2023 Unruliest Educator Awards

It's the most wonderful time of the year! We're thrilled to announce our 2023 Unruly Educator Award nominees, who continue to amaze us with their unstoppable dedication and passion for innovation. Join us in celebrating their awesome, Unruli-ness and give them the recognition they deserve by voting for your favorite nominee listed below!

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Most Resilient Educator

Jeff Monteith - Extended Learning Program/AP Coordinator, New Hampton Elementary School

Staffing and schedule changes made it more difficult to stay engaged, but Jeff has managed to stay focused, introduce other teachers to Splats, and win one of the So You Think You Can Code categories

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Amanda Mangione - Grade 5 Teacher, Burton Ettinger Elementary School

Amanda is always encouraging her students to bring the heat to Unruly competitions. From winning the first Nova Scotia X Stomp Madness tournament to stepping up to lead PD sessions last minute, she never gives up! Check it out here!

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Manjiri Jakhadi - STEAM Teacher, Sunlake Academy

New to Splats this year, Manjiri jumped in without hesitation to introduce coding to her students in a new way. Even in the face of some tech issues, she used Splats for her observation and showed her students how fun computer science can be!

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Cathryne Nivin - Media Specialist, Axtell Elementary

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!

Unruliest Advocate 

Tasha Robichaux - STEM Teacher, Port Allen Middle School

Tasha, together with Alana Simoneaux (PE), hosted a Splats playground for other educators in Louisiana at the LACUE conference. She has also helped with Unruly webinars and shares her Splats expertise with the other Splats schools in West Baton Rouge Parish & the Unruly community. Check it out here!

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Brian Miller - K-7 STEAM Specialist, Norwayne Local Schools

Brian uses the Splats in his 5th Grade STEAM class. He also collaborates with the PE teacher for lessons in gym class, bringing computer science to a new area of the school!

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Amanda Ruhe- Dutchess Day School

Amanda lets her students lead the way by teaching her holder students how to make games that her younger students will play.

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Susan Oehlertz - Tech Integrationist, Pocahontas Area Community School

Susan uses the splats with her 5th and 6th grade students in their Computer Science classes. The older students create games for the little learners to play (K-1). She even does some cross curricular activities with her PE and Math teacher.

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Nykola Killam - Grade 4/5Teacher, Dr John C Wickwire Academy

Nykola always brings her best to the Unruly competitions and events each year and allows her students new opportunities to get Unruly! Most notably this year, she took some of her students to be interviewed by a local radio station for their So You Think You Can Code win. See here!

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Brandy Lee - Instructional Coach, Sunlake Academy

Brandy has led the Splats charge at Sunlake Academy this year, encouraging teachers to be innovative in their classrooms with Splats and also advocating for their needs. From onboarding to implementation, she has been a huge part of the Splats success at her school. Check it out here!

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Unruliest Library Media Specialist 

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Patty Authment - Oakshire Elementary School

New to Splats this year, Patty took Splats and ran with them! She got her students started with coding at 3-5th grade level and has them coding for students in the lower grades. She knows how to get her students engaged and excited about computer science.

Angela Brown - South Euless Elementary

Angela is not afraid to let her library get Unruly and to let her students get creative! She always gets the whole school excited about Unruly competitions and her students always bring their best efforts led by her.

Karen Earp - Children's Services Coordinator, Somerset County Public Schools

Karen is a Splat advocate of all Splat advocates. They host field trips for local schools and she speaks about Splats at different events throughout the year.

Holly Nelson - Kennedy Community School

Holly is focused on her students learning to create. She has them coding their own Unruly programs and participate in Unruly events throughout the year. Take a look here!

Diane Chen - Stratford STEM Magnet School

Diane is always striving to provide fun and engaging ways of interacting with computer science for the students in her school. She has brought together teachers from various subject areas to try Splats and leads the Girls Who Code club.

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Unruliest PE Teacher 

Nancy Rucks - Seminole Elementary

New to Splats this year, Nancy has embraced bringing new technology in her PE space and allowing her students to try something different. Her stomp numbers have been off the charts since introducing Splats to her students this winter!

Aaron Kinty - Central Elementary

Being new to Splats this year, Aaron did not hesitate to innovate his PE space by giving his students time to learn to code while also being active.

Erin Walters - Shannon Park Elementary

Erin is an Unruly advocate who encourages her students and other physical education teachers within her district to try something new!

Kyle Smith - Ross Road School

Kyle jumped right into Splats this year and hasn’t looked back since! His students competed fiercely in Stomp Madness 2023 and even took home a victory for coding a favorite original Splats game.

David Kober - Katie Harper Wright Elementary

David creates his own programs for students to use in PE class. He even came up with a way to mount Splats on the wall for a throwing game he created.

Richard Green - General Stanford Elementary

With the support of his teammates Iris Booker and Alex Bradshaw, Richard got his Unruly start in Stomp Madness 2023. His PE students achieved

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Most Innovative Educator 

Tasha Robichaux - STEM Teacher, Port Allen Middle School

Tasha challenges her students with unique projects that use Splats. Students are given "clients" that need a Splats game and her students are tasked with completing the project for their client!

Jeff Monteith - Extended Learning Program Coordinator, New Hampton Elementary

Jeff and his students often create their own programs in the app, including an Old MacDonald style sing along and a lock-out buzzer system for trivia games.

Summer Marshall - STEM Teacher & Tech Integrator, Ecker Hill Middle School

In addition to her own STEM class, Summer has gotten Splats implemented in a wide variety of classes at her middle school–dual immersion, science, and more!

Lorna Baldwin - Instructional Tech & Innovation Specialist, Anderson-Livsey Elementary

Lorna has been integral to the Splats implementation at her school. She set a goal of connecting Splats to all specials areas within the school and found ways to interconnect the subjects. We love the PE games her students created and how they connected back to what they were learning in health class as well!

Rebecca Bennett & Misti Woods - Putnam County School District

With a unique combined STEM & PE class, Mist & Rebecca have used Splats to get the best of both worlds, fusing together computer science and physical activity!

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Unruliest Newcomer

Yvonne Kirkland - CS Teacher, Hillsborough Academy

Yvonne is not afraid to let her students get Unruly! Her middle school CS students have been coding games for younger students within the school and brought the heat to the Stomp Madness competition this year. Check Hillsborough out here!

Alexa Fulton - Primary Teacher, Sunnyside Elementary

Alexa dove right into Splats with her students, introducing them to her primary & grade one students for engaging classroom activities and also introduced coding with Splats to students at the older grade levels.

Michelle Neilly - Classroom Teacher, New Minas Elementary

Michelle introduced Splats to her students this winter, and they started diving into the coding right away! Her students have built games that they can use in PE, and they won the most stomps category in Stomp Madness 2023. Michelle is not afraid to be Unruly!

Brian Miller - K-7 STEAM Specialist, Norwayne Local

Brian had his students coding and stomping before he even had his Splats training. In the last six months, they have more than 1,800 profiles loaded, 21,000 blocks of code used, and 350,000 stomps!

Amy Williamson - K-5 Instructional Specialist, North Columbia Elementary

An incredible launch to their program all thanks to Amy - She is energetic and creative in the ways she wants to integrate and we are already seeing amazing usage from her campus one month in!

Peggy Sieber - 7th Grade Science, Central Middle School

Peggy introduced Splats to her students this winter and allowed them to dive right in! Implementing the Splats into her science class and other parts of the school day, middle school students at Central Middle have had the chance to see what is possible with computer science.

Chris O'Connor - NYC ALC

Chris is new to coding and new to Splats, however, this did not stop him from finding innovative ways to use Splats in his middle school science lessons and let his students have fun while doing it!

Unruliest Techie

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Brian Ashline - Coding and Robotics Innovation Lab Instructor, Shaker Middle School

Brian could probably teach us a thing or two about Splats and block coding. He and his students use Splats consistently and used almost 40,000 blocks of code and have over 600k stomps in the last six months.

Kris Full - Computer Science and Technology Integrationist, Remsen St Mary's

Kris wears a lot of hats and still finds time to incorporate Splats into her teaching. She and her students participate in our events and she even organized an inter-school competition to coincide with our Stomp Madness event this year.

Angela Towner Mertz - Academy Adventures Midtown

Angela makes Unruly competitions a whole school event! She has promoted STEM with even the youngest of the students at her school. The young students at AAM don’t just play, they code as well! See what her students are up to here.

Additional Nominees

Susan Oehlertz, Tech Integrationist, Pocahontas Area Community School

Amanda Ruhe, Director of Technology, Dutchess Day School

Summer Marshall, STEAM Teacher, Ecker Hill Middle School

Brian Miller, K-7 STEAM Specialist, Norwayne Local Schools

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Unruliest Principal

Tonya Gambrell - Principal, North Columbia Elementary

Her school was awarded the Blue Ribbon award last year and they adopted splats in March ‘23 - They already have great usage, and her team is super inspiring, energetic and innovative - all thanks to strong leadership!

Scott Sauls - Principal, Putnam County Elementary School

From the moment he saw Unruly, Scott was all in - He was able to get the teachers excited about it and he has such an incredible champion to run the program he has been able to watch the success take place.

Robyn Ziolkowski & Cynthia Kubit - Principals, Seminole & Central Elementary

Not afraid to innovate in new spaces, Robyn and Cynthia brought Splats to their PE teachers and encouraged them to get Unruly and try something new!

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Unruliest District Innovators

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Nathan Cotten - STEM Curriculum Specialist, Terrebonne Parish

Nathan is passionate about STEM and introducing computer science to students in a way that is accessible and fun for all learners. He has approached the Splats implementation in Terrebonne with great care and thoughtfulness!

Tami Byron, Jen Barker, Kevin Neheulbel - Newport News School District

The NNPS STEM Team have been great partners during the Splats implementation within the district. In partnership with the Unruly Team, they have provided hands-on PD opportunities for their staff and encouraged them to try new, innovative things with their students.

Laura Pinto - STEM Specialist, Anne Arundel County Public Schools

Laura has been integral to the Splats implementation throughout Anne Arundel. She has helped identify Splats Champions throughout the district and is always offering to provide hands-on support to those teachers!

Grant Toyooka - Hawaii Central District

An Unruly advocate throughout the whole state! Grant is always trying to learn how to best support teachers with Splats in his district and expand access to new schools within the state as they work toward achieving their computer science goals. Learn more about their computer science journey here!

Sara Hale - Dean of Physical Education, Bristol School District

Sara has led the Spalts initiative in Bristol, encouraging her team of Unruly Educators to bring computer science into the phys ed space and keep students moving in an innovative way. Check Bristol out here!

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Now that you have seen all the talent the Unruly Community holds, you can vote for your top picks here.

Voting ends on Friday, April 28th, so invite your friends, family, and colleagues ASAP! The winners of the 2023 Unruly Educator Awards will be announced May 4 (LIVE) on Twitter!

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

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