ISTE AWARD WINNERS

My wife and I entered some of our work in the ISTE/NECC conference Digital Stories contest recently. The conference was in D.C. so we didn't get to attend. The finals of the contest were streamed from the conference live and we were thrilled to find out we were both finalists. The crowd that was at the conference voted live for their favorite and Karen's video "Living in a Digital World" won! We were especially happy since Karen had entered this in another competition and didn't even get selected for the finals! *interwrite/e-instruction* cough cough..Anyway, she wins an all expense paid trip to Denver for the national conference next year so our summer vacation is planned. I'm working on a video for the Amazon.com contest but that is a REAL long shot. Here are the videos if you would like to see them:

Glog Book Reviews and Safety Committee

I am working on a new Glog page with some more animated book reviews. I keep adding more elements to the videos and I think they are getting better:

I was on our campus safety learning community this year and at the end of the year we had to present what we did in our area. I put together this video to show what we accomplished:

Teachertube Change

Recently Teachertube changed their look and with it all the links to videos seemed to have changed as well. This means that all the pages linked to my videos no longer operate. I hope they might fix this but if not you can see my videos by going to my Teachertube page:
Dr. Loopy

News article

Neighborsgo.com, a neighborhood edition of the Dallas Morning News, did an article about the good fortune my wife and I have received lately. I always enjoy seeing what reporters emphasize in their articles. Here is a link to the article:
http://neighborsgo.com/stories/33768

More Good News!

On April 3rd my wife and I went to Austin for the Association of Texas Professional Educators annual conference. Karen, my wife, won the Elementary Teacher of the Year award from this prestigious organization. Karen has worked hard with her classroom of "Digital Natives" and showed the panel a video of some of the things she does in her classroom on a daily basis. I am very proud of her for all of the hard work she does and of course I think she is very deserving of this honor!

Spring Break at Caddo Lake

One of my very favorite places is just about 2 1/2 hours from here. Caddo Lake is a beautiful and mysterious place to get away from it all. We just spent a few days up there in a little place called Uncertain, Texas. It's a great place to do...nothing. We read, canoed and shopped in a small town near here called Jefferson. I also had possibly the best fish and "hush puppies" ever at a place called the Big Pines Lodge. I highly recommend it if you are ever in the middle of Nowhere East Texas.

Hot Dog Book Reviews

Every other week we have class checkout. During those weeks I select a "Hot Dog" from each class to help check out. They also get an extra book checkout and they review that book for our Glog. I video tape their review and then have them draw a picture to represent them. I animate the picture and they get to see the review online. Here is an example of one recently finished. I have many more on my Glog page.

A Big Week!

Tuesday night in Austin I was awarded the Texas Computer Education Association's Librarian of the year for Texas. It was a great event and I am honored to win this award for myself, my wife and for Melissa ISD.


Before I left for Austin I got a telephone call from Demco telling me my video in the "Express Yourself" contest won the Grand Prize! I got a new camera and a deluxe bookcart for which my library aide wil be forever grateful. Here is the winning video: