innoawards

//This year's Innovative Award winners developed some AMAZING projects and products. Check them out, and click to vote for your favorite.//

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 * = Award Winners ................................................. = || = Grant Information =
 * ===Adrianne Blackwelder - Shuford Elementary===

Click here to vote! || **Shuford School Garden**: The goal of our garden was to involve all grade levels in hands-on learning experiences that meet multiple standards for each grade level. Students were involved in maintenance and upkeep of the garden. The idea was that students would build real-world skills through authentic experiences and collaboration with teachers and peers. The goal was that crops would be planted in the Spring of 2015 and harvested in the Fall of 2015.

Students across grade levels engaged in activities that involved the 4C’s. Students collaborated with peers to find solutions for garden layout and management. Students engaged in critical thinking and worked through challenges with the help of teachers and their peers. Students communicated their learning in various ways throughout the project. For example, my fourth graders participated in a Gallery Walk of Garden Designs. Ideas were put into practice as students researched best practices and planted crops accordingly. Students and teachers were creative in the way that they found opportunities for involvement. Finally, the goal to design and bring to life a Shuford Garden was a success. || media type="youtube" key="1he05yV7uQw" width="500" height="315" ||
 * ===Revae Bostwick & Amy Haugh - Newton-Conover High School===

Click here to vote! || **Striving to Succeed through e-Read**: Our goal was to improve reading fluency of ELLs taking English classes to eventually tie into increased reading comprehension. If they are able to read more fluently, their brains will spend less time trying to focus on the pronunciation of the words, which allows more working memory to focus on comprehension. The ability to translate words digitally also saves time, helping students to stay more closely on pace with the rest of the class.

Students became accustomed to using the devices. Two students in one class used the Nooks consistently to better comprehend the text being read in class while others used them intermittently. || media type="youtube" key="hvo-lVdu9E0" width="500" height="315" ||
 * ===Dr. Scarlet Davis & Sarah Stapleton - South Newton Elementary===

Click here to vote! || **Showcasing the Best of South Newton**:

Some excited fifth graders at South Newton have been busy creating videos of our new school facility as well as videos of our faculty, staff, and students in order to showcase the best of South Newton to on-campus visitors and new students. All videos created by the students have been connected to QR codes. These QR codes have been printed and placed strategically around the campus so that visitors can use a QR scan reader to retrieve video and web-based content in order to receive a self-guided tour.

iPod Touch devices purchased through the grant were used to create the videos and will be available for check-out from the main office for guests and new students so they can capture the QR codes and retrieve web-based content around the campus. Video content includes students highlighting the “green” aspects of our new LEED-certified school facility that were a part of the construction as well as the operational processes (using our facility as a teaching and learning tool!) Students also have highlighted leadership in action by showcasing videos of **//Leader in Me//** school activities and clubs.

This project focused on The 4 C’s of 21st century learning (Communication, Collaboration, Critical Thinking, and Creativity). || media type="custom" key="27576990" ||
 * ===Jody Dixon - Discovery High School===

Click here to vote! || **Movie Makers on the Move**: The goal of this grant was to purchase several Go Pro cameras for students to begin to use when completing projects. We obtained two cameras and accessories and students have begun to incorporate the cameras into their projects. || media type="youtube" key="PF3oU-vw3Co" width="500" height="315" ||
 * ===Jody Dixon, Will Kennedy, & Gene Scronce - Discovery High School===

Click here to vote! || **Creativity Room**: The goals of this grant were to improve an add a variety of materials for our 3-D printer and to make chromakey/green screen technology available to our students.

All goals were accomplished. || media type="youtube" key="tYXU-zfXynY" width="500" height="315" ||
 * ===Sean Fitzgerald - North Newton Elementary School===

Click here to vote! || **Welcome to Mt. Bulldog**: I set out to build an 8ft by 24ft traverse climbing wall that would give my students a new avenue to work on physical fitness, literacy and mathematics.

Once the wall was build the students participated in games that crossed curriculum lines to help them with reading and mathematics concepts. The wall made it much easier as a physical education instructor to incorporate reading and math into my lessons. || media type="youtube" key="aQIWjpA2Djc" width="500" height="315" ||
 * ===Laura Garza & Jennifer Ingle - Newton-Conover High School===

Click here to vote! || **Connecting with World Languages**: The goal of this project was to make the Internet accessible to all of our students, especially to those without smartphone access. This enabled these students to participate in Kahoot games, access notes and Web sites via Edmodo and later Canvas, and use Duolingo to increase their language proficiency in reading, writing, speaking, and listening. || media type="youtube" key="vGdz3RCGyIU" width="500" height="315" ||
 * ===Leah Hayes, Candace Styers, Julia Styers, & Brittany Wilfong - South Newton Elementary===

Click here to vote! || **Leader in Me Symposium**: South Newton implemented the Leader in Me into our school in August. The goal of the grant was to allow the Lighthouse Team the opportunity to attend the national Leader in Me Symposium to meet other educators who have implemented LIM, gain ideas by visiting classrooms and LIM schools and learn best practices for implementing /incorporating LIM into our school. A major component of the Leader in Me is to host a Leadership Day each year. The symposium included visits to three LIM Leadership Days and guided us through the process of planning ours.

We attended the symposium in February and gained many ideas for implementing the Leader in Me to a higher level within classrooms and throughout our school. We received information on planning and executing our first Leadership Day. || media type="youtube" key="Q5_dUUtg1pY" width="500" height="315" ||
 * ===Thomas Colton, Roy Highberg & Gene Scronce - Discovery High School===

Click here to vote! || **Building a Bioswale for Environmental Improvement**: The goal of this project was to create a bioswale with educational signage that would filter pollutants from the stormwater generated by the parking lot and roof of Discovery High School.

We accomplished the goal of completing the project in its entirety. We were able to make a very effective bioswale that functioned with considerable proficiency. The bioswale has a large amount of beautiful vegetation and a very nice educational sign. || media type="youtube" key="am1VsJJm_6M" width="500" height="315" ||
 * ===Erika Hoyle, Caitlin Parkhurst, and Theresa Roth - Shuford Elementary School===

Click here to vote! || **Shuford Robotics Clubs with Cyberkids Partnership**: The goal of the robotics team was to teach our kids teamwork skills, problem solving skills, critical thinking skills and learn important STEM skills while effectively building a robot.

The big goal we accomplished was teaching our kids teamwork and problem solving skills. When there was a problem multiple kids had a solution and each one was listened to or tried. While there was occasionally a little arguing (they are kids) it was never over the top arguing and no one ever got mad at anyone. By the end of our time together they had truly become a TEAM! || media type="youtube" key="vP9FK9n7dQw" width="500" height="315" ||
 * ===Angie Sigmon - Shuford Elementary School===

Click here to vote! || **Digital Me**: Students were able to use a Pro Educreations account to add links of their videos showing mastery of standards to their ePortfolio in the 3D GameLab. Students were also able to use iPad stands to record collaborative stations, show work with manipulatives, and/or show thinking on whiteboards. These videos also were uploaded to their ePortfolio. These students have created a digital portfolio that not only shows mastery of standards, but also their growth throughout this school year in math. Students used the News-O-Matic application to stay up-to-date with current events. They were able to create digital stories to identify the main topic and retell the details. || media type="youtube" key="H9PAmaiWE0U" width="500" height="315" ||
 * ===Brian Smith & Jill Gobin - District-Wide Project===

Click here to vote! || **What's Your Superpower? The Lunchlady Saves NCCS Fourth Graders!**: This Innovative Grant developed an event that every 4th grader in N-CCS was part of and won't forget! Every 4th grader received a copy of 1 of the 10 books in the Lunch Lady series of Graphic Novels. Over half of the 4th graders in the system read ALL 10 books before the author, Jarret J. Krosoczka's visit.

There were two contest with district winners. The author visited all three elementary school and Conover School students also joined in to hear his inspirational talk. Every one participated in this event to spread the world that reading is fun! || media type="youtube" key="BA7wQ-Jlt-k" width="500" height="315" ||
 * ===Brian Smith - District-Wide Project===

Click here to vote! || **The Boys' Book Club**: All Boys' Book Club was open to all 3rd grade students in the Newton-Conover City Schools System. We had six monthly meetings. Eighteen boys voluntarily signed up to come to North Newton for three hours on one Saturday a month. Average attendance each month was about 15 boys!

Each month, the boys came with discussion starter questions answered and were ready to discuss that month's book in depth for an hour! We had themed snacks and activities each month as well. The book was always paired with another text (non-fiction if the book was fiction and vice versa) for the boys to explore in groups. We built volcanoes, made movies, learned magic tricks, designed cars of the future, built better writing utensils, built the Edmund Pettis Bridge, and a host of other activities.

Each child walked away from our last monthly meeting with six chapter books that they had read and a book for summer vacation! It was a tremendous success and one that I hope to continue in the coming years.​ || media type="youtube" key="QtQgjxQzGF0" width="500" height="315" ||
 * ===Natasha Stiles - Shuford Elementary School===

Click here to vote! || **Building Minds with Minecraft**:

My goal was to implement Minecraft into our school’s computer lab instruction at Shuford Elementary in order to improve digital citizenship and address the 4Cs - collaboration, communication, creativity, and critical thinking. Although we did run into obstacles, including lack of time and student conflicts, we were able to work together to overcome them and learn together. || media type="youtube" key="xs6hyVavWi8" width="500" height="315" ||
 * ===Julia Styers - South Newton Elementary School===

Click here to vote! || **Transforming South Newton's Media Center into a Research Center**: Our goal is the create a media center that is the learning hub of our school. We want it to be more than just a place to check out books and listen to a story being read. With our low percentage of fifth graders proficient on the 5th grade science end of grade test for the last several years, our focus was to spark an interest in science especially for our fourth and fifth grade students. We wanted to purchase microscopes with slides and a weather station with this grant funding.

We purchased the weather station and the microscopes. Students love using the microscopes during one of their rotations during their media center time. We have also purchased other items to create a scaled down version of a “makerspace.” Our goal is to continue to add to the “makerspace” concept throughout the next few months. || media type="youtube" key="6_o3uVFRwJ8" width="500" height="315" ||