Wayne Roberts receives Networking Teacher of the Year Award, Sponsored by Novell and the Utah State Office of Education
In the monthly school board meeting on Feb. 6, Wayne Roberts, the networking teacher at Emery High School, was recognized as the Networking Teacher of the Year by Carl Lyman, Information Technology Education Specialist from the Utah State Office of Education. This is an award sponsored by a partnership of Novell and the Utah State Office of Education. For his outstanding work in teaching Novell’s Certified Netware Administration course and Linux Fundamentals, he received a plaque and a cash award.
Wayne has been teaching networking classes at Emery High School for the past eight and half years. As a certified netware engineer he has taught Novell CNA class and recently has been teaching Linux in his classes. Each year Novell and the USOE have sponsored a Young Networking Professional for outstanding high school seniors who have taken networking classes. Robert’s has had a student win one of the awards seven out of the past eight years. Many of his students have also taken and passed industry certification tests which are recognized throughout the world.
Wayne is able to bring real world experience into his class from the work that he does as computer technician for Emery School District. He said, “I try to find ways to improve my teaching techniques in creating practical scenarios for my students to practice their skills. I enjoy the opportunity I have to work with students at Emery High School through my class, and informally as students ask me questions about technology when I work at the various schools.”
Wayne grew up in Kemmerer, Wyo. where he graduated from high school. He attended the University of Wyoming for two years before transferring to Southern Utah University where he received a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science. After graduating from college, he took courses and became a Certified NetWare Engineer.
His first job was a ‘Help Desk’ monitor. Within a year working for the company he worked with a group of five other individuals, installing a NetWare 4.0 system for 500 users. After one year, he was hired by Weider Nutrition International in Salt Lake City. Here he was the network engineer at their corporate office originally in charge of maintaining two NetWare 4.11 servers. Soon he was responsible for networked workstations in cities in the United States and Canada.
Wayne was hired by the Emery School District April 1997 as a computer technician. After a couple of years he was asked if he would be interested in teaching a Novell CNA course that was being offered at Emery High School. He accepted the job and worked to obtain a teaching license and has been teaching students networking ever since.