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Local teachers win big for cool Internet ideas
National Semiconductor rewards innovative projects with $10,000
By Sam Scott
Curtis Schneider, life science teacher at Sunnyvale Middle School, cottoned on to the fact that he wasn't attending a normal school assembly when his parents walked in. He had come to the gathering expecting an anti-drug meeting. Instead, he found himself dubbed an Internet Innovator and handed a $10,000 check in front of a school staff, the mayor of Sunnyvale, and a foot-stomping student body.
"I had absolutely no idea," he says.
Wendi Smith, a first-grade teacher at Fairwood Elementary School, caught on a little quicker. On her way to the assembly, she saw a sign congratulating her--not that knowing took the thrill out of it.
"I was overwhelmed," she says.
Schneider and Smith were among 11 teachers to win a contest sponsored by National Semiconductor for the best intergration of the Internet into the curriculum. Winners received $10,000 to spend as they wish. Their schools received $20,000 for Internet-related use.
Joan Scott, director of community relations for National, says her company wants to encourage Internet use by students
"We did this because it's really connected to our business and because we believe it's the right thing to do," she says.
Schneider designed a site called "The Human Disease Project," which allows students to research diseases and communicate with researchers and sufferers of diseases. Smith's site encourages weather study. The students "send" a stuffed toy named Arthur on trips around the world. First they study the weather in the various places on the web to see what Arthur should pack. Smith says she hides the toy during his supposed trips and her students think he has gone--an illusion maintained by posing the toy with friends and emailing the photos to students.
Boredom inspired Schneider. He says he had just read the 15,000th report on the human skeletal system and could barely contain his yawns.
"I thought there had to be a better way to do this," he says. Now students seeking A's must interview someone connected with the disease, a development made possible by email and one that, he says, spices things up a bit. He says he's got enthusiastic responses from students he has never met, but who have found the site using search engines.
Smith says her students love using her site. "More than anything it gives them an opportuity to travel," she says. "It's very exciting to see pictures and to communicate with people in other countries." She says she hears her students using a level of vocabulary that she had never heard in such young students.
Both teachers' sites have lesson plans for other teachers to access via the web.
Neither teacher says they plan to spend the money in a wild fashion. Each says they have sunk significant amounts of money into their sites and are glad to recoup some of it. Schneider says he's going to buy something nice for his two children. Smith says she's expecting a first child and might buy some baby stuff.
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Sunnyvale, California Since 1994
