Cupertino Courier Article

03/24/2007

The Cupertino Courier just posted a news article about technology use in our district, which has a great edu-speak quote by me. I’m not sure where they’ll end up posting the perma-link, so I just made a pdf of it here for future reference. Read the article here.
The summary is that CEEF has a technology program that encourages “innovation, creativity, and partnerships” in our school district. They do this by offering Innovation Awards to teachers (I got one this year, which is why I was interviewed for the article) and they also have an ePic Film Festival of student work. It’s super fun to go with all the students and let them view each other’s films in a film festival setting. By doing this, CEEF encourages both teachers and students to engage in innovative projects and innovative thinking. Overall, I think what CEEF is doing is awesome and really does a great job getting people in our district to consider creative uses of technology to get curriculum content across to students.
Here is the exerpt of my quote from the article:

Stephanie Lewis, an art teacher at Hyde Middle School, also decided to include the iMovie ePic contest into her curriculum.
“It seemed to be the perfect marriage of technology and cinematography practice,” she says. Lewis used the project to help teach one of her instructional units on the entertainment industry that included cinematography. The students were required to use at least five different camera techniques as well as some symbolism in their iMovie films.
“I want my students to do more than learn and regurgitate facts,” says Lewis. “To encourage high-order thinking skills that span across subject areas, students need to be given the opportunity to sit in the driver’s seat of their learning and actually do something with the facts and techniques that they learn. Involving technology in the curriculum gives students a place in that driver’s seat.”