At the beginning of each school year, hundreds of elementary school children are deployed to strengthen and further technology implementation efforts in the Riverview School District. These small armies of students are part of the district-wide Tech Kids Team, numbering near 300.

The Tech Kids Team was initiated by Riverview’s Elementary Instructional Technology Specialist, Karen Mayfield, in 2007. She identified the need for more hands and more minds working together with technology-rich project-based work, so she drew upon the greatest free resource in schools; the  students themselves. During the fall of each year, students apply to be on the team, which requires both their teachers’ and parents’ permission to serve. Successful applicants are assigned as assistants to a partner class, which they will work with for the entire year.

In addition to the basic application form, some of the teachers in the upper elementary grades require their students to write essays detailing their motivation and preparation for assisting as Tech Kids.

Chloe Walker, a student at Stillwater wrote, “I want to be a Tech Kid because I love to help teach little kids about computers. Also, because I’ve had a lot of experience with little kids, I know that I have to be patient with them…. I would also be a good Tech Kid because I use the computer everyday and I’m good at it.”

Learn more about the Riverview district at http://www.riverview.wednet.edu/