The Stumpies

A great number of influential educators have been blogging and tweeting about awards ceremonies and how crucial they are to motivate and engage learners. We all know that without awards at the end of the year students will stop trying hard and basically give up on learning. In addition, we know that acknowledging a student on the side will not work. Rather we have to make a public display and draw as much attention to the winners as possible.

In this renewed spirit of award giving I present the first annual Stumpies…modeled after the iconic leader, Michael Scott. The Stumpies are awards given to accomplishments in the area of Social Media use. It is our belief here at the Stumpies selection committee that only a select few can win these coveted awards. We cannot give one to everyone as that will take away from the winners.

Without further ado, here are the 2011 Stumpies award winners.

EduBrothers Award – This award is given to two twitter users living in vastly different geographic locations by connected by a brotherly connection where no blood line is actual present. Their connection and powerful relationship proves the value of social media in creating strong personal connections. Winners: @thenerdyteacher and @tgwynn.

Eraser Award – Given to the education reformer of the year with a passion for erasing mistakes to make positive statistical gains. Winner: @m_rhee

Cyborg Award – This award is given to the tweeter that may or may not be a cyborg due to heavy involvement in chats, blogs, and appears to always be there and have a page for everything. Winner: @cybraryman1

Greyhound Award – This award is given to a hard working tweeter who is at the front of the pack in educational thought and leadership. Winner: @L_Hilt

Michael Scott Award of Excellence – This award is given to the MVP of twitter and this year to a person that stands behind our mission to promote awards in school for the select few! Winner: @mrwejr

UPDATE: I had to update this post because I was contacted by @mrwejr's people in regards to his award. He was upset that he didn't actually receive a physical award and was adamant that for any award to be "real" there needed to be some hardware. He was also loosely quoted saying, "without the bling, the award don't mean a thing"...so, here is a placeholder certificate until the official Stumpie trophies come in.

That is all the awards for this year’s Stumpies. If you didn’t receive an award it was more than likely because you did not work hard. You probably failed in some way and you didn’t try hard enough. I know that you will take this failure and use it as motivation for the next year. We can’t give an award to everyone as that will water down the award’s process and devalue those that actually earned one.