Wireless LAN scholastic tracking system

Claim 1

A method of confirming identities of students participating in scholastic activities, comprising the steps of: a) issuing each student a portable identity card for presentation at an activity, and providing each card with a machine-readable symbol encoded with data which uniquely identifies the respective student; b) establishing a wireless network by providing a mobile, data collection terminal at each activity, each terminal having a display, an actuatable electro-optical reader, and a transceiver in wireless communication with the network; c) identifying a student upon presentation of a card at an activity by actuating the reader to read the symbol on the card to decode the data, by transmitting the decoded data via the transceiver to the network, by retrieving an image of a face of the student via the transceiver from the network, and by displaying the image on the display; d) confirming the identity of the student by comparing the image of the face on the display with the face of the student; e) equipping each terminal with a plurality of actuatable activity keys identifying the activities, wherein the activity keys include an attendance key for indicating the presence of the student at the activity, a status request key for requesting eligibility of the student to attend the activity, a test admission authorization key for requesting eligibility of the student to take a test at the activity, and an inventory checkout key for indicating that the student has removed an object from the activity; f) correlating the identity of the student with an activity by actuating the respective key identifying the activity, and by transmitting activity-identity data of the identity of the student correlated with the activity via the transceiver to the network; and g) retrieving information associated with the activity-identity data from the network, and displaying the information on the display.

Claim 2

A method of confirming identities of students participating in scholastic activities, comprising the steps of: a) issuing each student a portable identity card for presentation at an activity, and providing each card with a machine-readable symbol encoded with data which uniquely identifies the respective student; b) establishing a wireless network by providing a mobile, data collection terminal at each activity, each terminal having a display, an actuatable electro-optical reader, and a transceiver in wireless communication with the network; c) identifying a student upon presentation of a card at an activity by actuating the reader to read the symbol on the card to decode the data, by transmitting the decoded data via the transceiver to the network, by retrieving an image of a face of the student via the transceiver from the network, and by displaying the image on the display; d) confirming the identity of the student by comparing the image of the face on the display with the face of the student; e) equipping each terminal with a plurality of actuatable activity keys identifying the activities, wherein the activity keys include an attendance key for indicating the presence of the student at the activity, a status request key for requesting eligibility of the student to attend the activity, a test admission authorization key for requesting eligibility of the student to take a test at the activity, and an inventory checkout key for indicating that the student has removed an object from the activity; f) correlating the identity of the student with an activity by actuating the respective key identifying the activity, and by transmitting activity-identity data of the identity of the student correlated with the activity via the transceiver to the network; and g) retrieving information associated with the activity-identity data from the network, and displaying the information on the display.