2012 Award Winners

KidsCanTeach

Carol Van Deusen, Jason Lehman - East Hampton Middle School

English, Grades 6, 7, 8

KidsCanTeach is a new program at that encourages students to problem solve, think critically, and use digital media to create educational videos. This program began in January 2012 when students expressed a desire to teach lessons to their peers. Using creative methods and a “kid-friendly” approach, they were successful in creating an effective lesson plan. The KidsCanTeach channels on YouTube and Vimeo have been established and the domain rights for kidscanteach.org and kidscanteach.net have been secured. This year students will be creating a small online library of instructional videos to help students master topics presently being taught in their English classes. In the future, the program may expand to include other curricular areas and website development.

“Where in the Blazes RU?”

Clare Taylor - Louise Duffy Elementary

West Hartford Public Schools

Social studies, math, science, LA Grade 4, 5, 6

“Where in the Blazes RU?” is a district-wide service-learning project developed to make our community safer through fire awareness and public service. Working with the mayor and fire chief, more than 500 fifth grade students gather GPS coordinates of 1,500 fire hydrants and recruit “stake-holders” and “adoptive parents” to mark and clear hydrants of snow. Science, social studies, math and language arts leave the classroom and are applied in the students’ community. Students implement technology using GPS units, a wiki website and blogging. Students learn that government belongs to the people, and that children have the power to change things and make a difference.

Reaching the Masses

Trevor Charles - Middletown High School

Social studies, Grades 11, 12

As the summative project to a Current Events class, students research a contemporary issue facing their community and create a website to raise awareness, inform, and direct the public regarding the selected issue. Students must present researched sources for validity, provide detailed information about the stated issue, and address proposed solutions to perceived problems. Through this process students used Kindles in the research process, the Google Sites design platform and code in the creation process and a smart phone application design for the dissemination process. The goal was to reach as great an audience as possible and responsibly inform them of a current event that needed to be addressed in our society.