Christmas 2007 has come early for me this year. Last September, I applied for a Best Buy Teach Award.  They were to announce the winners on Monday, February 19^th, but they announced them on Friday! I happen to be checking on Bloglines, when I read my friend, Jennifer Wagner, had found out that the list had been posted early! Well, I quickly checked, not expecting to see my name and WOW! My name was there! I couldn’t believe it! The grant, in the form of a $2500.00 Best Buy card will be used to support the newest endeavor that I began last fall.

I wrote the grant with starting a weekly kids news broadcast in mind. The group of students that I began this adventure with last fall couldn’t wait to get started, so we started with what we already had. my district-issued laptop, a camcorder from another grant, and Movie Maker 2 software, which is a free program.

With this $2500.00 grant I will purchase a new, more powerful laptop that is geared for movie editing, a new camcorder, and movie editing software. My broadcast kids, MIB ~ Mustangs In Broadcasting do not know the fantastic news yet. I will let then know on Tuesday during our planning meeting.

This is an awesome group of kids to work with. They have presented at our state capitol building, school board meetings, and will present at MACUL in March at the Student Technology Conference.

When reviewing the winners list, I see that I am in impressive company, which makes this all the sweeter! Not only did Jen win, but Bob Sprankle from Wells,
Maine won as well. I am honored to share the list with these fine people.