PE4_Zefty!

When I first discovered Zefty.com I immediately knew what purpose it would serve.  My school uses a "cash" reward system for all positive behavior, which is a great idea, but an organizing nightmare for 800+ students to keep track of their "cash" earnings (and for the teachers who have to deal with lost or stolen cash on a daily basis).  Students are able to spend their money in classroom stores or on a monthly basis to purchase items like Friday afternoon dance parties, lunch with the principal, or to give a "shout out" on the morning show (bigger ticket items that cost more than the classroom store trinkets). 

When I came across Zefty, an online site originally designed for managing children's allowance.  However, after reviewing it, I decided it would work perfectly for my situation.  I immediately began setting up the accounts for each of my students.  The teacher serves as the administrator with a login and password.  I created a bank account and individual password for each student.  Our assignment to create a Web 2.0 video coincided nicely with my introduction to Zefty.   I was set up and ready to go!  My enthusiasm however, was about to take a detour.

The site was blocked at school.  My luck. 

Hi John -

Dan Penoff gave me your name and told me you were the man-in-charge of unblocking websites!  I am requesting that the site, Zefty.com be unblocked so that I can use it in my classroom.  The purpose of the site is to teach kids money management (not using real money, of course!).  I am going to use it with our positive behavior system "cash" that my 3rd graders just can't seem to keep track of.  I found this site and it is perfect; teaching kids about deposits and withdrawals, etc.  I sure appreciate your help on this.   

I sent the first e-mail at 11:29am.  I had my answer at 11:31am.  It took less than two minutes to read the e-mail containing the description of the website and respond.  Seriously?

I'm sorry, Karen, but that site is considered a Social Networking site (like Facebook) and the district doesn't allow social networking by students.

Drawing some encouragement from a story Pete shared earlier in a Wimba session, I wrote back, ready to fight for my cause!

Not to be disrespectful, but how can Zefty.com be considered social networking?  It is set up for classrooms and "accounts" are teacher supervised.  There is no interaction between students or the "outside world" on this site.   Please take a moment and look it over!  Thanks.

Persistence paid off, though.  I received clearance and was back on track.

 While waiting to get clearance for using the site, we filmed our commercial for Zefty.  For not fully understanding what Zefty was, they did a great job filming the commercial.  But now, they were ready to start making deposits into their accounts.