2009 TIE Award Winner - Trish Finley

When I first discovered Pixie at a workshop in early September 2008, I fell in love with all the possibilities of using it in my program. After the workshop my thought wheels began turning rapidly.

Recently, I spent one day in a one-on-one teaching and modeling lesson with a particular student that loves to write stories and wanted to retell the story of the Baker’s Dozen. She wrote the story down as she remembered, adding a dream where Santa gives the baker a magic snow globe where the scene inside comes alive. In this particular scene, the baker was given cookies that were very pleasing to customers. As I watched the student draw her five pictures, the story simply came alive! An unexpected treat, since this student had not yet been productive in challenge class. Pixie 2 helped put pizzazz in her thoughts and work!

My most successful project was a Polar Express lesson. Students listened to the story read to them and decided on the figurative language phrases that they heard. Using similes and metaphors students created their own descriptive phrases of what it might look like out the window of the Polar Express on its way to the North Pole. They decorated the page with black and white spray paint, their own picture, stickers, and their descriptive phrase. We combined the pages from all classes to make our movie.

I have a love for technology and designing and creating lessons and projects that are fun, innovative, require inventive thinking, and digital literacy. In my writer’s workshop, we now develop a storytelling podcast. Students love to create did you knows, jokes, poems, and scripts. Watching their faces light up as they hear their own voice narrations is a reward within itself. Each week we cover a different storytelling topic and share what we learned that week. Tech4Learning tools have become strong resources for facilitators when stressing speaking with clarity and precision and assisting students with innovative creations.

As an educator in the 21st century I try to focus daily on projects that promote 21st century skills: Digital Age Literacy, Inventive Thinking, Effective Communication, and High Productivity and Tech4Learning tools have helped me become more proficient in teaching these skills.