The Sonora Team left Northwest Arkansas on Tuesday, July 8th to travel to Redlands, California- home to Esri. Esri's campus is absolutely breathtaking, with much attention to detail.
This is the building where we have spent most of our time.
The campus and buildings are set up to create opportunities for employees to have multiple, short networking encounters over the course of the day. We have witnessed this on multiple occasions.
The Sonora presentation team, Rikki, Kylie, and Mr. Worthy are working 12 hour days (or longer) to fine-tune a 8-9 minute presentation highlighting 3 projects that Sonora EAST completed last year: Camp Alliance (business), Sonora Balloon (science/weather & math), and Sonora Mobile Library (literacy).
It is important to note that Rikki and Kylie are representing the work of several students 2nd-5th grade. Some of the tools used for these projects were Esri Software, specifically ArcMap and ArcGlobe. They then used "Story Map" to give a description their work.
We have been housed in a conference room for the last two days, with intermittent visits to an area with a practice stage. The script for their presentation has been edited multiple (and I do mean multiple) times. The Story Map has not been immune to those edits. Yet, this team continues to have a 'can-do" attitude, making any and all adjustments suggested.
Getting set up in the practice room
Camp Alliance Map
Balloon Launch Map
Mobile Library Map
Tomorrow, after another practice, the team will travel to San Diego, the site of the Esri User Conference. Continue to stay tuned ...
One last thing. Check out the introduction slide for Sonora at the Esri Conference!
It has been a LONG time since my last post. If you are another educator reading this you know that the spring semester going into summer is an extremely BUSY time! Yet, we have had SO much to celebrate that I truly didn't know where to start. I hope to get caught up.
To set the stage for this post, I need to take you back to a previous post (March 2013) for your to truly have perspective. That post was entitle Sonora heads EAST! Please take a moment to read it; otherwise, this blog won't really make any sense.
This year was our 3rd year in existence as Sonora Scholars. Wow! So, this was our 3rd year to attend the EAST Conference. Since you have read the first blog post (right?), I won't take the time to completely review the Founder's Award. Yet, for the 2nd year in a row and the 3rd year in existence, the Sonora Elementary EAST Program was a Founder's Award Finalist. We were also proud to be on the list with Springdale High School, our feeder high school.
This year we had 13 snow days, so our team even worked on a snow day throught the use of Google Chat our students "had class" on the 12th snow day. I was not able to completely participate because of our sound issues, but I was able to listen in. Matt Dozier, EAST CEO, even joined our team for a period of time! It truly was a learning experience; why does learning have to stop on a snow day?
As the year before, the students from Sonora, as well as from all the schools represented were amazing. I believe that some adults in the corporate world could learn a lesson from these young EAST students. The students share their work over the course of the year; they are also able to share the work of their peers. As mentioned previously the students select projects that will make an impact in their community. While doing so, they also learn how to work with clients, use technology to get the job done, and how to make modifications when things don't go as planned.
Pictures of the set-up process, including a picture of the business cards!
This year our students highlighted our Mobile Library (hope to be a future story), weather balloon, Camp Alliance Map Project, Sonora Elementary School App, Stop Motion Animation, Weather Station, and our Summer Camp.
The night of the awards ceremony is always a special event. This year our students (and program) shone bright once again. Three of our students received first place in the video competition sponsored by the University of Arkansas at Little Rock's Mass Communication Department. Congratulations to Josh, Cayden, and Rikki! Also, for the third year in a row our program at Sonora Elementary received Superior Ratings. Thanks to Landon for accepting that award on the behalf of all EAST students. We were where we had been the year before ... sitting in a room of about 1,500 EAST students, facilitators, and special guests. We were thrilled to be nominated for a second time, as we knew that the other programs were nominated were STRONG programs. So, we were just going to celebrate the night.
Yet, this year was different ... Sonora Elementary EAST was announced as the EAST Founder's Winner for the 2014 school year!
While watching the video showing the announcement of the Founder's Award to prepare for this post, I still tear up. When Madison Haskins says, "youngest ever award winner ever", Mr. Worthy and I turned to each other. I have no idea what we said, but we knew - AND- we were amazed at what our students had accomplished. When watching the video, you will notice the pause before Rikki and Kylie come to the stage. The kids were in tears, as the year before, but a completely different set of emotions was behind these tears. I truly cannot explain the feeling! Please take a moment to watch Kylie and Rikki as they wow the conference attendees! There two young ladies (4th graders!) did what most adults are terrified to do - address a live audience! Again, these students amaze me every day!
Click here to view the video if viewing from a mobile device.
Har-Ber High School was able to pass the torch to us because they had won the Founder's Award in 2013. It was a treat to have them be able to announce our award, and celebrate with us on stage right after the announcement.
When we returned to school we were all still in shock, but we knew that we needed to have a celebration for everyone because even though 8 students attended the conference they represent over 100 2nd - 5th grade students from Sonora. Those students needed their due recognition. So, on April 25th we had a school-wide celebration. To help us celebrate our Mayor, Mr. Doug Sprouse, attended to proclaim that April 25th, 2014 as Sonora Elementary EAST Day! The students also received EAST medals for all EAST participants, and participated in a small reception. We were honored to have parents and district administration attend the celebration.
Sonora Elementary EAST Day Proclamation
Dr. Rollins, Springdale Schools Superintendent, with EAST Students on April 25th, Sonora Elementary EAST Day!
As I said at the beginning of this post, it has been a long time. A lot has happened. This is just the beginning of the story. Tuesday of this week (July 8th) Mr. Worthy, myself, Mrs. Vaughan, Rikki, Kylie and my daughter, Peyton (who is a Har-Ber EAST Student) will leave for California. We will be representing Sonora Elementary EAST, Sonora Elementary, Springdale School, and Arkansas at the Esri Use Conference! Mr. Charlie Fitzpatrick, ESRI Schools Program Manager, proposed that our program present at the Esri International Conference in San Diego, CA.
The EsriConference is an annual collection of about 15,000 Geographic Information System (GIS) users from around the world. About 80% of attendees are from North America, about 20% natively speak a language other than English, and usually about 35% are at their first Esri Conference. Our students will be one of the opeing presentations!
