Cable's Leaders in Learning Awards and the value of having several winners
Cable’s Leaders in Learning Awards recognizes outstanding educators, administrators, policymakers and other community leaders at the forefront of innovation in education. This prestigious awards program, in its 4th year of operation, is administered by the cable industry and its national education foundation, Cable in the Classroom.Since its inception in 2005, Bright House Networks has been a strong supporter of Cable Leaders in Learning both as a corporate sponsor and in identify laudable candidates within our service areas for recognition.
There have been several teachers honored throughout the past three years throughout its Florida service areas. Below is a description of the teachers who have been recognized and their initiatives:
2007 Award Winner: Mechelle De Craene
Teacher, James Buchanan Middle School, Tampa, FL
General Excellence Award
As a special needs and gifted education teacher, Mechelle De Craene is contributing new voices to the world of social computing. De Craene's innovative project, Very Special Techies, encourages media literacy through multimodal learning opportunities for students with special needs. In addition to using media to aid in class instruction, De Craene started a class blog that serves as a virtual peer support group for her special needs students.
Social computing is the use of information and communication technology to support social interaction and communication. Students with special needs today are blogging, podcasting, taking virtual field trips, locating friends via global positioning systems and even participating in online games in which players interact in a virtual world. Because more than 70 percent of people with disabilities are disadvantaged by the digital divide, teachers like De Craene place great importance on implementing computing in their special needs classrooms. She used pedagogical blogs as a virtual support system and as a way for her students to develop their own voices in the blogosphere. While using the blogs, her students showed increased writing motivation and expressivity (i.e. voice), more comfort with technology and improved reading scores on standardized tests. A study on De Craene's program has been translated into Dutch and Hebrew as an educational resource for special educators internationally.
"It is both fun and inspiring to see the kids' faces light up in front of their computers, and I am happy to know my work has inspired other special education teachers to try multimedia projects with their students." Mechelle De Craene.
2006 Award Winner: Annette Jankowski
Teacher, Surfside Elementary School, Satellite Beach, FL
Cable Partnerships for Learning Award
"Technology can never replace the unique bond between teachers and their students, but incorporating technology into all areas of learning should be embraced and encouraged."
As a Floridian familiar with the destructive power of hurricanes, Annette Jankowski is being recognized for both teaching her students about the weather phenomenon and helping make them less afraid of the storms.
Jankowski created a classroom weather unit that utilizes professional development workshops, activities from The Weather Channel, and additional community resources. Working with limited supplies, her third-graders built models of hurricane-safe houses that were tested by simulating hurricane-force winds with a leaf blower. Throughout the project Jankowski collaborated with Bright House Networks, bringing a meteorologist to speak with her students and broadcasting the final experiment on a local news channel.
Jankowski believes hands-on experience and teamwork are key to student achievement. "Projects like this help students realize they can achieve more by working together, and they make learning come to life, especially since our community was hit hard by Hurricanes Frances and Jean in 2004. I tried to make this a positive learning experience, to arm my students with more knowledge and lessen their fear of hurricanes."
2005 Finalist: Deborah Wasylik
Science Teacher, Dr. Philips High School, Orlando, FL
Deborah Wasylik is being recognized in the Media Literacy award category for her innovative approach to science teaching. Thanks to modern media and the use of technology, Wasylik collaborates with John Travolta, The Orlando Sentinel, The Discover Channel, Dr. John Snow of London, and others on an Environmental Science unit.
Students begin by time traveling back to London in 1854, when a population clump was dying at an alarming rate. Using genuine historical data collected at the time of the outbreak by Dr. Snow, students take part in a lab to determine the source of the disease. The amateur epidemiologists fast-forward to Woburn, MA 1979 to learn about Ann Anderson, a woman who suspects that a well contaminated from a toxic dump was the cause of her son's leukemia. They compare historical with modern cases, research articles and fictionalized versions, and come to conclusions.
In other lessons, they build miniature marine ecosystems in the lab and simulate an oil spill. This investigative, hands-on approach runs throughout the course, and Wasylik observes that the information "really seeped in an infiltrated the students' minds more effectively and we had so much fun getting drenched with knowledge!"
