Charlene Chausis - 2007 ISTE Outstanding Teacher of the Year
Charlene Chausis, technology training and integration manager at Stevenson High School in Lincolnshire, Ill. was nominated by Illinois Computing Educators for her positive impact on technology use in education in her district and beyond. Chausis provides teacher and staff development for educational uses of technology. She’s known for consistently going above and beyond her job responsibilities, implementing creative and innovative programs to encourage the use of technology among her district’s teachers and staff.
Charlene Chausis has made a positive impact on technology use in education, not only within Adlai E. Stevenson High School District 125 (a 1-school district with a population of 4,500 students and 500 staff members), but throughout the world. In 1998 she was invited to represent the United States as a panelist for an education conference in Ankara, Turkey. She spoke to a banquet hall full of Turkish educators about the Apple Classroom of Tomorrow (ACOT) model for professional development and educational uses of technology in American schools.
Charlene was also named an Apple Distinguished Educator (ADE) in 2003. As a result of this experience, she has had the opportunity to collaborate with a network of more than 600 passionate educators from the USA, Canada, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Latin America, and Asia.
Ms. Chausis has been recognized by the Discovery Educators Network (DEN) as one of their featured Educators of the Week. Discovery Education understandably recognized the value of Charlene’s “Staff Development Super Site”, not only to educators in her district, region, and state, but to educators around the world. The materials she shares freely with educators across the globe reveal the tremendous scope and depth of her expertise and impact on technology use in education.
Charlene’s most recent initiative involving the community involves her mentoring of Stevenson High School District 125’s Advanced Placement Geography teachers, whose students are planning the 50th anniversary celebration of the village of Hawthorn Woods (a village within School District 125’s boundaries). Charlene is assisting both teachers and students as they conduct interviews with residents and community leaders in order to produce podcasts, multi-media presentations and video vignettes about the community’s growth. Charlene is also collaborating with Western Illinois University to establish and co-host the August “Summer Experience North”—a two-day professional development workshop for educators throughout northern Illinois.
Also, Charlene has been actively involved with staff development for Lake County Special Education (SEDOL) physical education teachers as they develop an adaptive physical education program in conjunction with Stevenson’s PEP Grant administrator, Gina Johnson. Additionally, Charlene assists the district's Parent Association (PPA) webmaster with monthly updates to the PPA website, and works closely with the School Business Liaison to help establish distance learning opportunities for career exploration.
Ms. Chausis consistently goes “above and beyond” the scope of her job description to improve the quality of education within her district. In addition to providing staff development for educational uses of technology (her primary role as her district’s Technology Trainer), she is a member of the Research Skills Committee and serves on the Administrative Technology Oversight Committee. On a monthly basis she shares information about Stevenson’s efforts in technology integration projects, such as the school’s PowerRanger program (a staff development initiative involving mobile computing), the school’s staff development lab, mobile instructional labs, and minimum technology competencies, to visitors from schools across the country. In addition to these efforts, two years ago Charlene became the manager of instructional software ordering for the district. Outside of her expected responsibilities as Stevenson’s Technology Trainer, she somehow manages to find time to work closely with division directors and curricular teams to evaluate both software and hardware purchases.
When Charlene goes home after a long day of going “above and beyond” to
improve the quality of education in her district, she models the actions of a life-long learner by sitting down to read through the many blogs to which she subscribes, including those from such “educational technology gurus” as David Warlick, Will Richardson, Wes Fryer, Steve Dembo, and others. This helps her to stay abreast of emerging technologies, so that she may then share new integrations strategies with her district’s teachers and administrators, as well as educators throughout the world via her blog and “Staff Development Super Site.
|
