Turning 100 Words Into a Technology Win For Your School
By Lauren Barack -- School Library Journal, 10/26/2009
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Giants quarterback Eli Manning is this year's spokesman for the Four Season's of Hope contest. |
Anyone with a connection to a K-12 school—parents, teachers, students, even staff—can submit a 100-word essay that best explains why their school would benefit from software, computers, and consumer electronic tools.
But be warned. Whining about having to compose school papers on last year’s software isn’t going to work. Real need is what Samsung and its partners, including Microsoft, Best Buy, and Direct TV, are after.
“I’ve seen entries complaining about PCs being out of date and that they really want laptops,” says Jose Cardona, manager of corporate communications for Samsung. “And then we hear from a school that has five computers for 600 students, and they get to use them once a week. And that’s an eye opener.”
With $1 million worth of prizes, Samsung hopes to fill a lot of needs this year. And with budgets slashed across the nation, media specialists are well aware that any extra funding for schools likely isn’t going towards technology and software.
About 14.2 million computers exist in U.S. public schools—one, on average, for every four students, according to statistics released by the United States Census Bureau in 2009. To many media specialists and educators that’s not enough. Today’s students need more of a one-to-one environment where every child has his own laptop, just like a pencil, notebook and desk.
The grand prize winner for Samsung’s Four Seasons of Hope will win just that—his own personal netbook—plus earn $210,000 worth of equipment, software, educational programming and gift cards for his school. Fifteen first place winners will net $50,000 in tech tools, with five second place winners earning $5,000 in prizes.
Essays must be submitted online—a bit of a conundrum for those schools that might really need some tech help. But with the deadline extended this year until December 1, there’s still time to borrow a PC and an Internet connection.
Winners are expected to be announced by mid-January with the grand prize winner, two family members plus the school principal flown to New York City for a ceremony where they’ll meet quarterback Eli Manning, this year’s contest spokesperson, in February.
“The recession affects everyone,” says Cardona. “There’s a lot of budget cuts, schools are in need of technology, and some cities don’t have the resources to help, and that’s unfortunate. We were even concerned about our partners still participating. But they all stuck with it.”
