For the first time this year, the Learning Counsel gave out individual EduJedi awards for teachers. In this Teacher Awards Spotlight panel discussion, three of our teacher winners shared comments about their year.

Adept Winner Aimee Copple, Media Director & Technology Specialist at Redbud Elementary at Edmond Public Schools said, “So much changed. It just became, so like in the moment, things changed so quickly, plans had to change minute to minute sometimes. There was so much grace. I think it, it gave people a lot of perspective into how adaptable educators and children are in school, even as before all this happened. We changed our plans on a minute’s notice, and that just became more evident as it happened more and more in the last year.”

Ace Winner Denise Griffin, Special Education Teacher at Southmoore High School in the Moore Public School District said, “I'm not really fond of the shift for me and my students, but we have adapted. I'm just glad my kids are back in class because distance learning and virtual learning was not successful for us. My students cannot access technology independently, so they had to have a family member or a caretaker help them. And it was difficult for everybody to accept and do, but we did the best we could. I communicate all the time with my parents. So that really didn't change. Whether it's through emails, text messages or their daily notebooks, if they're in person, I just found that I had to advocate more for my students and their needs related to technology.”

Adept Winner Lauralee R. Milberger, Third Grade Teacher at Highlands Elementary School in the Highlands School District said, “I like the one on one that I could do with a student. If somebody was struggling, I could still do it in the classroom, but it was more, I was able to do it more online and have small groups, one on ones. See what they're working on. I just found it amazing, the amount of technology and what it could do and what it could become. And my funniest story was that I realized how much my third graders actually knew about our technology. We always assume that they can't do it.  I had one student that knew enough to get on a different device and came into my breakout room or into my classroom as the principal, just didn't put his face on there. And I thought the principal was there the whole time. And here it was the student. He just didn't say anything, but he ended up getting caught in another class because he told the teacher that if she didn't share the screen, he was gonna fire her and then they researched it and found out that it was him. So that's my funny story about technology and how good students are.”

Get it straight from the teacher’s point of view, the good, the bad, and the funny. It has been quite a year, and these award-winning teachers really tell it like it is,