Congratulations to first place contest winners Cheryl Arnett and Rawya Shatila and all the other honorees!
On Monday, Microsoft announced the winners of the U.S. Regional Innovative Educators of the Year at Microsoft’s U.S. Innovative Education Forum (IEF) in Washington D.C., where outstanding teaching teams were recognized for integrating 21st century skills into student learning projects. This year’s theme was “Inspire More”.
Cheryl Arnett from Sunset Elementary School in Craig, Colorado and Rawya Shatila from Maskassed Khalil Shehab School in Beirut, Lebanon won first place for their international collaboration project, “Digital Stories: A Celebration of Learning and Cultureâ€. The teachers, who had never met before, used technologies like wikis, blogs, and online mapping tools to connect the students in their first and second grade classes and let them share stories and activities. The project helped the students increase their awareness of similarities and differences between children from different countries.
As the winning team, they will go on to represent the U.S. in the Worldwide Innovative Educators Forum in South Africa this October. Thomas Gaffey from the School of the Future in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania won second place. Pat Yongpradit from Springbrook High School in Silver Springs, Maryland took third place. These teachers will also represent the U.S. in South Africa.
Videos of all the teachers’ entries can be viewed at http://www.youtube.com/user/Microsoftedu.
These types of contests really help to advocate the benefits of education technology – congrats again to all the participants,and kudos to Microsoft for sponsoring it!
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