A WritingFix Sponsor: Our 2008 'iPod Grant'
a generous sponsor helps fund a workshop that builds a popular on-line resource

Meet Joe Elcano, a Northern Nevada Writing Project Consultant since 1993. Joe retired in June of 2010 after a long and productive career as a teacher, then an administrator, and finally as a department head for Washoe County's Technology Department.

In retirement, Joe continues to be a passionate voice for bridging the gap between teachers and students through the use of technology. If you ever have the opportunity to hear Joe speak, take it.

Back in November of 2007, Joe was giving out iPods as "door prizes" to lucky random teachers who attended his motivational talks about technology. After WritingFix webmaster, Corbett Harrison, won one of these iPods, he approached Joe and asked, "So if the NNWP sponsored a workshop where teachers attended and designed an iPod-inspired writing lesson that could be posted at WritingFix, how many iPods could you give us to give away?"

Turns out Joe was pretty responsive to that idea. Ultimately, his department ended up purchasing and donating 100 iPods to teachers who took the iPods Across the Curriculum Workshop we offered five times during the spring of 2008 and the fall of 2009. The class continues to be offered annually in Northern Nevada, and though we are no longer giving out iPods to attendees, the class remains very popular and well-received by our teachers. Several lessons from the course have also been presented at a number of National Conferences by Nevada teachers who both took and taught the original workshop.

Who got invited to attend and earn an iPod? Because we were looking for top-notch lesson ideas from the class's first one-hundred attendees, we sent initial invitations to teachers who were also consultants for the Northern Nevada Writing Project. Following that, we welcomed local educators involved in our local Teaching American History Project and the NWRPDP's Student Learning Facilitator Program. These three programs provided more than enough teachers who were excited to learn new ways to design lessons that centered on an iPod's use so they could submit an original lesson as part of the class requirement.

The original presenters at the first class session were: Yvette Deighton, Joe Elcano, Corbett Harrison, Dena Harrison, Rob Stone, Amy Richards, and Tamara Turnbeaugh. Rob Stone, a high school Language Arts and social studies teacher, agreed to take over as head facilitator after the first of the classes, and as new lessons were posted at the website, new teachers were asked to present their lessons at future sessions.

By December of 2009, WritingFix's iPods Across the Curriculum Resource Page had taken a solid shape, featuring over forty of the very best lessons we received from the class's participants. The page continues to inspire teachers to use songs and podcasts as mentor texts when designing writing across the curriculum lessons.

We expect the resource page built from this on-going class to continue to grow. We continue to thank the great Joe Elcano for helping us make this project happen.

Interested in sponsoring a WritingFix Workshop? Your corporation or business's name will be placed on all model lessons created for the workshop as well as all teacher-created lessons posted from the workshops' participants. Contact the NNWP if interested us building new resources for educators and classrooms.