Award Wining Web Site Team

The Family Resource Center

John Burkowski
Teacher
Apple Web Design Class
South Dade Senior High

The Miami-Dade school district provided each teacher with an iBook and two weeks training to prepare them for teaching the web design course.

While most of the teachers have a background in graphic arts and at least some knowledge of computer graphics programs, John Burkowski is a social studies teacher who began the program with very little background in web design. During the Web Academy teacher training, he experienced the tremendous challenge of learning something completely new and the rewards of working in groups with other teachers to get projects done. He comments on his experience with the training provided by the district and Apple.

“When I went home the first day,” he recalled, “and my wife asked me how it was going, I just looked at her. I said, ‘It's great, but it's like standing under a waterfall trying to get a drink of water. Everything's coming pretty fast.'
"Some of those other teachers had a great deal of experience and had used some of the programs,” he recalled. “I was just beginning in those things and said (to my wife), 'Quite frankly, I feel a little intimidated.'

“But the training we received was fascinating," he said. "I really enjoyed working with my team. You're into something new and you had to start from scratch. We got to know each other pretty well. We worked in a comfortable situation. We were proud of our work.”

Mr. Burkowski said he got so much from working in teams during the training, that he used the concept in his classroom for the first time. It gave him an idea "how to get kids not only to learn the stuff, but to work together. When I started (the course with my students), they got the basics and then I formed them into teams.”