and then they pay online through PayPal or credit card etc. Each day then, the orders relevant for that day are delivered to the canteen operator who can prepare the lunches and deliver them to the student at the appropriate time.
The benefits to the parent are obvious. Firstly, no need to scrounge for change on lunch order day. Secondly, credit card payment is secure and the parent knows exactly how much is being spent on lunches. Thirdly, the order is locked in and so the parent knows exactly what their child will have for lunch; no more changing ’salad sandwich’ for ‘pie and chips’. Finally, the system could be established to give children access to a particular amount of credit so that students wouldn’t have to carry money with them and the parents would be billed monthly.
The benefits for the canteen operator are a little less obvious but still well worth the cost of the system. Firstly, all orders are delivered to the operator at the same time daily in the same format. No more deciphering handwriting on envelopes or brown paper bags. Secondly, payment is received in a secure manner so only a smaller float is needed on site. Thirdly, and most profoundly, the operator doesn’t need to be on site in the morning the order is placed allowing for a greater degree of outsourcing, less commuting for operators running multiple canteens and reduced overheads in terms of staffing. Finally, costs of implementation would be low because there is already free e-commerce software available which would only need minor modification to suit this application and hosting could be handled by the school for a reduced or no fee.
With everyone relying more heavily on technology I think this idea will be implemented at some point, but it’s just a question of when. What do they say about the simplest ideas?
