Schools

Keith Valley Middle School Staff Honored With Technology Award

Technology team works to keep kids safe online.

Keith Valley Middle School staff have gained international recognition for their work using telecommunications to make kids think.

Their technology team recently won a coveted first place in the International Society for Technology in Education’s SIGOL Online Learning Awards for their efforts to ensure that eighth graders use the Internet safely.

Technology teachers Valerie Fasy, Diane Heitzenrater and Stacy Rotchford, as well as guidance counselor Dr. Andrew Osborne, are recognized for their innovation in integrating telecommunications networks into the classroom to provide eighth graders with 21st century learning opportunities. The award criteria focused on online student engagement outside of the classroom.  

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“It is a wonderful tribute to the collaborative work of our staff and the support of our school district in using new and emerging technologies with our students,” wrote Heitzenrater in an email to Patch.com.

Titled “Internet Safety 101,” the online course teaches eighth-graders about social networking, copyright, cyber-bullying, digital footprints and how to use the Internet safely. Students take the online course in the fall of the academic year and complete its requirements independently. This is the fourth year that the course was part of the curriculum.  

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Assigned mentors helped students complete their projects and served as resources when needed. Those students who do not have computers were able to use district computers.

As part of the course, students wrote about real-life cyber-bullying scenarios and Internet anonymity.  They also had the opportunity to participate in online discussion forums.

The eighth graders shared their knowledge with sixth graders through PowerPoint presentations, videos, games and podcasts to teach the younger students how to be good ‘Net-izens.’

Fasy is happy to work to keep kids safe online.

“We liked the collegiality of working with the technology and guidance departments, the energy and creativity generated enabled us to develop a course that was relevant to our middle school students who have grown up with technology,” wrote Fasy in an email to Patch.com.  

This middle school technology team has won several national awards for their work in integrating the latest technology and software into the school curriculum. SIGOL is their first international award.


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