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UCET 2011 Award Winners:

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UCET 2011 Technology Leader of the Year - Charlie Roberts

Charlie Roberts, from the Washington County School District, is a model of what a technology director and leader in education should be. He has tremendous vision in guiding his district forward into the ever-changing world of technology; he leads his staff, school administration, and district educators by his actions and example, and truly enables the success of everyone he works with.

Charlie has moved the implementation and use of technology forward in his district with true vision and insight. Washington County School District has seen probably more growth than any other district in the state over the past 15-20 years, but where you would expect to see gaps and ‘growing pains’ of this expansion; his schools are amazingly connected and use technology extremely well. Charlie is not afraid to boldly take action and think outside of the box. His district was the first to move away from the time and expense of maintaining email services for his schools and move to Google Services. Many in our region thought he was mad at the time, but now every school in the SEDC region are using these services and the amazing tools that come along with the email - and it is saving us ALL time and money. It has been one of the best changes we have made in a long time.

Charlie leads not by dictate, but by his actions. Teachers in his district are doing amazing things with technology - and being recognized for this by winning statewide classroom grants for their innovation. This is due to Charlie getting his hands ‘dirty’, so to speak, year-round by working with a new cohort of teachers through their Technology Endorsements throughout the school year and by offering a wide array of summer sessions to his teachers that just can’t make it to Salt Lake for the great things that UEN has to offer teachers on the Wasatch Front. In this regard, he has almost single-handedly brought a ‘UCET South’ to the teachers in southern Utah who have a hard time getting up north. He does not lead by telling his teachers to go out and figure out the dizzying array of technologies available for themselves, but by working with them week after week to guide their way.

Charlie is tremendously supportive of the efforts of everyone around him. Each year, he strongly encourages his teacher cohort to submit grant applications for the creative technology projects they are doing in their classrooms. This in itself is not unusual. What IS unusual is that he’ll fund the grants of the teachers who were NOT awarded grants to ensure that they will be successful. Not only is he supportive of his staff and the teachers of his district, but also works extremely hard in collaboration with the other technology directors of the region and with the SEDC Tech Team members. He spent an amazing amount of time and effort working on new Acceptable Use Policy templates that our region districts, and many other districts in the state, are using as a guide.

These are only a few of the great things that Charlie Roberts has done to move technology in education forward in his own district, in the region, and in the state.

UCET 2011 Technology Educator of the Year - James Baker

James Baker is InTech Collegiate High School's IT administrator, only fulltime Engineering teacher, and FIRST Robotics Advisor.  Three huge responsibilities with no extra pay.  He is the first person at InTech in the morning and often the last one to leave at night.  He spends weekends and summers here making sure all our computers are up to speed and that students know their content information and have opportunities for extracurricular actives.  

James Baker gets students excited about technology. Attending yearly trainings for the nationally organized Project Lead the Way Instruction brings innovative technology to his classroom. He is a constantly attending community event such as fairs, parades, and holiday celebrations with his FIRST Robotics Team.  FIRST Robotics is a national program that competes statewide.  FIRST Robotics is an expensive program that can only be part of our school with sponsors from our community.  James Baker is constantly participating in community outreach to find sponsors and mentors to advance the use of technology in education.

James perfectly reflects the UCET Mission by  (1) creating hands-on Engineering classes and clubs and by sharing his knowledge with other schools; by  (2) attending annual trainings and sharing his knowledge with our staff, students, parents, and community as well as other schools;  and by (3) creating a community involved showcase with FIRST Robotics which involves businesses and mentors from our community..

UCET 2011 Jack Erickson Excellence in Technology Service Award - Phil Thacker

Phil has worked for NUES for about 20 years; for many of those years he repaired A/V, equipment, computers, and printers. For the past four years, he has worked both for NUES doing repairs as well as assisting with network engineering duties, and two days a week he works for Wasatch SD.

Phil is a certified Apple support technician, and certified HP repair technician. In his network support role, he assists districts with desktop deployment using DeployStudio and other tools. He is knowledgeable about servers and network hardware configuration. Phil is a master at diagnosing problems and mitigating them. At an earlier time in his life, he ran a TV repair shop; thus, he has an extensive knowledge of electronics at the board level.

He constantly attends training, both online and on site, as required to maintain his repair certifications. Over the past few years, as NUES re-oriented his job from repair to technical support, he has adapted readily, learning new skills as needed by the nine districts he supports. As a person working peripherally in education, he is ready and willing to learn--a valuable trait in his field.

Phil is absolutely unstinting with his time. He is completely willing to rearrange his schedule in order to accommodate the districts he serves.  He is a self-starter and does not require supervision in his work. He seeks solutions with great tenacity, and is not afraid to try new methods.

Phil is a totally honest person. He has raised seven children with his wife (who was his high school sweetheart). He is devoted to his family and his church.

One of the best things about Phil is his gentle, quiet personality. He never complains, no matter what happens.

 

UCET 2011 Outstanding Young Educator Award - Katie Blunt

In her role as one of the District’s educational technology specialists, Katie has played a pivotal role in helping us establish the new district’s information technology infrastructure, as well as our educational technology strategies. One of my top priorities as the superintendent of this new district is to insure that every teacher and student has access to, understands, and develops the skills to use the ever6increasing array of technological tools available to improve classroom instruction and student achievement. Katie has been a leader among her peers not only in the District Office, but also in the schools, to help me and her direct supervisors implement this vision.

Among the many things Katie has accomplished in the past year and a half, she has:

1) developed and taught professional development classes on educational technology basics, as well as Web 2.0 tools and applications;

2) produced and published podcast series on YouTube and iTunes U for Sprucewood, Willow Canyon, Willow Springs and Sunrise Elementary Schools;

3) worked with principals and teachers throughout the District to pilot iPod, iPad, and NetBooks projects in the classroom;

4) led a collaborative project with the District’s Evidence-Based Learning, Career and Technical Education, and Information Technology Departments to design, train, implement and collect data for a district-wide elementary school keyboarding curriculum;

5) recorded and edited a movie and series of podcasts featuring student athletes from BYU and the University of Utah called “Y Should U Read”, to encourage summer reading with Sprucewood Elementary students;

6) assisted in the technical arrangements and broadcasting of communication between astronauts on the International Space Station and sixth grade students at Midvalley Elementary;

7) assisted the District’s Evidence-Based Learning Department in teaching trainings on Pearson Successnet to help teachers implement the District’s new elementary math curriculum;

8) modeled lessons daily in every grade and subject area in grades K-6 to help teachers integrate technology into core curriculum;

9) created trainings and documentation to help teachers in their use of Skyward for grade book, attendance, report cards, and employee access; and

10) helped schools write grants for technology purchases.

Perhaps most impressively, Katie has, together with her colleagues, accomplished all of these things in a very short time and under some very challenging circumstances, as the expectations of parents and employees in a new district have been extremely high and deadlines short.  

UCET 2011 Making It Happen Award - Kathy Webb

Kathleen Webb graduated from Southern Utah University with degrees in English and Computer Science. She began her teaching career at Cedar High School in Cedar City, Utah.

Although technology in schools was nearly non-existent, Kathleen persisted and soon had several computers available to her students.

Kathleen was also a pioneer in bringing the Internet to her school and students. This was the Internet of Gopher, Veronica and Archie and a host of of other applications. Kathleen quickly became an expert in this new technology and shared it with her students, teaching colleagues and a few interested educators around the state of Utah. When what what would come to be known as the World Wide Web was created Kathleen was again at the forefront. She and her students created one of the first, if not the first, school web pages. This occurred at a time when there were very few web sites.

In the early 1990s, Kathy was part of a group of visionary educators in Utah who formed the "Educational Networking Consortium." ENC held periodic summit meetings, and with Kathy's vision, the concept of internet connected schools in Utah was incubated and hatched. The result was a state-funded entity known as UtahLINK, which has since become the ISP for libraries, public and higher education in Utah. In these early times, when very few educators in Utah knew anything of the Internet, Kathy wrote a series of articles about using the internet in classrooms for UCET's monthly Interface newsletter. She established herself as the pre-eminent technology-using teacher in the state. UtahLINK morphed into the Utah Education Network. Through legislative action UEN had the task of bringing Internet connectivity to all of Utah's secondary schools and to be their ISP. A good network also needed content resources and presence on the web to be successful. Kathleen left the classroom to work full time for UEN and to help educators across the state to take advantage of the World Wide Web in teaching and learning. Kathleen was instrumental in guiding numerous projects at UEN such as Heritage Gateways. In support of the Sesquicentennial Mormon Trail Wagon Trek, the Utah Education Network (UEN) was designated the official, educational web site for the Mormon Trail Re-enactment. As such, UEN, in partnership with the Utah State Office of Education, BYU Public School Partnership, Heritage Gateways Ltd., and the Mormon Trail Wagon Train - 150 Years, Inc. has created an educational, interactive online project site for students, teachers and families that followed the trek as it unfolded and continues to provide a database of historical data. Kathleen's work at UEN impacted in some way every school, classroom, teacher and student in the state of Utah.

Kathleen moved from UEN to the Utah State Office of Education to become the Online Tools and Content Specialist. In this position she worked with state office personnel and educators around the state to better utilize technology in education. In 2007 Kathleen became the principal of the Utah Electronic High School (EHS). EHS was established in 1993 as the first virtual school in the nation. By the time Kathy became principal, EHS was in need of organization and discipline. While at UEN Kathleen had worked on creating the learning and course management system used by EHS for many years, so she was familiar with its operations. Kathleen has guided the growth of EHS for the past three years. Her goal is to have the content of this school available to students at any place, on any device.

Kathleen has been involved in guiding and using technology at the national level with her involvement with SETDA, the State Educational Technology Directors Association. She is a charter member of SETDA and she has been involved with several committees and has presented numerous times to her national colleagues.

Kathy served as an elected board member of the Utah Coalition for Educational Technology 1992-94, and as its president 2001-2002. For many years between, she helped keep the UCET web site going with a sophisticated database, for which she took no credit, and received no compensation.

Kathleen Webb is truly an pioneer of technology in education and exemplifies 21st Century education. She continues to lead, guide and share her vision of the positive impact technology can have to improve teaching and learning. Kathy is a gentle, quiet woman with a great reservoir of knowledge and understanding and an incredible drive to share what she has learned. For these many reasons, the Utah Coalition for Educational Technology (UCET) is pleased to honor Kathleen Webb with Utah's first Making It Happen Award. Kathleen has Made it Happen for education in Utah.

Page last modified November 2, 2011