Be the Next Winner of the Teach Tech Award

Submit a classroom technology project and win big. National Association of Lab School members are solely eligible to become the next winners of the annual TeachTech Award, which recognizes creative and purposeful uses of technology that enhance teaching and learning in the K-12 classroom. Winning projects receive $5,000 and recognition at the NALS conference in Memphis. The submission process is easy. Submissions are due January 31st. For more information go to www.teachtechaward.org.

2008 Teach Tech Award Winners

Winner of $5,000 award:
University High School, Normal IL

Entry submitted by:
Kathleen Malone Clesson

Setting:
Junior/senior English Literature and Composition classes


Description summary: Students Bring Arthurian Legend into the 21st Century via Podcasting and WebPage development. The goal of this medieval literature unit was to tap into Web 2.0 technologies, moving students from consumers of knowledge to creators of knowledge, sharable in multi-media format. Students accessed and read from the twenty-one-book collection of the Arthurian legend. Each student selected a book and two chapters to read, comprehend, interpret, and bring to life via audio performance. Each student prepared a written summary/précis of the first chapter content in contemporary language. For the second chapter, students wrote old time radio-style scripts to be performed and recorded using Audacity, a free/open source audio editor and recorder program. All three pieces (summary, podcast transcript, and rendered mp3 podcast file) were then uploaded to a class website designed using FrontPage for this purpose. The pedagogical goal was to harness the read/write web in the service of teaching and learning. In the process, state goals for English language arts, NETS standards, and performance-based objectives converged. You may visit the Arthurian Legend website at http://www.uhigh.ilstu.edu/english/arthur

Two Finalists to be awarded $500 for each project:
1 - Burris Laboratory School
Entry submitted by: Emily Funk and Christy Wauzzinski
Setting: 5th grade class

Description summary: In a two year project, the Technology Coordinator and the Intermediate Elementary Education Teacher collaborated to design and implement a student produced online multimedia classroom newspaper intended to be a communication piece for parents and the school community. The Technology Coordinator developed weekly lessons to teach the students the basics of website design, use of video and audio technology and ethical guidelines to publishing on the web. Then after practicing skills they had learned, students began to design, produce and publish their own classroom online multimedia newspaper entitled the "111 Eavesdroppers."

2 - The School at Columbia University
Entry submitted by Lauren Pemberton and Cheryll Hajjar
Setting: 3rd grade class

Description summary: "Stories in Motion" - The teachers here were working to find meaningful ways to integrate art and literacy in the classroom. They thought of using clay animation to enable students to tell their own stories and then stop-action photography to animate them. Bringing a moment to life – using a painstaking method– was uses as a way to help students focus, and guide the writing of their personal narratives.

The Teach Tech Award of the School
at Columbia University

The TeachTech Award was created by the School at Columbia University and launched at the NALS Conference in 2006. In 2007, management of the program and its adjudication will transition to the Columbia Center for New Media Teaching and Learning (CCNMTL).

The Award recognizes creative uses of technology that enhance teaching and learning in the K-12 classroom with the goal of encouraging new and innovative uses of technology that support pedagogical goals and strategies.

The second annual TeachTech Award (2008) looked at entries based on their demonstrated pedagogical integrity, innovation and efficacy as well as the potential for others to replicate them in part or in full. The entries were evaluated on the intrinsic use of technology to achieve the pedagogical goals.

Based on the above criteria, the winning entry and the two finalists were chosen by a special panel of judges.

Judges Panel:
The Awards have been judged by:

  • Judith Sheridan: Director, Office of the Provost, Columbia University
  • Ryan Kelsey: Associate Director, Columbia Center for New Media Teaching and Learning (CCNMTL) and Professor of Communication and Education, Teachers College
  • Robbie McClintock: Professor of Communication, Computing, and Technology, Teachers College
  • Frank Moretti: Executive Director, Columbia Center for New Media Teaching and Learning (CCNMTL) and Professor of Communication and Education, Teachers College
You may access the Teach Tech site by going to:
http://www.teachtechaward.org For more information about the TeachTech Awards, please contact: Jennifer Spiegler Assistant Director for Strategic Initiatives Columbia Center for New Media Teaching and Learning 212-854-9105 jspiegler@columbia.edu

2007 Teach Tech Award Winners

From left to right: Elizabeth Morley, Richard Messina,
Gardner Dunnan, ChewLee Toteo, Judith Kimel, and Benjamin Peebles