ISTE Making IT Happen Award winner Laurie Conzemius.

Two long-term media specialists were among the winners of the Making IT Happen Awards, announced at the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) conference in Philadelphia on July 1. Doug Johnson and Laurie Conzemius, both from Minnesota, took home the awards, which began in 1995 to honor individuals who are committed to enhancing education through integrating technology. Two weeks before the conference, Johnson, director of media and technology at Burnsville-Eagan-Savage (MN) Public Schools and a former ISTE board member, got a call at home from someone asking if he was planning to attend the ISTE conference. “They said, ‘You have to come to the conference to get the award,’” Johnson said—and when he expressed ambivalence, he was told that he was one of the winners. Johnson views the prize as something of a lifetime achievement award. “It’s a really nice honor,” he says. Conzemius, an ISTE board member who has been a teacher, media specialist, district curriculum integration specialist, and president of the Minnesota Educational Media Organization, said she was humbled and overwhelmed by the recognition. Told that she was being honored, “I know I blurted out, ‘Wait. What?’” she says. Conzemius retired in May of this year after over 30 years of teaching in Park Rapids Area (MN) Schools as well as in Sartell, MN, schools, many of those years as a media specialist. “As a new media specialist in 1995, I was the first in the building with technology, [such as] a Mac computer with a CD-ROM drive,” she says. “The technology, and its incredible applications for learning, exploded every year. I made it my mission to bring new technologies to teachers and students and spent a huge amount of time trying to connect my fixed scheduled lessons on books and authors with related websites and activities.” During her years at Pine Meadow Elementary School in Sartell, that meant developing a daily television show with fourth-grade students, who wrote, filmed, and acted in the show, viewable on the school website. While teaching in Park Rapids schools, Conzemius focused on curating an online digital collection and set up Skype chats between students and authors. Now that she’s retired from the school system, she plans to provide professional development and iPad program support for the schools as a consultant. She has also been adjunct professor in the Information Media Department at St. Cloud State University.

ISTE Making IT Happen Award winner Doug Johnson.

Johnson worked for over two decades in the Mankato, MN, school district before transferring to the Burnsville-Eagan-Savage district this year. “Basically I’m responsible for anything that buzzes, beeps, or take batteries,” Johnson says. He works with computers used by students and staff members, handles data mining and analysis, and oversees the security systems that run through computer systems. He and his staff of about 16 keep things humming along in a district populated by over 9,000 students. Outside of his day job, Johnson publishes writings on library media and technology on his website and in other publications. He’s also a strong advocate for librarians and media specialists. “I see them as fundamental in the technology integration process,” he says. For him, the importance of technology is its ability to make the information matter to people in a personal way. “I think what you can do with technology is that you can start to make [the lessons and materials] personally relevant,” he says. Johnson remembers a student who came into the library because she had to write a paper about World War II. She seemed uninspired by the topic, and when Johnson asked what she’d like to write about, she said she’d rather focus on horses. Johnson suggested she combine the ideas, and the student wrote a paper about the role of horses in the conflict. Best of all, she enjoyed the experience. “It became relevant, authentic research,” Johnson says. “Relevance is the only thing that’ll get kids engaged in what we want to teach them.” To encourage more technology integration and engagement, Johnson helped pass a technology referendum this year. He says that its true success will depend on the amount of embedded professional development available—and he hopes that administrations can work with media specialists and librarians to encourage leadership and visibility. Looking ahead, he says, “Next year is going to be a planning year.”