School strategist arrives with excellence award

      Annette Allen may be new to the Clark County School District, but the former Ohio third-grade teacher comes to Las Vegas with honors and a desire to close the gap in education and technology.
      Allen is the recipient of the 1998 Midwestern regional Excellence in Teaching Award from the National Council of Negro Women. She was honored with five other regional winners and one national winner at a ceremony in Washington D.C. on Sept. 11.
      Teacola Offutt, principal at the Orchard School in Cleveland, where Allen taught third grade, nominated her for the award because of her work in integrating computer technology into the classroom.
      "She's an outstanding teacher," Offutt said. "I nominated her because she does everything beautifully."
      Offutt said in one year, Allen was able to build a state-of-the-art computer lab at the Orchard School with the help of grants, and quickly had pupils doing programming and creating multimedia presentations and reports. Allen also held computer training sessions for teachers.
      "Whatever we wanted, she was there to help," Offutt said. "She's very quiet and soft spoken. It makes them (pupils) listen that much harder. They just love her."
      Allen was recently hired as an educational computer strategist in the Clark County School District to assist teachers in integrating technology into the curriculum. She will be based at Lunt Elementary School.
      "I always knew I wanted to teach. I guess I was a teacher at 7 years old, and I grew up in a community where there were a lot of children," said Allen, who came from a family of 14. "And I guess because I liked it so much, I started teaching the neighborhood kids."
      Following her passion, Allen received a bachelor's degree in elementary education from Bowling Green State University in Cleveland and a master's degree in curriculum with specialization in science and technology from Cleveland University. She also is near completion of a master's degree in computer studies in education. Allen received her first full-time position in the Cleveland Public School District.
      The 44-year-old, who now resides in the Northwest with her husband, Rod, has been teaching for 16 years.
      Allen said she hopes to see more pupils using the Internet and video conferencing to share class projects with other schools in the future.
      "I think it really enhances the curriculum and gets kids so motivated and excited about learning," she said, adding she doesn't think children should be allowed to access the Internet without a teacher's supervision.
      "Once you give the them the basic skills, those third-graders learn faster than an adult," she said. "They were teaching me things I didn't know. Las Vegas is an exciting place. I've never been away from home, so this is new for me.
      "I know the demand for teachers is so great. At the same time, I wanted to be where all the technology was."
      Sponsored by Shell Oil Co., the Excellence in Teaching Award pays tribute to the legacy of the National Council of Negro Women founder, Mary McLeod Bethune, by honoring teachers for their tireless efforts on behalf of black youth. Bethune founded the organization on Dec. 5, 1935, in an effort to unite a wide range of national organizations of black women and provide the women with broad leadership, as they increasingly integrated in the spiritual, social, economic, cultural and political life of America. The council presently has about 65,000 members.