Teachers that Make a Difference

Working at AllofE, I have the opportunity of working with school districts and teachers across the nation. I love it when I find the ones that are truly dedicated to their profession and simply focused on educating our children.

I recently started thinking about my favorite teachers that I had growing up. The first teacher that I really loved was Mrs. Boon, my 3rd Grade teacher at Sherwood Elementary school. She was loving and funny and really seemed to enjoy being a teacher. Then there was Mrs. Seward, my 5th Grade teacher, originally from Mississippi whose favorite phrase was “Pray tell”. I remember Ms. Geiger (10th Grade Advanced English at Sylvan Hills High School), whose class everyone was afraid of, and even though it was a difficult class, she was not as scary as she wanted students to think. This is when I read the Count of Monte Cristo, one of my favorite books and The Catcher in the Rye (which I hated).

In high school, there were 3 teachers that were absolutely amazing people: Mrs. Bertalone, Mr. Walton, and Mrs. Weir. Mrs. Bertolone, my Government teacher, was this little bitty lady with a fire cracker spirit that would light up the room with her fun and exciting personality. She was a wonderfully caring person and even came to my graduation party when I graduated from the University of Kansas.

Mr. Walton was my Modern Literature teacher who selected some amazing but sometimes controversial books for us to read. We read the Lords of Discipline and I could not put it down. We also read The Catcher in the Rye (yes, I had read this before, but for some reason, this time I loved it.)

And then there was Mrs. Weir, my World Literature teacher who had a wonderful and optimistic outlook on life in general. On top of that she was pregnant during a good portion of our school year which seemed to make her even happier so sometimes she could not stop laughing (it was the craziest thing I had ever seen) and we would spend an entire class time just laughing and having fun.

These are the teachers that made a difference in my life. These are the teachers I am thankful for. I hope that the work we do here can help make a difference for them, too.

Who were your favorite teachers and why?

Happy Thanksgiving - Here's an Update for our Fantasy Football Tournament: Standings: Week 11

So, it's Week 11, which means there's 3 more games until the end of regular season in our office Fantasy Football tournament. I'm just gonna say, I'm a pretty competitive person. So no, I'm not happy with my current 7th-place status. Not. At. All.


You know what REALLY irks me though? This little stat right here:
What?! How could I have the second-most points for and still be in 6th place? Y'all got lucky...But don't worry, I'm coming for you these last few weeks! Muahahaha!

The 2011 SchoolE Awards are Officially Open for Business!

Nominations for the 2011 SchoolE Awards contest to find the best school district website are now open. Nominations will close on March 11, 2011, and the top 15 most-nominated districts in each category will move on to the judges to be evaluated by a panel of industry experts.

There are a few other new things that really take the contest to the next level.

To name a few, this year's contest will feature, based on the feedback from last year's awards:

• categories based on school district enrollment,
  
• longer times to nominate and vote,
  
• a bigger and broader judging panel,
  
• and even more awards.

The biggest change is probably that there are three ways to nominate your district this year. Like last year, you may use your e-mail address to submit you nomination. But this year you can also use your Facebook and Twitter accounts not only to submit your nomination, but to help spread the word to your community about this great opportunity for your district.

Basically, it just makes it easier for you to let your friends and family know.

Districts may go to http://schoole.allofe.com/nominate to nominate their district website by filling out a form.

Check out the SchoolE Awards contest website for more information about this year's contest: http//schoole.allofe.com.

Give Katie a shout at kbrosious@allofe.com for more information or with any questions!

4 SMASHUPs now LIVE!

The Youngstown State, DePaul, NIU and OLLU SMASHUPs are all now LIVE! Here are the links:

• YSU: http://web.ysu.edu/smashup/home
• DePaul: http://depaul.edu/smashup
• NIU: http://smashup.niu.edu/
• OLLU: http://smashup.ollusa.edu/

These four universities wanted a more effective way to display their social media content, and wanted to set the bar very high, becoming leaders in university social media management. We partnered with these four universities to create a central branded hub for all of their social media activity that displays content in more interactive and interesting ways - pulling in the audience, and keeping them on the university site - instead of sending them to other locations.

This has been a fun project so far and I'm looking forward to working with more universities in the coming months.

NIU SMASHUP goes LIVE!

NIU social media initiatives find common home (via NIU Today)

As the Internet and its applications continue to evolve at a dizzying speed, most websites now offer a veritable smorgasbord of tiny icons that link users to various social media pages.

NIU now has risen above the din of square-shaped logos clamoring for attention.

The university’s Web Communications Team this morning launched smashup.niu.edu, a one-stop shop for all of NIU’s social media initiatives, including Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube and foursquare.

SMASHUP is a social media expansion of the Internet concept of “mashup,” the word for a website that combines data feeds from several sources.

Read the full release from "NIU Today" here.