CEGSA Educator of the Year April 4, 2006
Posted by Al Upton in Blogging.trackback
I won this award and it means a lot to me. Firstly for being nominated (thanks Dean) but also when I consider the high quality and important contributions of the other Leading Lights nominated. Further to that are those teachers who are enhancing and facilitating their students' learning using ICTs – yet go unnoticed.
I pride myself that I have been able to explore and provide support in a number of areas while being a fulltime classroom teacher. This has also been a bit of a dilemma - how can I continue my commitments to my students and find time to continue my explorations and contributions? Our local government education body (DECS) has come up with an initiative (District eTeacher) which I applaud. It offers 0.2 time (one day a week) toward training and providing professional learning to colleagues. Unfortunately I didn't win the position in our district and won't benefit from the additional time. Something will have to give and I'm not sure what. It is my hope that my two key areas (very topical and relevant to current trends) 'Computer Games in Education' and 'Emerging Technologies – Blogging' are represented in the eTeacher PD events. Possibly I will continue to offer workshops and present at conferences while I seek a more balanced life. What does occur to me is that we need to look at professional learning models that better accomodate those who are fulltime at the 'chalk face' yet have a great deal to offer their colleagues. And if you look around, that is most of us – we are out there doing a good job but how can we best share what we do without further imposing on our work and home lives?
So, I'm really pleased (and a bit proud) of my achievments. I suppose, in a sense, I am using this opportunity to seek the wisdom and considerations of others.
Any thoughts?
****
By the way – thanks everybody 
NB The links in my application which can be found on the CEGSA website go to
'www. schoolblogs .com' which no longer provide free educational blogs. Check out a few pages on this blog eg 'Articles', 'Resources', and 'Learning/Game Maker' to get a sense of what I've been up to.
In addition to that is my fellow blogging colleague Graham Wegner's post which humbles me. Thanks Graham.
PS While I got the award my car was being broken into so
it's somewhat bitter sweet.
Comments
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Congratulations Al! It is well deserved. (Pity about the car…must’ve taken the edge off it a bit) Nevertheless, enjoy the recognition and reward for your dedication and sheer hard work.
That is amasing that you are the egkater of the year last year. I have enjoyed having you as my teacher thank you mr upton
That is cool mr upton.I wish i had that award it would be cool I think.
Hi Al. Great to see your blog at last as I have heard so much about it. Your notes on how to establish a ‘blog’ in the resources section are really explicit – thank you for sharing these with me. I assume there are no generic help sheets available and one is expected to learn intuitively.
Al, I agree with you 100 per cent when you mention that the e-teacher program needs to feature emerging technologies (my favourite is blogging, no surprise) and that the “small pieces, loosely joined” use of things like rss, wikis, podcasts, online applications and future incarnations of these online tools feature heavily in what is developed. You winning that award is recognition from the people who matter and “get it” as far as the thoughtful implementation of educational technologies goes. Don’t let the politics of decision making distract you from what makes you a great teacher and that is that you model the learning process with your students in ways that engage and motivate them.
hi al,
congratulations al, good on ya’!
Before you came along if someone had asked me about introducing Game Maker to Year 3 students, I would have said “too hard” – yet with your innovative template idea, you have shown How To.
I agree strongly with your comments about “the dilemma” – IT is forging ahead at 100 mph (oops, kph), how realistic is it to expect busy full time teachers with families to keep up with it all. Where are the administrators who are thinking about and addressing this problem? We have lives, we do not live in a blue bin. You have forthrightly raised a hugely important issue here.
Nice to see comments from both your peers and students here together
Good job Mr Upton your loads of fun I'm in a very lucky class I'm having fun learning about game maker and playing games well done Mr Upton.My blog is http://www.chrispa.wordpress.com
By Chris!
Well done Al for getting educatar of the year for using gamemaker and setting up the blog with last years children in 2005.
I love my blog this year at
http://www.jordand.wordpress.com
It was realy nice to see you got it because i like it because it was special to him because he likes it when i saw it i was
exitied because I like him.
Dear Mr Upton,
It was a very big suprise to know that you got the award! I think you are a very good manger with computers and that you dezervd the award.I wish that I was hear yesterday so I could have seen the xpreshon on your face to see how happy you wer and to know that you are sharing your achevments with a class thats incurageing and happy to think that our teacher has done one realy good thing. Im glad that you are happy that you got this very spicail gift and….
have it fourever! By for now.
Water
Many of us take clean water for granted.
We turn on the tap, water comes out and we know it’s safe to drink it.
This is not the case for many African child.
kids in south Aus get clean water because we have taps
Just as a follow up for Karen’s comments on learning to establish a blog, there are some flash tutorials from James Farmer on the front page of the edublogs website. They include A 3 min intro to WordPress, Posting (in detail), Editing your sidebar and Presentation (in detail). Great for visual learners.
Al,
I work as an academic partner to a senior high school in Sydney two days a week and teach primary school the other three. I hav ehad to forgo job security and other benefits of tenure but I reckon it is worth it. Hang in there, Al, and the right position will come up for you. You are too good to lose!
Well done Al,
I can’t think of a better person to win this award with all the cutting edge technologies that you introduce to your students.
Keep up the good work!