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"Lena is an excellent classroom, technology coordinator
and teacher trainer. She is one of the lead teachers in the
State of Hawaii in Internet and telecommunication
education. Vicky Kajioka, E-School Director "As a longtime colleague in the school and more recently
as a teammate in our library/computer lab Media Center, I
have had the unique opportunity to watch and marvel at her
untiring efforts to integrate technology into the
curriculum. Her ability to motivate students and teachers is
perhaps Lena's greatest single asset. Harry Kubo, Enchanted
Lake Elementary Librarian She conducts workshops for teachers at Enchanted Lake
Elementary School as well as across the State of Hawaii. She
has facilitated numerous technology presentations: Edtech,
Hern, Kona, Leeward, and Windward District conferences. She
has initiated five Internet global projects, "One Planet,
One People," "Rainbow Partners," "Project Lokahi," and, most
recently, "Marsville"
and "Thinkquest
I and II." She has conducted classes for teachers on Web
Publishing,, implemented global Internet projects with
Canada, Italy, Japan and United States schools, and
integrated language arts, history, science, critical
thinking, art and technology using national standards and
benchmarks in her instructional practices and curriculum.
First, she models her instruction with her students, then
she mentors her colleagues in integrating technology in
their lesson design, and finally, she assists the teachers
in the computer lab in carrying out the lesson with theirs
students. She has trained all of the teachers and student in
our school to integrate technology into the curriculum. Dr. Gail Awakuni, principal, Campbell High
School As an educator in the field of technology, I consider
Lena Kanemori my mentor and my inspiration. At a time when
most of my energies were spent on fund raisers for our
school network, or on training students and teachers to: use
the Internet properly, or do multimedia projects, or do
video production, I still felt that there was something more
that needed to be done. So, in the summer of 1999, I took a
web publication class from Lena and after 3 days, I was
hooked. I couldn't stop creating! Following the class, I
spent several days developing web pages for my school
(Haha`ione), myself and family and I felt so empowered that
I wanted to share this excitement with the teachers and
students at my school. Miki St.Laurent - Haha`ione
School, Tech Coordinator, LAN Admin, STLC
Coordinator
Lena has developed curriculum and taught in the Hawaii
Department of Education Telecommunication
and Technology for Teachers (T3) Program for three
years. She was a member of the visionary team that
transformed T3 from a videoconference to a web-based,
interactive format. The program is designed to model best
practices in the integration of technology to support
student learning and prepares teacher leaders to infuse
appropriate technology into their lesson plans. Lena was
also part of the development team that planned and
implemented the first Hawaii Technology
Literacy Challenge Fund (TLCF) Summer Institute. She has
been an instructor for the TLCF Program that offers classes
to educators on the integration of the Internet and
technology into the curriculum.
As a teacher leader, Lena has been the driving force behind
innovative programs for students such as Project
Ahupua'a, NOx
Collaborative Project, Thinkquest,
Mars
Madness, Endangered
Species and the U.S. Department of Education 21st
Century Common Agenda Marsville Project with Hawaii and
Japan. In the Common Agenda Project, Lena was selected to be
a member of a team of educators representing Hawaii and the
United States in Japan. The project demonstrated the value
of the Internet and collaboration in education between the
two countries.
Lena has been invited to present at various conferences. Her
recent presentation includes the National School Boards
Association Western Regional Meeting, the National Science
Foundation Rural Systemic Initiative conference, Hawaii
Networked Learning Communities Conference, E-School
(Building a Community of Learners) Conference, Osaka Gakuin
Technology Conference and Maui Technology Conference.
An outstanding teacher, Lena is loved by her students and
their parents. She is respected and admired by her
colleagues."
In education, the classroom teacher needs to be moved to
action to bring about change. Slowly and methodically and in
some cases swiftly and surely, Lena has inspired and
empowered many teachers. The lessons ranged from large-scale
ones like the Great NOx Experiment, to parts of classroom
units of study, but all enhanced by computer technology. I,
myself owner of minimal computer skills just three years
ago, was able to to teach an Adult Education Beginning
ClarisWorks course for the past two summers, thanks to Lena'
modeling, tutelage and encouragement.
Dedicated to the urgency of technology know-how in all of
our lives, Lena is a visionary in her field. I feel thankful
and very fortunate working side by side with her."
A teacher of teachers, Mrs. Kanemori is an instructor in the
Technology
Telecommunication for Teachers Program. She has taught
instructional design strategies to incorporate performance
standards, assessment, and curriculum design, using E-mail,
Internet, multimedia, video and voice elements into
integrated units and projects. The participants design
standards-based Electronic School (virtual school)
courses.
As a facilitator for the U.S. Department of Education
Technology
Literacy Challenge Fund, Mrs. Kanemori trained teachers
in the Windward District to become Internet trainers for
their respective schools. These individuals trained teachers
and staff at their school in a train the trainer model. The
objectives for the training were to develop a common
understanding of telecommunication and technology; to become
competent users of Internet resources; to enhance teaching,
training and student achievement through the integration of
appropriate technology into the curriculum; to
articulate/share experiences and/or teaching practices and
to establish a collaborative network of educators.
As a community service, she teachers computer literacy
classes at our school during the summer through the Windward
School for Adults for the past two years. To further promote
family literacy, she has taken the leadership in persuading
a cadre of three other colleagues to teach computer classes,
e.g. Introduction to ClarisWorks, Introduction to the
Internet and Web Publishing.
Furthermore, she holds Internet Nights for families
throughout the school year so students have opportunities to
share their work with their parents. The students' products
are of superb quality .
Her other accomplishments include planning, organizing,a and
implementing the school's LAN
infrastructure and connectivity, establishing a business
partnership with Central Pacific Bank to obtain computers
for the lab, collaborating with the University of Hawaii
Institute for Marine Biology to develop a website and tow
work on science projects with her students, receiving
Invention convention district students finalists awards for
three consecutive years and conducting two Invention
workshops for educators.
Her ability to effectively teach students, teachers, and
parents, coupled with her continued quest for
self-improvement, reflects her commitment to excellence in
teaching. Our faculty is eager and receptive in embracing
the transition of incorporating technology into their
lessons by including project-based learning, virtual
classrooms through cyberspace, and student-centered
approaches to teaching and learning.
former Enchanted
Lake Elementary principal
Well, the timing couldn't have been better. In the Fall of
'99, I applied for and was awarded a $50,000
Title VI Grant for Project TEES (Technology Empowers
Educators and Students) which permitted me the opportunity
to: 1)train 22 teachers to develop a science lesson that
would be aligned to the new Hawaii Content Standards and 2)
publish it to the web. During this workshop, Lena provided
additional support by presenting a Powerpoint Presentation
on making rubrics to the participants, which greatly helped
them with their lessons. Aside from this, I was able to
encourage interested students from our student council to
become webmasters of the student council pages for our
school. These students felt so empowered that they eagerly
worked on their pages during their recesses and after
school.
During the summer of 2000, Lena once again encouraged me to
conduct a summer workshop for TLCF. I called it "Fun
with Multimedia". Because of my web pages, many
participants from this class wanted me to offer them a class
on web publication too. This is definitely something I plan
to offer to those interested sometime this year.
Since then, Lena has encouraged me to try "ThinkQuest" this
year... something that I have been thinking about for a
year. Needless to say, that as long as Lena is around, she
never ceases to encourage, motivate and inspire. She is
truly a professional educator in every sense of the word,
deserving of this award!