Staff Writer
New Sweden technology teacher Ernie Easter was recently declared educator of the year runner-up by the Association of Computer Technology Educators of Maine (ACTEM) at the annual ACTEM banquet. Easter was nominated for educator of the year by nationally recognized speaker Vicki Davis of the Westwood Schools in Camilla, Georgia.
“In my opinion,” she said, “he is a great example of an educator who has migrated his practice into the 21 Century in practical ways that improve his classroom.”
Not only has Easter been up for an award, his efforts have lead to his students to be nominated for an Edublog award for best educational use of a social networking site.
Easter and his students put together a ning Web site about the holocaust. A ning is a social networking site; Easter’s class’ Web page can be found at http://meholocausteducation.ning.com.
The students in Easter’s class were assigned special homework on Friday; they were to go home and vote for their Web page to win the Edublog award.
“This site was put together by my seventh and eighth grade students and myself,” said Easter, “the purpose of our site is students and educators sharing and collaborating with each other in order to understand the Holocaust and work toward preventing future holocausts, genocides, and other human rights atrocities.”
“It’s amazing how involved the students became with the page,” Easter added, “it’s given them a chance to share their work.”
The site has drawn the attention of not only teachers and educators worldwide, but also a Holocaust survivor, Pierre Berg, who has been able to interact with Easter’s students about the Holocaust.
“He’s been speaking back and fourth with my students since last spring about his experiences,” Easter said, “we’re trying to get other classes into the site, I’ve got a group in England that’s interested, a group in PA, and a group in Australia that are interested in having their classes join and beginning to have discussions on some of these issues.”
Students of Easter’s classes have also been involved with the creation of a Web page devoted to New Sweden: http://swedishcolony.mainememory.net.
