Address: 204 153rd Ave, Carlisle, Iowa, 50047
School Name: Urbandale High School
District: Urbandale Community Schools
E-mail Address: hermonm@urbandale.k12.ia.us
Daytime Phone: (515) 457-6899
Evening Phone: (515) 989-0727
Fax Number: (515) 457-6810
Nominee's Position: Physics and Physical Science Teacher
Grade Levels Taught: 11-12
Supervisor's Name: Dr. Dean Gorrell
Supervisor's Position: Principal
Daytime Phone Number: (515) 457- 6801
E-mail of Supervisor: gorrelld@urbandale.k12.ia.us
     

    That was then and this is now. I quickly began to experiment with Netscape Composer and learn some fundamental HTML programming by asking some of my physics students to teach me. With their suggestions of what would benefit them in the classroom, I began to create my physics web page. I no longer recall what it even looked like. I have found that this project is very much like science: always changing and never being able to say that your work is done. Almost 10,000 hits later, I use the web page every day to teach my students. Students also access it several times a day to print upcoming lectures, check their grades, practice physics problems, take practice tests, locate an engineering project, work in their lab manual or just peruse the photo albums of past physics families. Last year was my first year of completely teaching from the internet and it was a fabulous experience. I found a dust covered Dukane LCD panel in a storage room and hooked it up to an old Quad 610 computer. The panel is placed on an overhead projector so I can project the computer screen onto a white marker board. Although its not up-to-date technology, it works well for now to project lectures from my web page. It was amazing to see how much more, students can learn when they can print out class notes ahead of time and follow along and listen. I have already heard from many of last year's students who have stated how much my class prepared them for the way things are in college.

    When I discover a teaching method that works so well, I want everyone else to get excited about using it also. Unfortunately, I haven't been as successful in this area and have decided to take it slow which is not easy for me! I have presented my web page twice to my high school colleagues and although many of them see how beneficial it is, I think they are scared to get in and start experimenting. I decided to start small and expand so I developed a page for my entire science department. This page links not only to instructor information but also to a page for each science class in our department. Although these pages are much scaled down from my physics and physical science pages, most of them have links to educational sites on the web for that particular topic. I also post grades for all the classes of two of my science teachers. I believe this will soon spread to the rest of the department as parents and the community are already asking for it to be done.

    My web page has also just recently impacted students in other Des Moines area schools. Part of my page explains a Roller Coaster Construction Competition which many schools entered this last spring. I created a seperate page for each team entry which contained their pictures, judges forms, and articles from the Urbandale Press Citizen and the Des Moines Register. The schools were very excited about this recognition and because of my web page I am expecting much more involvement next year.

    My future plans for the use of the internet seem endless but I can narrow it down to three major goals which I would like to accomplish. First,  I am in the process of trying to write some technology grants to purchase a higher quality display method such as a Proxima System for myself and two other science teachers. Second, I have talked with those two science teachers and they seem very excited for me to train them so that they can expand their pages to use the internet as I am doing now. My hope is to someday have my whole department doing this. Finally, I want to incorporate the creating of animated gifs into my physics curriculum. Last spring, while visiting physics web sites, I saw many animated gifs which very simply explained physics concepts. A picture is worth a thousand words but an animated gif tells the story much better. I found out that our school had a license to an old copy of Webpainter 3 and I began experimenting again. The gif below was my first attempt which demonstrates the concept of vector addition in any order.

      I am now creating more and more of what I call PhysGifs and inserting them directly into my lectures. It is my intention to teach my physics students how to create PhysGifs and require them to make one each quarter that explain basic physics concepts. These student works then would be displayed on the internet and be used to teach future physics families. Perhaps a new state-wide physics gif art competition is in the future.

    When I came across this grant opportunity I was very excited because it showed that there are other educators out there that realize as I do what a great teaching tool the internet can be. Hopefully, we can convince others to get on board. I believe we have yet to tap into the depths of the educational value the internet can offer us.
    

To: Selection Committee Members
 Internet Educator of the Year

Re: Marc Hermon
 

This letter is in support of Marc Hermon for the Internet Educator of the Year award.  Marc presently teaches physics and physical science at Urbandale High School, a four year comprehensive high school of 1200 students in grades 9-12.

Mr. Hermon is among our brightest stars at Urbandale High School. In addition to being enthusiastic, energetic and great with students, he definitely pushes the edge of the envelope in terms of the use of the internet for his classes. 

Marc has all of his physics related materials on his web site so that students and parents alike can access this information at any time. This includes lecture materials, problem sets and other class information. Marc has developed the prototype web site we will have all of staff ultimately using so that parents and students may keep up to date performance data. Presently, any parent with internet access can log on and check their child’s progress making traditional forms of progress reporting all but unnecessary in his classroom. Marc has shared his website with the entire staff and is great assistance to those who want to develop or refine their own sites. I wish we could allocate more of his time for this purpose as he is an educator’s educator. 

Students, parents and teachers alike utilize and appreciate Mr. Hermon’s efforts to bring his curriculum into the home as well as the classroom. He has students participating in many activities outside the classroom walls and has fast become one of the most accomplished teachers at Urbandale. 

I enthusiastically recommend Marc Hermon for the Internet Educator of the Year Award as I believe you will find no better or more deserving applicant. I would be happy to visit with you further regarding Marc’ s qualifications should that be necessary in helping choose him for this award.
 

Most Sincerely, 

Dean Gorrell - Principal
     

To: Selection Committee Members
 Internet Educator of the Year

Re: Marc Hermon

       I have been asked by Marc Hermon to provide a letter of recommendation to his abilities and capabilities as they pertain to getting students to utilize and learn through the use of the Internet.  This is a pleasure for me as Marc has pushed our total student involvement and myself as one of the Webmaster Facilitators.

       I first was involved with Marc in a series of workshops that I helped organize for our school district on how to use and create web pages for the classroom.  Marc was one of those participants that took off with ideas and was now a problem of getting him to slow down.  He not only learned how to create single web pages but also decided to create a whole site for the Science department at the high school.  Initially his designs were fairly simple and straightforward, but then he kept coming up with ideas of things he wanted on the pages.  Now he was into Java, frames, ftp, animation, jpgs, gifs and whatever else he could think of to add.  The student webmasters joked about nominating his pages for the “Web Pages that Suck” web site of the day award.  I went out and bought their book and loaned it to Marc.  The next day he returned the book and said that he had finished reading it that night and now he had a whole new idea on what to do with his site.  Within the week he had redesigned his whole site and although the students still gave him a hard time about all of his pages, they were using them daily.  Marc even uses his pages projected on screen as his outlines for class presentations.  All students can get copies of the lessons from home, print out the next day's schedule and even check their current grades.  (Note: so can the parents.)

      All that Marc has done has interested and pushed other instructors in his own department as well as other departments to start experimenting with what they can do for their classes.  This has made some people uncomfortable (good) and made others sit up and reevaluate some of their current teaching practices as those practices pertain to current student learning abilities (also good).

      Marc is a self-starter and when he finds an area that has the capabilities to improve student involvement and learning he goes for it.  Marc is fun to work and teach with and makes learning interesting for not only his students but for his colleagues around him

Paul E. Miller
Instructor, Urbandale High School
District Web Master Facilitator
IM Series Coordinator
     

To: Selection Committee Members
 Internet Educator of the Year

Re: Marc Hermon

      I am writing this letter of recommendation on behalf of Marc Hermon.  In the three years Marc and I have been teaching together I have found him to be an outstanding teacher and a great professional motivator.   His unending reserves of energy and enthusiasm inspire both his students and fellow teachers.

     Since Marc has joined the science department at Urbandale High School, the enrollment of physics has more than doubled, increasing from 24 to 55 students.  He has also implemented a physical science course for students who would benefit from some intense skill work before taking chemistry. This course is in its second year and has an enrollment of 60 students.

     For both courses Marc has put course outlines on the internet which display the material to be covered and their timelines for the semester.  In addition to this, he also posts the entire curriculum so students can access and print the outlines for class discussions and lab activities.  Many students have made favorable comments in response to having this information readily accessible.

     The 2001-2002 calendar year represents the first time that students are taking chemistry after first completing the physical science course.  In the past, some students who took chemistry without the option of first taking physical science struggled greatly.  Evidence of this was found in their lab and note taking skills which were generally far behind their peers. However, I have found that as a result of taking physical science first, the students who continue on with chemistry have progressed ahead of their peers in their lab skills, their ability to follow directions, and their ability to organize materials and notes.  They also comment on missing the availability of materials on the internet which has motivated me to work more diligently towards getting all of my curriculum available in this format as well.

     At various times during the year, I have students use the internet as a resource to complete research.  Since taking physical science has already made them familiar with the science web page, it is now being accessed even more as a place to reference and list the links which I (and the students) have found to be the most reliable and accessible.

     One of the greatest aspects of the work Marc has done is to post student grades on-line using confidential identification numbers.  He has made this grade-posting program available for all of the teachers in the science department to use as well.  Parents and students are benefiting from this communication and greatly appreciate having instant access to the student’s progress any time throughout the school year.

Sincerely

Annemarie Hamborg