CenturyLink Minnesota

STILLWATER TEACHERS, ELLEN EIGNER & WAYNE FELLER, RECEIVE 2008 QWEST FOUNDATION TEACHERS AND TECHNOLOGY GRANTS

CenturyLink and Minnesota Business Partnership Present Nearly $100,000 in Grants to Minnesota Public School Teachers Who are Finding Innovative Ways to Use Technology to Help Students Learn

MINNEAPOLIS, Minn., May 5, 2008 – The CenturyLink Foundation and the Minnesota Business Partnership (MBP) today presented two Stillwater teachers, Wayne Feller and Ellen Eigner, with CenturyLink Teachers and Technology grants.

Eigner, a fifth- and sixth-grade teacher at Rutherford Elementary, received a $5,708 grant. Feller, who teaches all grades at Rutherford Elementary and Stonebridge Elementary, received a $6,974 grant.

"We received outstanding applications from public school teachers across the state," said John Stanoch, Minnesota president of CenturyLink. "Our Blue Ribbon Panel was particularly impressed with the innovative and creative use of technology that both of these teachers plan to bring to their classrooms."

Eigner’s grant will allow the school to purchase an interactive white board, computers and related technology. Under the proposed lesson plan, titled “Decades,” students will work in teams to create a multi-disciplinary, multi-dimensional website on different decades in the 20th century.

Feller’s grant will also be used to purchase computers, an interactive white board and related technology. His lesson plan, titled “It’s a Disaster,” will help students research natural disasters and share what they learn by developing their own online wikis.

“Getting students excited about technology and science is extremely important to Minnesota’s future,” said Charlie Weaver, executive director of the Minnesota Business Partnership. “We were excited about working with CenturyLink to encourage and reward teachers who are using technology to spark that excitement.”

Eigner and Feller are two of 15 Minnesota public school teachers to receive a 2008 CenturyLink Foundation Teachers and Technology grant, which is administered by the Minnesota Business Partnership Education Foundation. The grants are being presented individually to the recipients in their schools over the next few weeks.

Now in its second year, the CenturyLink Teachers and Technology Grant Program received applications from more than 60 public school teachers around the state. A Blue Ribbon Panel selected 15 of those proposals to receive grants this year totaling $96,000.