2022 Unruliest Educator Awards

It’s the most Unruly time of the year! Our Unruly Educators are always impressing us as they continue to be UNSTOPPABLE. They never skip a beat…even if sometimes they really want to. Take a look at the 2022 nominees and join us in celebrating their accomplishments by casting a vote for your favorites. 

Most Resilient Educator

Maureen Armour - K-6 Literacy Teacher, Nova Scotia 

Maureen’s glowing positivity is contagious. She is always looking for new, creative ways to embed play, FUN, and code into her school day! See what we mean in this webinar recording here.  

‍

Marty Cryer - Tech Educator, ME

She’s always innovating and asking questions. Last year she used Splats in a large group while still adhering to strict COVID-safety measures and this year she’s modifying code to ensure her students continue to get the best experience. 

‍

Ashley Fort - Digital Learning Coach, SC

Ashley is always innovating—creating her own lesson templates, building resources—in order to meet the needs of her students and fellow teachers. Even when plans don’t go her way, she makes the best of it!

‍

Michael Fricano - Technology Integration Specialist, HI

Michael is a dedicated STEM teacher who makes sure his students experience a range of computer science. This year his school was a fierce competitor in The Get Active Coding Challenge!

Peggy Harvey - Tech Educator, MA

As a 1st-time user during HOC, Peggy dealt with a number of technical challenges, but she persisted. She made excellent materials for the students and worked to get teachers involved.

David Kober - PE Teacher, IL 

During peak COVID, David taught PE remotely and upon returning to school, spent a lot of time pushing into classrooms. The MOMENT he got to use Splats in the gym again, he had his students stomping and coding up a storm! 

Danielle Steger - STEM Educator, HI

Danielle. Is. Awesome. She loves using her Splats with her students and bringing some Unruliness to their days.

Angela Towner Mertz - Administrator/IT Specialist/Tech Educator, AZ

During The Get Active Coding Challenge, Angela’s school needed replacement Splats (way to stomp!!!) so they shifted their focus to code blocks and won 1st place!

Unruliest Advocate 

Maureen Armour - K-6 Literacy Teacher, Nova Scotia 

Maureen is the first to dive into anything Unruly! She competes in all our community challenges and makes sure to Tweet her student's progress. 

Delia Bush - STEM Educator, MI

Delia dove into Splats this past computer science week and shared her progress along the way. She got everyone jumping for code — including the assistant principal! 

Christine Danhoff - Tech Integration Specialist, OH

Christine is always interacting in the forum, sharing her school’s Unruly experiences, and trying new games posted in the forum. She even created some game cards to go along with a forum game: Pet Pandemonium!

Erin Fauteux - Principal, MA

Erin and READS Collaborative are strong advocates of Unruly! Their school was used as the location for filming scenes for The Get Active Coding Challenge and it was clear that they’ve made Splats a routine part of their school week!

Cindy Nickodam - District-Level Specialist, VA

Cindy is always looking to take the competition to the next level by getting more and more members of her school community involved. Check out the mother vs son Race in Place duel. 

Lori Smith - STEM Educator, CO

Lori Smith is a longtime user of Splats and is a pro at integrating Splats with other tech resources in order to give her students the most comprehensive learning experiences. 

Alexa Sorden - Founding Principal, NY

Defending champ of the 2021 Unruliest Advocate, Alexa is willing to share her love for Splats and how it has benefited her school. Hear from Alexa in this panel recording about play supporting student learning and wellbeing here. 

Angela Towner Mertz - Administrator/IT Specialist/Tech Educator, AZ

Her school of 34 kids pack a powerful punch! Her kids came in 1st for Code Blocks during Go Bananas! And she’s been a huge advocate of Splats to everyone she knows!

Melanie Zukeran - First Grade Teacher, HI 

Melanie is the pioneer of Splats at her school. She is a stellar example of how to use Splats throughout the school day. Check out her students reviewing math here. 

Unruliest Library Media Specialist 

Angela Brown - Librarian & Information Literacy Specialist, TX

Angela is always up for a challenge! She led her school to victory during the Go Bananas! back-to-school coding competition with a total of 163,425 yellow-lit stomps. 

Tyllie Corbin - Library Media Specialist, IA

Tyllie helped her students get into the holiday spirit by taking on the challenge of coding Jingle Bells with our music sound blocks. This was something that was new to her but a challenge that she took head-on!

Deb Dixon - Library Media Specialist, MA

Deb Dixon is always looking for how to make her library media classes more engaging. This year, her students stomped their way to the top of the leaderboard during Hour of Code! She was also using Splats as engagement tools for read-aloud and having her students stomp for sound effects during storytime. 

Karen Earp - Library Media Specialist, MD 

Karen was so excited to bring Splats to the library as a way to introduce kids to coding! We love hearing all the fun ways she is incorporating Splats.

Shannon Miller - Library Media Specialist, IA

Defending champ of the 2021 Unruliest Library Media Specialist, Shannon is always searching for new ways to embed FUN and STEM into her learning objectives. 

Holly Nelson -  Library Media Specialist, MN

Holly truly believes in the ability of Splats to make learning fun and teach important computer science skills! She created a Girls Who Code club in her school, hosts a family STEM night, and wants to improve computer science education for the students of Minnesota.

Laura Peura - Library Media Specialist, MA

Laura dove right into HOC and helped lead Somerville to the win with 293,790 stomps!

Lynda Schmidt -  Library Media Specialist, NH

Lynda is a new user and has faced some technical issues. She kept with it and got her students fully engaged during HOC. She has the willingness to learn and try new things that are such valuable qualities in a teacher!

Unruliest PE Teacher 

Daniel Jersey (Coach Jersey) - PE Teacher, TN

Coach Jersey is new to Splats but did not hesitate to jump right in with his PE class. He had students running up the tally for Stomps with Race in Place! 

Kevin Napier - Health & PE Teacher, VA

Defending champ of the 2021 Unruliest PE Teacher Award. Kevin uses Splats during stations in his PE lessons to encourage engagement from all his students. 

John Pair - PE Teacher, TN

John brought the stomping to his PE classes with enthusiasm and got his students moving in fun and engaging ways!

Stephen Ranni - PE Teacher, Nova Scotia

Even after moving schools, Steve continues to find new and innovative ways to bring Splats into PE. Most recently Steve and his students were Stomping away during the HOC Get Active Coding Challenge!  

Laura Wilson - PE Teacher, Nova Scotia

Laura is always looking for new ways to incorporate STEM into her PE classes and she has been a leader at this with Splats in her district in Nova Scotia! This year, she ran PD sessions to teach other PE teachers how to use Splats in their PE classes and they all loved it! Way to go, Coach Wilson! 

Additional Nominees:

David Kober - PE Teacher, IL

Most Innovative Educator 

Nick Baskwill - Department of Education, Nova Scotia 

Nick took an idea of implementing CS/STEM education not just in PE but throughout entire schools. He works tirelessly to continue to impact not just a few students, but every Elementary and Middle School student throughout Nova Scotia with his efforts in STEM education.

Katie Beard - Math Specialist, OH

Katie is constantly working to come up with new ideas for how to incorporate computer science and fun into the math classrooms in her district! 

Veronica Estrada - Math Specialist, FL

Veronica has been working with the Unruly team and her staff to create math activities for a flipped classroom idea! 

Erin Fauteux - Principal, MA

Erin is always putting her students first. This year, she’s been really focused on student engagement and social and emotional learning. She was using surveys to track student engagement data daily and using Splats as part of their effort to increase those numbers. They hit their highest engagement numbers yet during the 2021 year! 

Chelsea Holdsworth - Special Education Teacher, MA

Chelsea is crushing it in her first few years of teaching! She works hard to make sure her students with learning disabilities have access to high-quality learning resources like Splats! Go, Chelsea!

Grant Toyooka - Computer Science Support Resource Teacher, HI

Grant is always looking to get more students and educators involved with Splats. He cannot help but join in on the fun and even will occasionally lead Splats sessions with the Kindergarten classes in his complex.

Additional Nominees:

Kevin Napier - Health & PE Teacher, VA

Unruliest Newcomer

‍

Nicole Dibiase - STEM Educator, NY

As a new user, Nicole dove right into HOC. She partnered with the PE teacher to bring STEM and exercise to her students.

Nancy Penchev - STEM Educator, FL

Nancy has started off using her Splats membership with a bang! She is finding lots of different ways to integrate them into her lessons and share them with other educators around the school. 

Charles Young - STEM Educator, GA

Carrollton was onboarded just in time for The Get Active Coding Challenge, and Charles helped lead his school to the top three in stomps! We can’t wait to see what else Charles does with Splats!

‍

Additional Nominees:

Karen Earp - Library Media Specialist, MD

Peggy Harvey - Tech Educator, MA

Daniel Jersey (Coach Jersey) - PE Teacher, TN

Lynda Schmidt -  Library Media Specialist, NH

Danielle Steger - STEM Educator, HI

Now that you have seen all the talent the Unruly Community holds, you can vote for your top picks here. Voting ends on Monday, January 17th so invite your friends, family, and colleagues ASAP!

The winners of the 2022 Unruly Educator Awards will be announced at the end of the month (LIVE) on Twitter! There will be trivia, prizes, and surprises for EVERYONE! Stay tuned for details, you won’t want to miss it! 

A final congratulations to all the nominees and let the voting begin! 🎉