Published Work - Hall of Fame

Narrative
Distraxion!!

On Saturday afternoon when Joe was about to go home from his work, when his boss came along and dumped a whole new, big pile of paper work and files on his desk “ Heres some more, once you’ve finished them you can go” grumbled his enormous fat boss.

All of a sudden Joe heard this odd annoying sound, so he looked up and saw that his boss had put on some jazz music and from out of no where this bald musician wearing all black appeared out of no where playing the saxaphone!!

Joe found the music that he was playing really distracting so he got up and trudged over towards the sturdy filing cabinet, but the musician sprang after him and continued to keep playing. Joe flung open the draw of the cabinet but somehow the bald guy was in there.

Joe got such a fright he leapt backwards into the air with the musician following his every move! Joe sprinted away from the horrible sound that the bald dude was playing and leapt onto the rolling chair with the music trailing after him.

When he reached the end of the room he jumped off of the chair with the musician following close behind him, then Joe spotted a c.d. player he ripped the plug out of the wall and threw the whole thing at the musician, but when the horrible sounds stopped piercing his ears, the musician had disappeared! He suddenly realized that the whole thing with him seeing the bald guy was all just his imagination, that whole thing was just in his head.

So Joe of course ended up getting fired for smashing the c.d. player, he packed up all his gear and stuffed it carelessly into a cardboard box, then headed for the door, but something had caught his eye in the box. He had saw one of his old heavy metal tapes. So when he walked through the door he quickly slipped it into the tape recorder and pressed play. When Joe walked out the door and into the corridor in his bosses imagination this heavy metal rock dude was screaming in his face. Meanwhile Joe was in his car driving peacefully home!!

by Alyssia

Persuasive Writing

Keanu Panapa

6b Foxs Terrace

Arrowtown

Robin Harris

Principal

Arrowtown School

9 Chalmers Place

Arrowtown

9302

Wednesday 28 May 2014

Dear Mr Harris,

Do you have to share your laptop with 20 other people? No you don’t, but we do. As our community relies more and more on technology, it is essential that students have regular access so we learn how to use it in the best way. At the moment we share five macbooks between 56 students which is despicable. I work better on a device because I’m not a fast, neat writer.  We have found that using google docs is awesome. It is everything in one, twenty books in one email, in one space. We can continue to use google docs if we all have a device each. This device should be a Chromebook. This is because they are very cost effective so all students could have them, they will enable all students easy access to google docs and they help students stay up to date with how to use the latest technology.

My first point will hopefully grab your attention. The price. At the most Chromebooks cost $350 so think about it, how many $350 chromebooks go into one $1,700 mac book. Yes, about four-five. Don’t get me wrong macbooks are fantastic, they offer more than chromebooks but they actually have more than what we need and are too high in price. Mac books end up having photobooth, music, fire fox, garage band, but we don't need that - all we need is google chrome with smooth internet connection. Chromebooks have that with low price and we can download any apps we need on google store which are free.

My second point is that it is the internet. It is google chrome and google docs. Chrome books aren't for downloading games or personal use, the only things you can download on google store. Its for school work only and we’ve never used any apps on mac books when we have google chrome. Chromebooks are clearly for google chrome, its in the name. Google docs is all about collaboration. We did our World War One exhibit on google docs. Our presentations were good - if we had 56 chromebooks they would’ve been great. Some of the kids muck around because they don’t have have a laptop but if they did have a laptop there would be no excuses.

Lastly, having a class set of Chromebooks enables ALL students to have access. This is not only fair but very beneficial as the world is becoming more and more reliant on technology. Students need to know how to use it well. Many careers will require people to be excellent users of technology. We can best prepare our students for the real world by providing regular access. If we don’t students will be left behind and unable to “Go for gold”.

Chromebooks are the most cost effective way to provide all students with access to the internet and technology that they need to learn and produce the quality of work that they have the potential to produce. The New Zealand curriculum states that schools should be helping students to be ‘confident, connected, life-long learners’ - it is through Chromebooks that this school can help do this.

Yours Sincerely

Keanu Panapa