Some people would think that Geek of the Week award would be a bad thing to receive. Here at the Watertown Middle School, it is an honor.

The award goes to the teacher who use s technology the best in the classroom for that week. The Geek of the Week prize was created by Allison Levit , who teaches seventh- grade English as a Second Language (or ESL).

But she is not the only one who decides upon the recipients. Tech ed teacher, Lindsay Hull said that there is a “secret committee” that decides who get s the award. Teachers have to approach one of the committee members and explain how they are using technology to teach.

One of the committee members will then go into the classroom to observe. The teacher who win s Geek of the Week receive s a button that says “Geek of the Week” so people will notice and compliment that person.

Phil Oates won Geek of the Week for using a projector to teach his students about slopes on graphs.

“It was an honor to win Geek of the Week, because the Watertown district emphasizes the use of technology in classrooms,” he said.

Lyall Croft created a humanities website for his class. He also helped the students with an online bibliography site. The first winner of Geek of the Week was Kat Dias, who used Noodle Tools to help teacher her students.

The other winners (and their award-winning work) so far this year were Brian Donato (created Student Council website); Karla Nihal (turned her students’ research projects into movies); Evelyn Fuchs (has a great website and is a master of Excel); Karen MacAulay (used Gizmos, Wikispace, and webquests to perfection); Tom Johnson and Ginny Walsh (heart rate monitors); Elizabeth Kaplan (integrated webquests, podcasts, and blogging into classes); Sam Morris, Whitney McKnight, and Dan Skop (created virtual scrapbooks online); Kerri Lorigan and Lisa McDonagh (virtual Nile River tour); Deb Kelly (created a Wikispace and students uploaded podcasts); Kara Conceison (shared books with first- and second-graders via Skype); Owen Conneely (used a complex publishing program to make the school newspaper); and Claire Regan (taught students how to set up individual portfolios on Wikispace).

(For more information about Geek of the Week winners, go to Ms. Hull’s website at http://teacherweb.com/MA/WatertownMiddle/lindsayhull/apt16.aspx .)

–May 5, 2010–