When King’s Fork High School Principal Stenette Byrd needed a couple of students to talk to the Suffolk News-Herald’s Matthew Ward about a new technology the school is using to keep in touch with students, parents and others among the Bulldogs faithful, he turned to that new technology and quickly found teens interested in sharing their experiences.

King’s Fork recently signed on with SchoolInfoApp, a company that customizes smartphone apps designed to provide news, photos, updates and other information about participating schools.

The King’s Fork High School app, which is available for both Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android operating systems, features calendars, contact information, maps, links to popular school-related documents, a photo gallery, updateable headlines, assignment books and more, all in a quick, easy-to-use format.

Byrd apparently got a quick response to his digital shout-out, and a few eager students were on hand to tell Ward all about their experiences with the new app.

That’s just the sort of engagement that helps keep students interested in what’s going on around them, and it’s a great use of technology to further the mission of King’s Fork High School.

The jury is still out on the use of electronic devices during school hours, and communities like Isle of Wight County, which is in the midst of a program to equip all its middle-school students with iPads, will help educators come to a conclusion about the matter. In the meantime, King’s Fork High School did well to take advantage of this opportunity for a limited merger of technology and education.