The San Diego-based Classroom of the Future Foundation (CFF) will honor a number of innovative San Diego County education 
initiatives at its awards dinner, May 22 at the University of San Diego. It comes on the 10th anniversary of the Innovation in Education Awards Program.
Each year the Foundation focuses on education technology initiatives that create significant learning impact, are innovative, become inspirational, or significantly improve student achievement. Programs are honored at the dinner and featured on the Foundation’s new blog, blog.classroomofthefuture.org.
This year the Impact Award will be presented to the San Diego Unified School District for its district-wide commitment to incorporate 21st-century technology in the classroom. Interactive whiteboards, netbooks or iPads for all 130,000 students and other interconnected technologies are becoming the defining characteristics of the district’s five-year plan for its 7,000 classrooms. Dinner and Impact Award sponsor SDG&E will present a $10,000 check to San Diego Unified.
The Inspire Award will be given to Valhalla High School Digital Arts program. Its part of the school’s career technical education pathway in the arts, media and entertainment, modeled after video games and gaming in a classroom setting dubbed “MacLab.” Award sponsor Qualcomm will present $5,000 to Valhalla.
The San Marcos Unified School District will receive the Innovate Award for utilizing web-conferences to cost-effectively provide professional development for its staff. The district’s 457 elementary teachers participate in the program that focuses on the California educations common core state standards. Award sponsor EDmin will present the $5,000 award.
The PRIDE Academy in the Santee Elementary School District will be honored for the second time, receiving the Achieve Award for converting the school year format in one that emphasizes continual project-based learning, teamwork, collaboration and the use for modern educational technology. The program won the Inspire Award in 2010 and now three years later, student achievement scores are increasing. The Achieve Award includes $5,000 from sponsor Mission Federal Credit Union.
In addition, Cajon Valley Middle School will receive an Inspire Honorable Mention Award for its creative writing program.
Innovate Honorable Mentions will be awarded to Riverview International Academy for its immersion education program and to Carmel Valley Middle School for its “flipped classrooms” where teacher lectures and presentations are delivered at home via online video and the school day is devoted to more to students doing the work that once was considered traditional homework.
Achieve Honorable Mentions will be awarded to Felicita School in Escondido for its use of iPod touches as learning tools for elementary students and to the Lemon Grove School District for transforming the content of its textbooks into interactive media.
The awards dinner also will feature $40,000 in scholarships provided by Jack in the Box and the USS Midway Museum to AVID scholars.
For more information about the awards program, Classroom of the Future or its blog, contact executive director Bruce Braciszewski, at (858) 292-3685.