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Camps Go High-Tech With Pictures, E-Mail But Keep It Low Key
By Sheila Riley, Investor's Business Daily
Technology - along with sleeping bags and bug repellent - now goes to summer camp.
Its role? To ease the minds of anxious parents.
Letting mom and dad know what's going on, often daily, has been technology's biggest effect on the $9 billion summer camp industry, says Peg Smith, head of the Martinsville, Ind.-based American Camping Association.
Since 9-11, parental worry about having kids out of sight has ratcheted up, Smith says.
"There's an increased sense of urgency and need to know that you can connect with your loved ones as quickly as possible," she said.
A New York City-based dot-com looks to help to make that connection. Bunk1.com offers parents photos of their kids at camp along with a one-way e-mail service.
The company was the brainchild of Chief Executive Ari Ackerman, who spent 11 years as a camper and camp counselor. Sales at Bunk1 have grown from $500,000 in 2001 to more than $3 million in 2003.
This year, with a summer staff of 20, Ackerman expects more than 2,000 camps as customers.
Parents sign up with Bunk1 and pay $10 to access a secure online photo gallery.
The response from moms and dads has been good, says Tony Mayfield, director of Culver Summer Camps in Culver, Ind., which posts over 100 pictures a day.
Culver Summer Camps hosts kids ages 9 to 17, providing horseback riding, ice hockey, arts and even aviation at a 1,800-acre camp 100 miles north of Indianapolis.
"Parents want their kids to have an independent experience," Mayfield said of Culver, which has a leadership and citizenship focus.
"At the same time, in this day and age, they want the ability to have instantaneous feedback."
And the kids? They often ask, "Is my picture going to be up today?" Mayfield said. "The vast majority have taken to it and like the idea."
Parents also pay $1 per e-mail to their kids sent through Bunk1.
The camp prints out the e-mails and distributes them. Kids write back on a piece of paper with a bar code that's faxed to a scanner that reads it, creates a "digital picture," and then sends it - via e-mail - back home.
That way, campers aren't on computers when they're supposed to be swimming or practicing piano.
"We don't want kids on computers at camp," Ackerman said. "I like camp to be the way I remember it."
Besides keeping mom and dad informed, there are two other ways technology has affected the industry, says ACA director Smith.
One is camp business - marketing, staff recruitment, online counselor training and camper education.
The other is ACA business. The organization accredits camps and advises parents on what to look for. From January to April of 2003, some 136,000 people logged on to its Web site to search for camps, Smith says.
There's one slight negative to technology's otherwise benign influence.
Kids sometimes manage to sneak in a cell phone or handheld electronic game, she says.
Camp usually wins out in the end.
"Once kids get to camp and get involved in the real purpose and value of camp, that cell phone or Game Boy isn't as important as when they walked in," Smith said.
But at the other end of the spectrum are camps catering to tech enthusiasts.
Seattle-based Giant Campus Inc. runs some 35 day and overnight "cybercamps" for techies ages 7 to 18.
"The basic concept is giving kids access to computer skills they wouldn't normally get at home or in school," said Chief Executive Pete Findley.
Some 7,000 to 8,000 kids take classes, including video game design, programming, 3-D animation and video editing.
Most cybercamps are held on the West and East coasts, with some in China and Japan.
The camps help fill in the gaps left by schooling, Findley says.
"Most schools don't have it as a priority to teach technology right now," he said. "A lot of parents are taking this into their own hands."
And they're willing to pay from $550 to $800 a week for day camp and $700 to $1,000 for overnight camp to do it.
Many Giant Campus cybercamps are at universities, including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (news - web sites) and Princeton University.
Game design is by far the most popular class, says Carlos Alberto, MIT camp director.
Whether on computers or not, campers enjoy themselves, he says. They don't take exams or get grades, and they have plenty of outdoor and social activities.
"The human brain learns more when it's having fun," Alberto said.
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