I thought you may be interested in the outcomes of the recent judging of the Rambus-KCI Innovation Award. This year we received 24 entries. Thanks to the many judges who contributed time to evaluate the projects. We are delighted to announce Mr. Ben Chun of Galileo Academy of Science and Technology, San Francisco as the Award winner. Mr. Chun's entry, Educational Games, impressed the judges from Rambus with its real-world application and cross grade level connections. The description of the four finalist projects are included below along with links to the project site.
On behalf of Gay Krause and this year's judges and with great appreciation to Rambus, Inc., our generous sponsor of the Innovation Award, we present to you the Rambus-KCI Innovation Award 2009 winner and three finalists.
The Rambus-KCI Innovation Award honors an exemplary technology project or program that benefits the Silicon Valley educational community. The award winner receives a $5,000 check and is honored at the award recognition event. The Award was initiated ten years ago as part of a teacher education technology-based program. Rambus became the proud sponsor of the Innovation Award in 2004. The projects submitted for consideration were exemplary, innovative technology projects and programs related to education. The criteria for judging the entries are: number of people served by the project; significance of the project outcome to education in Silicon Valley; creativity (innovation with technology); ease with which the project can be viewed, implemented, shared, and replicated; and the quality of the project sample.
http://www.krauseinnovationcenter.org/rambus/
In this project, high school juniors and seniors built educational video games for elementary school students. Using a local fifth grade class as a focus group, they researched the likes, dislikes, and academic goals of the younger students and their teacher. Then they worked in teams to generate ideas, align game play with educational objectives, design, build, test, and deliver the games online. By watching fifth grade students play-test the games, my students found out just how demanding a real client can be – in addition to sharing in the excitement of enabling elementary students to have fun while learning.
http://galileoweb.org/chunb/2009-educational-games/
Corinne Takara
Arts Educator
Horace Cureton Elementary School
Alum Rock School District
San Jose, CA
Thinking Outside the Box
The “Thinking Outside The Box” workshop series introduced 29 fourth and fifth grade students and one teacher at Horace Cureton Elementary School to the many stepped process of stop motion animation through the hands-on creation of an animation start to finish. The project was based on the theme of thinking outside the box and what that meant to each child. The children were challenged to create animation sequences transforming a cube of clay into something reflecting their creative thinking. Working in teams of three, each child rotated through the different roles of photographer, animator, director and narrator.
http://okadadesign.blogspot.com/2009/05/thinking-outside-box-final-animation.html
Tom Sayer
Teacher
Graham Middle School
Mountain View Whisman School District
Mountain View, CA
Tracing Tea: True International Collaboration
The ‘Tracing Tea Education Program seeks to bring students from around the world together. Through collaboration with teachers from many different countries along the ‘Tracing Tea’ route, the program will give a fresh insight into the history, geography and wider cultural understanding of these countries through the lens of technology. Students will engage with the people and places of the 'Tracing Tea' route through print, audio, visual, pen-pal links and other forms of communication technology.
http://tracingtea.mvwsd.org/tt/Welcome.html
Claudia Winkler
Physics Teacher
Gunn High School
Palo Alto Unified School District
Palo Alto, CA
Tidbits of Energy
Tidbits of Energy is a web site created by all students enrolled in Ms. Winkler’s Physics five classes in the 2008/2009 school year, at Gunn High School, Palo Alto. The website explores a variety of energy topics. It was developed solely by students as a end-of-year project. The web site is visible at:
http://www.gunn.pausd.org/~apbphysics/