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And the award goes to…

Meet our annual Educators’ Choice Content Award winners, Kerry Gallagher and Brian Sztabnik.

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Voice of the Educator

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The SmartBrief Education team each year celebrates educator voice with the annual Educator’s Choice Content Award. This year’s winners are:

  • Kerry Gallagher, a digital learning specialist at St. John’s Prep in Danvers, Mass. She is also the director of K-12 education for ConnectSafely.org

  • Brian Sztabnik, creator of the “Talks with Teachers” podcast, www.aplithelp.com, and #aplitchat on Twitter. He has taught English language arts for 11 years in middle schools, high schools, the inner city and the suburbs.

The 20 nominees for our fourth annual award received more than 3,000 votes from peers and SmartBrief readers. Kerry’s original content piece, How to use edtech to get your learners active and moving, and Brian’s article Igniting a passion for reading took the top spots.

Kerry Gallagher

Prior to taking on a full-time instructional technology role, Gallagher taught middle- and high-school history in bring-your-own-devices schools for 13 years. She developed a paperless collaborative classroom model and has helped schools create student-driven technology integration programs.

“Teachers who work directly with children, adolescents and teens all day, every day know what works in their classrooms. The more they can connect, share their experiences, empower one another to take risks, and do what is best for their students, the better,” Gallagher said.

“It is an incredible honor that some of the ideas in my EdSurge article have been useful for my colleagues all over the country. I’m grateful for SmartBrief for helping amplify my voice and the voices of so many educators.”

Brian Sztabnik

Sztabnik is the lead English teacher at a high school in Long Island, N.Y., where he teaches AP literature and composition, creative writing and public speaking. He is the College Board advisor for AP literature and was a 2015 Bammy! nominee for Education Commentator/Blogger.

“I am honored that SmartBrief Education has recognized the importance of reading and the ways in which we, as teachers, can ignite a passion for it in our classroom,” Sztabnik said upon learning of winning the award.

“Just as I believe there is a book that can speak to all students, I also believe that each educator has a voice that can speak to their experience. We should honor both as powerfully as we can.”

SmartBrief will honor the winners during a reception at the ASCD Empower18 conference held in Boston, Mass., on March 24-26.

Read about the 2017 monthly Editor’s Choice Content Award winners and past annual Educators’ Choice Content Award winners.

Melissa Greenwood is the education content director at SmartBrief.

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