North Canton Schools Ask for Votes in Acer Laptop Competition

How bad do North Canton City Schools want to win Acer’s laptop giveaway?

Bad enough for one teacher to dress up in a giant hot dog costume.

And bad enough for another to rap a technology-themed parody around his students.

Their antics (caught on videos you can see just to your right, mind you) grabbed the attention of those at Acer. Now both and are vying for first and second place and hope to win 20 Acer Aspire One netbooks or five Acer Timeline notebooks.

Eric Curts, North Canton City Schools’ technology director, said Acer chose the two schools out of others across the country. Other chosen schools also created videos, but some wrote essays explaining why they needed Acer technology in their classrooms.

Curts said it’s pretty uncanny both teachers’ videos were chosen.

“It wasn’t until after they got accepted that they went, ‘Hey, you too?’” Curts said.

But it gives the schools a chance to walk away as first- and second-place winners, he added.

Dusty Dannemiller, also known as the 6th grade science teacher in the hot dog costume, wants to ensure having two North Canton schools in the competition doesn’t hurt them both by voters only choosing one. He said they can vote several times but need to use a separate e-mail account for each vote.

“It’s really important that everyone votes, and you vote as often as you can,” Dannemiller said.

In his video, Dannemiller, dressed as a hot dog, tries to make do with old technology, like pencils, paper and textbooks, while other students learn on Acer laptops.

He said students already had voted him to wear the costume during a schoolwide competition.

“I figured I’m already dressed as a hot dog, let’s make a video to go with it,” he said.

Why him?

“Type-casting, I guess,” Dannemiller said. “I guess I’m an eccentric teacher. ‘I’ve got a good sense of humor’ would be a good way to say it.”

He said computer graphics teacher Jerome Nist also played a big role in creating his video.

“Everyone keeps putting my name on this just because I submitted the video, but it couldn’t have happened without Jerome,” he said.

And in Hoover High School’s video, physics teacher Jake Saylor turns the rap song Gangsta’s Paradise into a rap about how his students need Acer laptops.

“In my dreams the answer is clear,” Saylor raps. “I envision a classroom where the knowledge is near. The students need some netbooks to discover the truth. They don’t want no teacher trying to teach them a proof.”

Curts said the technology is needed at both the schools. Some computers are about 10 years old. (In their videos, they used some of the old and non-working computers, which will be recycled later.)

“The biggest problem as far as technology goes in our district is funding,” he said. “Staff are very creative, very tech savvy. They make the most out of the technology here.”

“This is great because it provides a lot more mobility. It allows the computers to come to the kids.”

Voting ends March 14. Vote for the schools here.