Wednesday, February 26, 2014

The Change.

Today's post is a guest post by a eleven year old. His challenge was to write a persuasive essay on how to spend the ten thousand dollars his school won. For keeping it neutral, I asked him to change the names but the text is his own.  My favorite part was when he recognized that the "coolness" of technology can actually prevent kids from going stray.  Hope you enjoy this.

The Change  

"It's happened, Wildcat Elementary School has won the jackpot of ten thousand dollars. Now Mrs. Fabulous comes the tough decision; What will you do with all this money? Well, my brain is teeming with satisfactory ideas and I have chosen a stellar one that will change education in our school forever.  This genius idea is to get our school "plugged in" or include electronics in our daily curriculum.  Wildcat Elementary should have electronics because today everything is online. We could use these tools for helping us research stuff, learn from experts and also motivate kids to learn. 

If a teacher gave a student a school project and they needed to research information, what would they do? Laptops and desktops are the answer. These devices are easy to use and give us an immense amount of information in a very small amount of time via the internet.  This helps the students improve their grades and prosper.  The students will be motivated to learn the facts or use high vocabulary words that they made an effort to search for and thus remember them better too. 

Today there are tests, quizzes and learning sites that are solely invented to help kids learn and succeed. If we had electronics, kids could to an educational website to find the solutions to their predicament. One example of an educational website is Khan Academy, a website that has helped millions become more educated than before. There is also online pretest websites that helps kids prepare for exams. One such example is Smarter Balance Testing . This is a website that helps kids get ready for smarter balance testing, a new program in schools that is replacing STAR test. 

Some kids just don't want to learn. They think that there are much more important things than education. That's why many kids start taking drugs. They think learning is boring.  If we had electronics in our school that wouldn't be a problem. These fancy gadgets are alluring to kids, so if we would buy them kids would start to love education. For some kids that are in poverty, this maybe the only time they will get a chance to learn using technology. 

Even if people want to ignore it, technology has become a major part of everyones lives. Some people wouldn't even be able to live without electronics. This is why electronics should be allowed in our school. It will help kids do their projects by researching information, kids will learn using electronics and kids will want to learn too. So remember I want to get this school "plugged in." 


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