Innovative Teacher Forum

I have to start off this post with a bit of a brag... Just before the school year ended, a graduate instructor provided information on the Microsoft Innovative Teacher's program. It is a combined effort between Microsoft and various other agencies, including the 21st Century Thinking Skills folks. I talked to the assistive technology specialist that works with me in my classroom, and we decided to give it a whirl. The application was many, many hours of work between the end of school and the first part of July when we submitted. And then we waited... and waited... and waited... We were certain that we'd never be chosen, and listed all the reasons why. Our school district is too small, we'd focused heavily on students with multiple special needs and cognitive impairments, etc. I'm thrilled to say that we were wrong! We were one of the groups that

was selected to attend the forum the end of September in Seattle! I was so excited when I saw the email I could barely speak. The project we submitted was our digital camera project that we did with my class and the resultant video tours and "thank-you gifts" we gave to our community work-sites.