Congratulations to the 2011 Award Winners!

Outstanding New York State Technology Leader Award

Mary Surdey

Vestal CSD

Vestal, NY

Mary Surdey, Assistant Superintendent for Instruction at Vestal Central School District, has been a clear example of leadership, and dedicated to instruction and the integration of technology within the district; keeping forefront the needs of students and the vision for technology to support the teaching and learning process.

As chair of the VCSD Technology Committee, Mary leads a diverse team of instructional representatives in the development and oversight of the district five-year technology plan. This plan, currently in its fifth year, has put the district in a place where technology is stable, state of the art, and embraced as a required tool to support instruction. Teachers now have a myriad of technical resources and professional development to attain the goal of a connected, aligned, and integrated technology support structure.

Mary has been instrumental in instructional goal and strategy planning for the district, as well as the development and oversight of professional development within the district. Currently, Mary is working with the District Technology Committee, Administration, and the Board of Education to develop stakeholder and financial support for the next five-year District Technology Plan. This plan will continue the great strides made within the district supporting instructional technology.

Lee Bryant Outstanding Teacher Award

Shannon Mersand

Pawling CSd

Pawling, NY

Shannon Mersand has been the Library Media Specialist at Pawling High School for almost four years. She has been instrumental in assisting the District in providing students and teachers opportunities to develop essential skills for the 21^st Century. The library at Pawling is truly a learning hub. At any time of the day the library is either filled with students conducting research, or studying, or Mrs. Mersand is either co-teaching a class with a content area teacher or working with her own class. Students and teachers flock to the library because of the environment that has been created and sustained by Mrs. Mersand.

Mrs. Mersand has redesigned the physical space of the library and has updated the available databases. She has brought new technology into the library including a Smartboard and a laptop cart. It is not unusual to see every seat in the library filled with students using the available technology to conduct research, to create spreadsheets, to create presentations for classes, to conduct research, and for numerous other reasons; Mrs. Mersand can be seen guiding them in their efforts. Student usage of the library has increased since Mrs. Mersand has taken charge and the quality of students’ work has improved. Students show a greater focus and dedication to their work since Shannon has been heading the library and Shannon Mersand was the first teacher in Pawling to develop a hybrid course. Using the Moodle platform, she created a research course that allowed students to function independently while having a home base for support. She is now co-teaching with several content area teachers who are incorporating on-line components into their courses. To her credit, even 30-year veterans are dabbling in on-line venues because she has made the experience interesting and available to them.     

Mrs. Mersand is truly a lifelong learner who is willing to take risks to grow professionally. She has participated in two grant funded summer professional development experiences and has brought her new knowledge and skills back to share with colleagues and with students in her classes. She has provided professional development for her colleagues on a variety of technology related topics including Website Design, Word, Excel, Google.docs, Powerpoint, and Smartboard. She taught teachers how to use the technology and assisted them in integrating the technology into their instruction. Mrs. Mersand takes the initiative to learn the newest tools; most recently she taught herself to use Prezi and conducted a workshop on the topic on a recent Superintendent’s Conference Day. Teachers flock to the workshops that she offers as students flock to the library. The evaluations of her workshops have always been excellent.

Congratulations to the 2011 Grant Winners!

Alex Finsel

North Colonie CSD

Latham, NY

Grant Title: Real-Time Data Collection, Analysis, and Decision Making Technology in Social Studies

John Borden

Hamburg CSD

Hamburg, NY

Grant Title: iPad2 Presents…UPES TV

Lauren Ormsby & Karen Kondrick

Ripley CSD

Ripley, NY

Grant Title: Technology Integration: Empowering Student Participation in Learning

Ron Weber

Amityville CSD

Amityville, NY

Grant Title: Friday Morning Video Announcements: Strategies for Learning

Dawn Essig, Tim Molon, and Mary Talleur

Spackenkill Schools

Poughkeepsie, NY

Grant Title: Sports Mania

Linda Dwyer

North Syracuse CSD

Cicero, NY

Grant Title: iPads for the 21^st Century