+ NYC Schools Take an Interesting Initiative

Within the past decade or so, major advances in communications technology have brought our communities closer together than ever before. Nowadays, children as young as 9 (or even younger in some cases!) have their own cell phones and no matter where they might be, they are only a few button pushes away from a parent. With a large portion of the cell phone market dedicated to pre-teen and teen texters, here is an interesting initiative by New York City schools I found at the Digital Journal via textually.org designed to reward students who perform academically well with rewards like air time, texting and games on free cell phones.

"When students in select New York schools score good grades, they won’t just be getting the kudos of teachers and parents -- they will also be rewarded with talk time, ringtones and games for cellphones given to them free. Digital Journal reports."

Whether or not you agree with the initiative, I think it can be agreed that it’s certainly a new approach to the age old problem of getting students to be more academically motivated in the classroom.