Intel & Lenovo Award “Top Teacher” on LIVE with Kelly & Michael

During the week of April 29th, the popular TV Show, LIVE with Kelly and Michael, celebrated the efforts of some of the “Top Teachers” from across America. Lenovo and Intel were excited to be part of this event by highlighting the educational excellence of Rick Zano of Princess Anne High School in Virginia Beach, Virginia as a “Top Teacher”. Mr. Zano was selected based on his creative, innovative and entertaining approach to teaching.

To reward his dedication, Mr. Zano and his school were awarded 30 Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet 2 tablets. These innovative devices will help drive the EdTech initiatives at Princess Anne High School, and provide the platform for more creativity in education.

When deploying new technology, such as ThinkPad Tablet 2, into educational environments to enable teachers to creatively connect with students in a 1:1 learning environment. One of the most important issues for creative educators that are using technology in new and attractive approaches is to insure that the new solutions can be “team players” in the current IT environment (so they don’t stress the EdTech staff and create new problems that will demand scarce budget resources). One of the benefits of the tablets that were awarded by Kelly & Michael is that they are Windows-based, and can work seamlessly within the current infrastructure. This enables the creativity of the educator to be used more quickly and effectively by the students.

Teacher creativity is a highly desirable commodity and one that can be hard to find. This makes leveraging this creativity more important than ever. And technology can assist this in a couple of important ways.

First, using the internet and the common sharing tools, the creativity of one teacher can be shared in real time across many classes or districts simply and easily. Further, the ability to “self-publish” new and innovative approaches so that they are easily found by other educators creates even more leverage for the creativity of a single individual.

The second way that technology can empower teaching creativity is to enhance the information flow and content that drives the courseware. For example, the newest and latest information or trends can be worked into courseware so that today’s classes come to life using the current events and news that floods the airwaves. Adding this immediacy, often not possible in a traditional textbook-based class will often engage students, and today’s highly connected EdTech environment can provide the input stream that results in raised levels of classroom creativity and applicability.

The value of sponsorship that provides visibility and a platform for recognizing creative teaching and improvement of the education process is quite high. Sharing “best practices” has been a hallmark of successful business organizations, and bringing that same approach to education has many benefits. Clearly Mr. Zano’s approach will expand the thinking of education professionals, and the recognition of this will undoubtedly server other students in other districts very well as we learn from his example!

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Teacher helps kids fight bullying through student-made film

HAYWARD, Calif. (KGO) -- Middle school can be a testing ground between childhood and young adulthood. But an enlightened teacher has found a way to fight bullying by putting it on a big screen.

Maybe you don't remember all the gritty little details of middle school. It could be that it's because after all the trials and trauma, you really don't want to.

"This is the jungle right here; junior high is the jungle," Bret Harte Middle School teacher Alex Kopel said.

Kopel is cool, calm and observant.

"I ask kids if they have been bullied at Bret Harte and they say, 'No,'" Kopel said. "And I say, 'You're lying because I've seen it.' I've seen everyone bully, and everyone in denial."

Kopel has used his background in film to start a conversation in a place where bullying had become an issue.

"Kids feel likt they're trying to survive, be tough; they don't want to be seen as weak," Kopel said.

The film began as an after school project. And then became more cinematic. The name of the film is 'I Got Your Back.' For these students, the mere act of writing it, shooting it, and acting in it, is a form of therapy.

"There is something about this age...where things just affect you more than any other time in life," Kopel said.

Now at Bret Harte Middle School, the problem of bullying is out in the open, with its multiplex of emotions.

A film by kids, for kids, in their own language.

"The world is moving fast; a lot of these kids come from places with no real sense of family or community," Principal Lisa Davies said. "Unless we create that in schools, students will not have that experience."

It's one of those junior high school lessons for which they will never receive a grade but maybe one of the most important they learn.

(Copyright ©2013 KGO-TV/DT.

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