Learning & Leading Through Technology

ISTE 2013 Award Winners Outstanding Leader

Christopher Lehmann, founding principal, Science Leadership Academy, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA

Outstanding Teacher

Nicholas Provenzano, teacher, Grosse Pointe South High
School, Grosse Pointe Farms, Michigan, USA
The Outstanding Leader and Outstanding Teacher awards
honor individuals who have demonstrably improved
education through the effective use of technology.

Outstanding Young Educator

Krista Moroder, K– 12 technology integrator, Kettle Moraine School District, Wales, Wisconsin, USA The Outstanding Young Educator Award honors an educator under 35 who has demonstrated vision, innovation, action, and transformation while using technology to improve learning and teaching.

Public Policy Advocate

Kurt Kiefer, assistant state principal, Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction, Madison, Wisconsin, USA The Public Policy Advocate Award recognizes an outstanding leader and mentor in advocating for educational technology policy at the local, state, regional, national, and/or international levels.

Kay L. Bitter Vision Award for Excellence in Technology-Based PK– 2 Education

Karen Lirenman, teacher, Surrey School District, Surrey, British Columbia, Canada The Kay L. Bitter Award honors a PK– 2 educator for vision and creativity in a project or program that effectively integrates technology.

Sylvia Charp Award for District Innovation in Technology Rowan-Salisbury School System, Judy Grissom, superintendent, and Phil Hardin, executive director of technology, Salisbury, North Carolina, USA The Sylvia Charp Award, presented by ISTE and THE Journal, recognizes district innovation in technology.

Krista Moroder | Outstanding Young Educator

“Ms. Moroder does not think small!”
That’s how Carole Witt Sarck, assistant super-
intendent of instructional services at the Kettle
Moraine School District in Wales, Wisconsin, USA,
describes ISTE’s Outstanding Young Educator.

And it’s true. Krista Moroder is anything but a small thinker. Consider this: During her first seven months as Kettle Moraine’s K– 12 technology integrator, she managed to revamp and standardize all faculty websites and made sure every teacher had a digital presence. She implemented digital citizenship portfolios for all eighth graders, and she led the media specialists to write new information and technology literacy benchmarks. She also led a team of district stakeholders in writing a three-year technology plan. And in her spare time, she began collaborating with 30 Google Apps Certified Trainers to create a self-paced, scaffolded, free technology course tied to ISTE Standards.

That’s not a bad work history for someone who hated school. Or at least, that’s the way she tells it. When Moroder was in sixth grade, she hated the traditional education model so much that she told her teacher she wanted to work as a public speaker for school choice. That teacher encouraged her to research her idea further, and she learned enough to modify her dream title, changing school choice to school reform. And given her own description of the way she teaches, she’s well on her way to reform.

Here’s how she describes her method for continuous improvement: “When my students wanted to read The Hunger Games, I went online, and strangers from all over the nation donated books. When my students wanted to clean up the river for Earth Day, I called a local adventure company, and they lent us canoes and guides for a day. When I wanted to host a free multi-district technology workshop, a local ed camp donated all of their leftover supplies. When my video production students wanted to film a full-school music video, we asked around and ended up with a high school full of farm animals, a Humvee, and an airplane.” No surprise from an educator who thinks big!