| 6 | contents | Newsletter: Summer 2000 |
Sally Smith
Nick Packard and Sally Smith judged this year's competition
Picking the 'best' from all the articles published by MAPE during 1998 was no mean feat! In total we read over 50 articles, tackling a broad range of issues (and an even broader range of interesting and creative solutions) related to the use of ICT with primary age children. Being judges gave us the perfect excuse to really pore over all this work, and we would like to thank everyone who submitted articles to MAPE Publications last year.
In the end, we chose 'Putting Hyperstudio to the test' by Steve Bailey as the winner of the Chris Robson Memorial Prize for 1998. As the ICT Coordinator of Paulton Junior School, Steve took on an ambitious project - the development of a 'Computer Prospectus' for the school using the multimedia program, Hyperstudio. This project allowed members of the whole school to get involved, it spanned age groups, types of software, abilities and interests, and it had a real purpose and a real audience to cater for.
If the time and effort involved in putting the whole thing together wasn't enough, Steve then wrote an article describing the project, from conception to presentation, for the MAPE Focus on Art Pack, published during the Summer of 1998. There were plenty of 'gems' in this piece, little teaching points, organisational tips, potential pit-falls and their solutions that might help other MAPE readers to learn from his experiences.
Well done and thanks, Steve!
As last year's winner of the prize I know the encouragement it can give to a classroom teacher and I offer my congratulations to Steve. Reading his article I felt I could use his ideas in my school. Reading a whole year's articles in a short period of time has given me a wealth of ideas and renewed an enthusiasm for ICT. Discovering what others have been doing in their classrooms is a special encouragement. With the literacy and numeracy strategies dominating our thoughts it is especially interesting to have ideas from other teachers to use in our classrooms, so whatever ICT is happening in your room we would like to hear (you never know you might become a prize winner).
The Chris Robson Memorial Prize (£200) is awarded annually to the writer of the best article on classroom practice from the previous year's publications. It commemorates a former publications editor and MAPE stalwart, Chris Robson, who died of breast cancer in 1995.