Texas DEN

I know I’m a little late getting this up, but believe me, this STAR is worth waiting for! Our Texas STAR for the month of October is Lea Anne Daughrity. Lea Anne has had an interesting life and is totally dedicated to the DEN and what it stands for. Read on!

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Lea Anne Daughrity was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1973. Around the age of five, her parents moved away and thus began her travels. She went to many schools from the East coast to the West coast during her school years; finally graduating High School just outside of Washington, D.C. in 1992.

She was very active in sports, but had a passion for computers. As a child, she programmed games on her Commodore 64 and learned to build computers with the help of her father. In college, unsure of where she wanted to go, she began studying advertising. During her studies in college, the World Wide Web was born. She led many of her fellow classmates into the great era of the internet by hosting online Tetris wars day and night.

In 1996, she received her Bachelors Degree and in 1997 her Masters Degree from the University of Alabama in Advertising/Marketing and Public Relations respectively. She began her career as a Public Relations Specialist for a hospital system in Houston and then became the Director at age 26.

During this time, she met her darling husband and was married in 1999. She decided at that time to stay at home and start a family. For the next 8 years, she stayed at home with her 3 boys, while simultaneously running a small online business which she still has today.

Once her second child was in Pre-k, she decided to change her career and go into teaching. Amazingly enough, an opportunity opened up for her to be a computer teacher in an elementary school in the same district her kids attend and her husband works as the District CTO.

So in the summer of 2007, she began an alternative certification program, in order to earn her teaching certificate. As a second year and newly certified teacher, she is now the Technology Facilitator on her campus and is enjoying helping teachers learn how to utilize technology to enhance learning in the classroom.

Over the next year, Lea Anne hopes to implement her new Green 180 Project into her school and around the world. Lea Anne regularly posts on the Discovery Educator Network Blogs as Ned’s Keeper and on Twitter as LeaAnne. She looks forward to more amazing opportunities in education like the Discovery National Conference she attended last summer and can’t wait to see what awaits her in the future.

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Join me in congratulating Lea Anne. She is a great resource for the DEN and for like-minded educators!

September’s Texas STAR is Betsy Ruffin, who has been a very active DEN member and has guest-blogged on the Texas DEN Blog, as well. Please comment and congratulate Betsy on a job well done! Read about Betsy here:

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Currently an elementary librarian and technologist, Betsy Ruffin has had a varied educational career and seen many technology changes over her 30 years of teaching.

First teaching elementary and secondary classes in private schools, she dealt with mimeograph machines and film projectors.  Moving into special education in public schools, she saw Apple computers come onto the classroom scene.  Her current school has technology including Smart Board, fiber optic internet connections, and ceiling mounted projectors to show computer based items — including Discovery Streaming Education resources.

As a librarian, Betsy is one of two certified librarians overseeing seven elementary campuses.  As technologist, she helps the district staff with Discovery products, with online databases, and software programs assisting folks in using them and in effectively integrating them into the classroom.  She finds the technology can really engage students in learning, sparking their interest in ways traditional methods may not be able to.  It’s a long way from the mimeographed worksheets of her early career and she has enjoyed both learning about technology herself and using it to help students learn.  Her recent attendance at the Central Regional DEN conference gave her many more great ideas for using technology, especially Discovery in the classroom.

Betsy has presented sessions at conferences including Texas Computer Educator Association and Texas Library Association.  Topics included collaborative teaching, use of Adobe products in the classroom, and integrating technology in the library. She also  gives professional development sessions  for her home district as well as regional locations.
 Articles, published in Library Media Connection from Linworth Publishers  and also in Texas Library Journal from Texas Library Association,  included work on the technology-library connection (one also chosen for inclusion in School Library Management Notebook from Linworth), collaborative teaching, and series books.  She is also a regular reviewer for Library Media Connection magazine and is a Thinkfinity end-user trainer.

She sums up her feelings about technology, the library, and teaching in general today, ” The world our students are facing in the future is much different today than the past;  we need to prepare them with higher order thinking skills and problem solving abilities; they need to be lifelong learners and know how to find, evaluate, and use information well.   Technology resources, such as Discovery products and more, used well can be a vital part of that process.”

I’m trying to begin the new year with a new blog feature which welcomes new DEN STARS in Texas. I apologize to the many new STARS who signed up last year and who did not get mentioned on the blog. Please know that the Leadership Council are very happy to have you join us, even though your name did not appear on the blog!

Our new Texas STARS for December, 2007, are:  Jennifer Pelzer of Alief ISD; LeeAnn Daughrity of Pasadena ISD; and Natalie Nouel of Alief ISD. Please comment to this post to welcome them to the DEN family! We’re all glad you’re here!

This month’s Texas STARs are:  Lori Reed (who will be attending the Bahamas Institute), and Vanessa Jones (who will be attending the Berkeley Institute) — read all about them here, and watch for guest blogger posts from them as they attend National Institute!

Lori Reed teaches 3rd graders at Kress Ind. School District in Kress, Texas.  She has held this position for 18 years, through TABS, TAAS and TAKS testing tribulations.  Lori has also had the privilege of teaching at the same small, rural school in her town, in the same classroom, but absolutely not in the same way! She states, "I’ve seen much change in that time and I can honestly say digital media and curriculum are the BEST changes I’ve experienced to date."  Lori is a current member of the district’s technology committee as Elem. Tech. Specialist, has presented staff development both for local and regional, is a current ATPE member and past president for school district, is a SMART Exemplary Educator and Peer Educator, has participated in the SMART Teacher Conference in Calgary, Canada in 2005 and as Mentor Teacher at the SMART Texas Teacher Conference last spring.  Lori was also invited to be a SMART Trade Show Teacher at NECC last summer and at National School Board Association this past spring.  She is a Renaissance Model Classroom Educator in Reading for 10 years, and a Master Educator for 5 years.  Lori’s technology successes in the classroom were featured in the Fall 2006 edition of i.e. magazine, a SMART Technologies publication. Most recently they have included her as the Reading/Writing Specialist in their Best Practices Guide for North America. Also, her district will soon become one of SMART’s newest Case Studies.  According to Lori,

"Having been exposed to so many opportunities has created nothing but more success for my students - my first obligation. I believe in being the best teacher I can be and bringing them nothing less than my best each and every day. Whether it’s a digital media file, an interactive lesson on the SMART Board, a Power Point show with embedded video clips, or any other interactive, engaging activity - digital media is destined to be the spark that ignites their learning and raises more hands.  Pixel or Perish!"

Vanessa Jones is an Instructional Technology Facilitator for the Austin Independent School District. She is currently a Master Teacher and a Senior Trainer for the Intel Teach Program and has been a PBS Teacherline online facilitator since 2001. She has presented at the National Educational Computing Conference with the keynote speaker, Craig Barrett who is the former CEO of the Intel Corporation. Ms. Jones also serves on the Saint Edward’s School of Education Board of Advisors and has been an educator for over 15 years. Ms. Jones has taught third through eight grades and in 2002, she was recognized by the State Board of Educators for being the first African American in Texas to be a state finalist for the Presidential Awards for Excellence in Math and Science. Ms. Jones holds degrees from the University of Texas at Austin and was teacher-certified at Saint Edwards University. She also holds a Masters of Science in Technology Integration from the University of North Texas.

Ms. Jones has written curriculum for several of the Intel Teach programs and for UTOPIA, a digital gateway that provides access to the University of Texas at Austin’s vast reservoir of knowledge and cultural assets. Ms Jones has also been a Design and Curriculum Writer for Illinois State University for Math, Science and Technology (IMaST and CeMaST) Consultant for the University of Texas at Austin Astronomy Department (Project Alien Rescue) and a consultant for University of Texas at Austin Institute for Technology and Learning: TX2K: The Texas 2000 Living Museum.

Ms. Jones has been featured in the technology magazine Converge and in the Austin American Statesman article (Robotics in the Classroom).  Ms Jones enjoys integrating digital media into both student and teacher learning opportunities and uses United Streaming resources as often as she can. Ms Jones has always been a lifelong learner and an innovator of curriculum. She continues to strive to make sure all students and teachers learn, succeed and apply essential 21^st Century skills to their everyday lives. She enjoys creating a cohesive learning community in which everyone shares ideas, applies knowledge, gives feedback and makes reflections on their learning experiences. Her goal is to continue to develop a community of learners.

http://utopia.utexas.edu/educators/teachers/jones.html

http://www.intel.com/education/projects/news/vol_10/elementary3.htm

With this post, we start a new monthly feature on the DEN Texas blog called "Texas STAR".  In this series, we will feature two STAR Discovery Educators each month from the great state of Texas (similar to the Educator Spotlight on the National DEN webpage).  This month, we are featuring Diedre Cook (who has been guest blogging about her experiences with AFI in the classroom) and Judith Valle (who will be guest blogging this month from the Silver Spring, Maryland, DEN National Institute).

Diedre Cook is currently teaching World History Pre-AP and is the Gifted & Talented Coordinator at Seven Lakes High School in the Katy Independent School District. Prior to teaching in Katy, Diedre has worked for both the Ft. Worth and Dallas Independent School Districts.  Diedre is also a member of curriculum development team for Katy ISD and has presented staff development for her peers introducing new teaching strategies and how to implement those strategies in both Katy ISD and Dallas ISD.  She is member of a team of teachers and administrators that presented “Differentiating Curriculum in a Social Studies Classroom” at the Texas Association for Gifted and Talented Conference in November 2006.  Within Katy ISD she is involved in many committees including being part of a committee of application advisors for the district’s online lesson planning system and also she is the World History Representative for the Strategy Development Committee.   Recently she was named to the High School 2010 Committee which will analyze the components that will go into future high schools throughout the district.

Along with being an Events Planner for the Texas Leadership Council, Judith Valle is the Gifted and Talented/Advanced Academics Specialist at Canutillo Elementary School.  She has taught elementary, middle, high school and at El Paso Community College, trains teachers in her district and delivers in-services throughout the state of Texas. Her students have won several awards from Texas Computer Association, TCEA, and the Oscar at the Las Cruces Film Festival.  Their famous movie, "History of Canutillo" has been shown on PBS and on the Channel 9 website.  Hewlett-Packard and Best Buy has given them over $100,000 for the making of their films, which have been shown at Carlsbad Park, China, Mexico, and Canada.  Judith’s documentary, "Volcanoes of Indonesia" will soon be shown on the Travel Channel.  This summer, Judith will complete her visit of 70 countries.  In December, she will travel to Antarctica, marking the tremendous achievement of having stepped on all 7 continents.  The love of her life is her chihuahua, Dinga.  She has her own website, calling cards, and her own bedroom.