I love the stamps on the envelope of Kevin's letter from Massachusetts. Here is the letter of support for my National Board Certification candidacy from Kevin:
It is with great pleasure that I write in support of Maria Angala in her role as a collaborator and a leader in the field of education. Maria and I are both members of the National Writing Project, and we are both technology liaisons. We first met each other through email, after admiring the work being done by the other to help support other teachers at our writing project sites and our students in the classroom.
Early on, Maria and I decided that we would like to connect our classrooms to some manner that we wanted technology to do so. After finally meeting in person at a National Writing Project meeting, Maria and I came up with a plan to use a weblog space at a CyberPal Project. Students from my suburban town in Massachusetts began writing and sharing ideas with maria's students in Washington DC. They wrote poems, created podcasts and shared pictures through the weblog site that Maria and I collaborated and created.
Meanwhile, Maria and I were working very closely together as a team to ensure the project was successful, and Maria's role as a leader and as a partner was exemplary. She is always pushing the boundaries for new tools that will bring teachers and students together in a meaningful way, without losing sight of the concept that technology is never the overriding factor for a project. Instead, technology is merely a means to get people to collaborate together.
Maria and I attended an advanced technology week in California this summer, where ahe gently encouraged me to begin my own personal weblog, and I did so, and I have since seen the power of a weblog reflection site in a new way, thanks to maria's encouragement. I also regularly view Maria's blogs as a resource for my classroom and as a source of inspiration.
Finally, it is clear through Maria's work with the Pinoy (Teachers) Network that she believes that she has a leadership role beyond her classroom. Her dedication to other teachers in that network is admirable, and she has been helping me find educators in the Pinoy (Teachers) Network who can join the Youth Radio project that I have begun this year.In every way, Maria is a leader and she deserves much recognition for her work.
Sincerely,
Kevin Hodgson
*** Please see the right sidebar here for more of my National Board Certification candidacy chronicles.
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