Leslie Bennetts

About the author: Leslie Bennetts was a writer for FamilyPC magazine when she wrote this article.

Many schools around the nation are using computers to make schoolwork exciting and challenging rather than tedious. The most successful of these schools use computers and the Internet to engage students in projects that show them how their knowledge and skills can be used in the real world. For example, students in one school created multimedia content for a CD-ROM designed to attract new businesses to their community, while another school held mock federal and statewide elections in which students voted online and used the Internet to monitor the real-life 2000 elections. Programs like these demonstrate the potential that technology has to make education more effective, engaging, and relevant.

Dropout rates are down and test...