$10,000 essay contest ended Jan. 16

You can find everything you need to know about the contest here.

For teachers, step-by step:

• Make sure you are registered. See below for instructions.
• Tell your students about this contest and share these examples.
• If your students are not registered, ask them to register for your classroom using the student sign up link at the top of the homepage. Students must be registered for your classroom before they create an entry. If students are not registered for your classroom when they submit an entry, they will need to submit their entry again after they register for your classroom.
• Tell each of your students to log in and create an entry. To enter, students must log in, click “Create entry” from the “For Student Links” on the right side of the homepage, then submit their entries for you to select from.
• Publish 3 entries from each of your classrooms, as follows:

1. Log in
2. Find the link to “Entries awaiting approval” in the group of links labeled “For Teacher Links” on the right side of the homepage beneath the list of topics.
3. Tick the boxes adjacent to the three entries you want to publish.
4. Select “Publish the selected entries” from the pulldown.
5. Click the “Update” button.
6. Important note: After you publish 3 entries from a classroom, you will not be able to publish any more entries from that classroom, so choose carefully.
7. See the published entries. New entries may take up to 10 minutes to appear on the page with previously published entries. You may search using the students' usernames.

Teachers: Share on Facebook and Email to your colleagues.

Prizes: There will be 6 prizes in each grade, 3-12, for a total of 60 prizes and $10,000. The top prize in each grade is $500. Five runners-up in each grade will receive $100 each. Teachers of winning students will receive a “Learning Happens” t-shirt, styled for men and women.

No computers? No time? No problem! If your classroom does not have a computer for every student or if there isn't enough time during the school day to enter, then students should submit their entries from home, from a public library, after school or as homework. Entries can be submitted 24/7 – which is one way technology solves problems :)

The contest is inspired by Benjamin Franklin, who possessed both a passion for technology and a talent for expressing powerful ideas in remarkably few words. To motivate kids to embrace these two ideals, TeenTribune and TweenTribune will give away 100 “Benjamins” to students who can describe in 100 words or less how technology makes the world a better place.

The first entries have already posted and are available for voting. Click to see these entries and all those that follow.

One hundred words may not seem like enough, but as Mark Twain said, "I didn't have time to write you a short letter, so I wrote you a long one." He meant that it takes more time and effort to write concisely than to merely fill a page with words.

But it's not just about the Benjamins – or Franklin's way with words. Here are examples from other writers who were ahead of their times and conveyed powerful ideas beautifully and succinctly. These examples are provided for classroom discussion.

What do we mean by “technology?” By technology, we mean communications technology: mobile phones, computers, tablets, laptops, eReaders, the Internet, wireless technology and the technology that powers TeenTribune and TweenTribune.

How to enter: Each student must answer the following question in 100 words or less:

                              “How does technology make the world a better place?”               

Entries must be submitted online to TweenTribune and TeenTribune. No entries will be accepted via email or snail mail. To enter, students must log in, click “Create entry” from the “For Student Links” on the right side of the homepage, then submit their entries for their teachers to judge. Parents may not publish entries of their children. Students cannot publish entries – only registered teachers may publish entries.

Be creative: Entries may contain an introduction, topic sentences, supporting details or conclusion – but they aren't necessary. Instead, an entry may consists of one long sentence, like William Faulkner, or many short sentences like Ernest Hemingway, or silly sentences like Dr. Seuss or no sentences at all like Billy Joel's “We Didn't Start The Fire.” Entries may be in the form of a “long” haiku, limerick or poem. And entries need not be limited to words: Digital technology is driven by zeros and ones, so consider numbers, symbols and punctuation as part of the entry.

But remember, a true artist learns the rules, follows the rules and thinks twice before breaking them.

Entries can't exceed 100 words. A “word” is any character or group of characters separated on either side by spaces. A contraction counts as 2 words. The entry form will alert you if you exceed the 100-word limit.

The first entries have already posted and are available for voting. Click to see these entries and all those that follow.

Judging by teachers: Teachers will judge the work of their students, then publish three entries from each of their classrooms. Teachers may only submit three entries per classroom. Entries will be sorted by grade for voting by students. Teachers should choose entries that display passion (think Dr. King) and originality (think Dr. Seuss). That's the rubric.

Voting by teachers and students: Only registered teachers and the students who signed up for their classrooms may vote. If you are not registered, you may not vote. Students, if your teacher is not registered, ask your teacher to register now so you can register for their classroom, then vote, before the contest ends. Students and teachers may vote for one entry in each grade, 3-12. Student and teachers may not vote for more than one entry in any one grade.

Final judging: The staff of TeenTribune and TweenTribune will evaluate the entries that receive the most votes, then select 1 first place winner and 5 runners-up from each grade category (Grades 3-12) for a total of 60 winners. Entries will be judged by grade, so 3rd grade entries will only be judged against other 3rd grade entries, 4th grade entries will only be judged against other 4th grade entries, etc.

To prevent the voting from becoming a mere “popularity contest” – in which larger schools have an advantage – the online voting system will prevent any entry from receiving more than 25 votes from any particular school. If an entry is truly worthy of more votes, that entry should receive more votes from students in other schools.

Eligibility: The content is open to the registered students, Grades 3-12, of all registered teachers. Students, if your teacher is not registered, ask your teacher to register now, before you register and create an entry, because only teachers can publish your entry to be voted upon. Students are not allowed to include their last names when they register or when they submit an entry. Students' names will not appear on TweenTribune.com or TeenTribune.com without parental approval. Teachers must be registered before students can register. If you are a student, ask your teacher if he or she is registered. However, students may not submit requests for registrations for their teachers. Only teachers may submit these requests.

Teachers, are you registered?

1. To be sure you are registered, log in or retrieve your username and password. If you can log in or retrieve your username, then you are registered.
2. If you have submitted a request for registration in the past, do not submit another request for registration merely if you don't know your username and password because the registration process skips over all requests from currently registered users. If you aren't sure whether you are registered, or if you don't know your username and password, click to retrieve your username and password.
3. If you aren't registered, submit a request for registration now. However, we cannot guarantee that your registration will be processed before the end of this contest because the registration process is not automated and it requires independent verification. Please note that the mere act of submitting a request for registration does not guarantee your eligibility. Also, please note that we are not responsible for errors in registration requests, such as misspellings and invalid email addresses. If you submit a request for registration, please proof it before you submit it. To prevent your school from blocking emails from us – including your login credentials – please tell your Internet network administrator and IT staff to “whitelist” this domain: tweentribune.com.

What's the deadline? The staff at TeenTribune and TweenTribune will begin evaluating entries on Monday, January 17, 2011, so teachers should publish their students' entries and students should cast their votes by Sunday, January 16, 2011.

• Act now: Students may compose their entries and teachers may publish their entries now, and students may cast their votes as soon as entries are published. This will provide more time for entries to be seen and voted upon by other students, including the break between Christmas and New Year's.
• Act later: Students may wait to compose their entries and teachers may wait to publish their entries so that students can learn from the entries of other students that were published previously.

Notification of winners: All winning entries will be published by February 28, 2011. Checks will be mailed to teachers' winners after each winner's teacher provides the full name of the winner and the teacher's mailing address. T-shirts will be sent in March 2011 after teachers provide size, style and shipping information.

Special education: Special education students are welcome to participate, but there are no special categories or allowances made for reading level vs. grade level in this contest. However, we invite Special Ed teachers to email us with alternatives to allow more special education students to participate in future contests.

And finally… This is our first contest, but we hope it won't be our last. We've tried to make this contest as fair and useful as possible. We began by asking thousands of teachers for input and hundreds of them responded with excellent suggestions for which we are grateful. But we recognize that there may be room for improvement, so please help us to make our next effort even better by emailing your suggestions to us.

Thank you!