At Back-to-School Night, I announced that I would be having an Internet Safety Parent Workshop. I gave out flyers, I put it on the monthly calendar, I announced it on our school’s homepage. I had one parent come. Fortunately, this parent and I have an existing relationship–I have been teaching her children and grandchildren for…
Yesterday, I attended a Classroom 2.0 and Future of Education webinar called “Google Research and Google Web Search Curriculum,” presented by Lucy Gray, Cheryl Davis, Kathleen Ferenz and Dan Russell. It was like a crash course in best practices for searching Google, and the session was extended by about 30 minutes to include a quick…
About a week and a half ago, I sent a twtpoll (Twitter poll) around my Twitter network asking educators on Twitter how they would describe their school. To be honest, it was a spur-of-the-moment kind of thing. What spurred the poll were the last few weeks’ #edchats on Twitter. (For an explanation of what #edchat…
I’m not going to lie. Today was tough. Really tough. My kids were, for the most part, great. Honestly, most of the time it’s not the kids that drive me nuts. Kids will do what they can get away with, after all. My school has been relocated for this year while a new school is…
Those of you who may have read my first few posts (found here and here) about the school I worked in for the last 4 years, know that I worked in a school that was 100 years old and falling apart at the seams. Finally, the district moved forward with plans to build us a…
Just recently I posted this question to my Twitter PLN. Within half an hour I had about a dozen tweets in response. I promised Stacy Bodin that I would post the responses for everyone, so here ‘goes! Build Your Wild Self This seemed to be the most popular site that was sent to me. It…
I just finished reading Teach Like Your Hair’s On Fire by Rafe Esquith. It was given to the entire staff of our school by my principal at the beginning of last year in the hopes that it would spur a book club. It didn’t. As a result, the book sat on my shelf for almost…
“Inward calm cannot be maintained unless physical strength is constantly and intelligently replenished.” “Peace comes from within. Do not seek it without.” Hindu Prince Gautama Siddhartha, the founder of Buddhism, 563-483 B.C. Recently, I have been having trouble sleeping. I thought perhaps it was the fact that I haven’t been running my 3 miles three…
For those of you who may have had your Twitter streams overwhelmed with tweets like these, here is a little explanation of how it ‘goes down’ every Tuesday (also know as #teachertuesday on Twitter). Every Tuesday educators all over the world participate in online discussions that take the form of a fast-paced chat room on…
This summer I have been teaching Project Based Learning to a small group of 7th & 8th grade boys at a camp in Philadelphia. My classroom is a Study Lounge in a dorm with a dry erase board that barely erases, desks with chairs attached and carpeting throughout. I have been teaching an Ecosystems unit…