A New Way To Pass Notes
“Do you like him? He wants to know,” Sara Moran wrote.
“Maybe,” replied Mary Nadeau nervously, seated across the classroom, as she kept a watchful eye on her math teacher. “Tell him ‘maybe.”’
The contraband note may have a familiar ring to it, but it wasn’t sent on paper. The two friends, recent high school graduates from East Hartford who have gone on to college, were taking advantage of new technology to pass along forbidden messages.
Replacing the traditional method of putting a note in your hand and then making believe you are stretching while actually tossing the message to a friend is the use of hand-held electronic organizers.
Although the devices are often used by adult professionals to keep phone numbers, addresses and other pertinent information at their fingertips, the pocket-sized units also are being tapped by younger people for more subversive uses, including passing notes and cheating.
“We never used them to cheat,” Moran was quick to explain. “I got mine as a Christmas gift. When I read the directions and learned it could be used to send messages, Mary bought one, and we would use it in class to send messages. It was kind of neat because I don’t think many people realized what we were doing.”
Many manufacturers of the hand-held organizers, including Sharp, Casio and Rolodex, produce a line that now offers the communication option.
With prices ranging from about $20 to $200, the units can be affordable and easy to obtain. Nearly all include a calculator option that makes them useful - and allowed - in the classroom.
Electronic organizers were first introduced about 12 years ago. The more expensive models include the capacity to transfer information to home and office computers, while cheaper models have much less memory and technological capability and limit how information can be shared.
The communication option, which works on an infrared wireless component, also has its limits. Both people using the units have to be in the same room within 25 feet of each other.