POLAND – Karen Fancher went to Poland Regional High School’s auditorium Wednesday for a senior class assembly.

Geraldine Crocker thought she was there to hear a student’s speech about voting.

Cari Medd was told that Gov. John Baldacci wanted to talk with her.

Instead, the three teachers found themselves in the middle of a standing ovation, wide-eyed and clutching a $10,000 award from National Semiconductor.

“We won? We won!” Medd shouted, throwing her arms around her co-workers.

Presented every year to teachers in Maine, California and Texas, National Semiconductor’s Internet Innovator Award honors 10 educators who have successfully integrated the Internet into a unique classroom project or lesson.

Last spring, Medd, Crocker and Fancher submitted their ninth-graders’ historic architecture project, which catalogued the historic homes of Poland, Minot and Mechanic Falls.

Students studied architecture, history, geometry and technology and created a public Web site to provide a virtual tour of some of the area’s oldest houses.

Their students’ overwhelming passion for the project told the three Poland teachers that their venture was successful.

“It’s the best thing I’ve ever done as a teacher,” said Medd, a humanities teacher.

They applied for an award from the computer chip manufacturer knowing that the winning school would get a $4,000 grant for staff technology training and the winning teacher or team of teachers would receive $10,000 to spend any way they wanted.

But they never really thought they would win.

Medd, whose grandmother died recently, almost didn’t show up for the assembly. It took an urgent evening phone call from Principal Derek Pierce to get her to school that morning.

“He said John Baldacci was coming to talk to us personally about education,” Medd said.

Instead, National Semiconductor Planning Manager Steve Robinson, a Poland selectman, called the trio on stage. Amid thunderous applause from students and faculty, Robinson presented each with a small glass globe and $10,000 to split three ways.

“I was stunned,” said Crocker, who was Poland’s media specialist last year but who now works for the state’s Gates Foundation grant project.

All three teachers credited students for the success.

“They will do what you ask them to do,” said Fancher, a math teacher. “Raise the bar and they will meet it.”

Crocker and Medd said they weren’t sure what they would do with their share of the $10,000. Fancher plans to pay some bills.

And there may be some celebration with the students who made the award possible.

“We’ll have to do something for them,” Fancher said.

Four Maine projects won Internet Innovator awards this year. A Yarmouth High School teacher found out early Wednesday that he was a winner. Two others will be surprised this week or next.

ltice@sunjournal.com

Copy the Story Link