About Town: Redmond Teacher Makes Everyday Lessons Come to Life

When computer teacher Bret Crane decided to submit a project to Microsoft's 2011 U.S. Innovative Education Forum, he did not take his acceptance chances very seriously.

Crane had been using Microsoft Ribbon Hero as a tool to help students learn to use PowerPoint to animate and modify Clip Art in his seventh grade computer applications class, and one of his colleagues suggested he submit the project, called Fairy Tale PowerPoint, for consideration at the forum, which was held recently at .

Crane said he felt like his project was fairly simple, but his wife, who works at Microsoft, assured him that it was innovative, noting that even a lot of people who work at the computer giant don’t take full advantage of the capabilities of the program the way Crane has taught his students.

As it turned out, he was one of just 100 teachers invited to showcase their projects at the forum.

Crane, who is pursuing a Masters in Educational Technology from Boise State University (mostly through online coursework), says his studies in 21st-century learning have inspired him to seek creative ways to help students engage in meaningful ways with technology.

“It’s about having students use computers in new and instructive ways, rather than just as a big old encyclopedia,” he said.

In Crane’s applications class, he designed a project for students to show them how to use PowerPoint well. The students learned how to manipulate Clip Art by separating the elements so that any given element could be modified, and to draw objects that they had in front of them in life using shapes, shadows, and effects found directly in PowerPoint itself.

“They create a PowerPoint presentation of a fairy tale, modifying Clip Art, like moving an arm in a different position,” so it would fit the story they were telling, he said. “The idea was that they could not be limited by what they were presented with in PowerPoint.”

Crane began working in the about 10 years ago, and he and his family have lived in Redmond for about eight years. In addition to teaching computer science classes, he is also the integration technology facilitator for the school.

Always learning new things himself, Crane said the Microsoft conference was a positive experience.

“It was really enjoyable to see the different things people there were doing,” he said.