Those of you who work in unionized districts are probably dealing with a variety of looming changes and ‘reforms’ due to Arnie Duncan and President Obama‘s new Race to the Top Program. In case you’ve been in a cave for the last month, the RTTT Program (so quaintly referred to on Twitter as “Race to…
Last month I had the amazing luck to receive a tweet from a fellow educator, Gerardo Lazaro, who teaches at St. George’s College in Lima, Peru. He asked me if I was interested in doing an online collaboration project with his students. I immediately jumped at the opportunity. We weren’t really sure exactly what kind…
As many of you are aware, this past weekend dumped nearly 2 feet of snow on the city of Philadelphia (23.4″ was the final tally, I believe). The city barely plowed any of the streets aside from the main arteries. This left my tiny, dead end street blanketed and all of the cars on the…
This year I have been given the opportunity to work with a group of 13 proficient/advanced 1st and 2nd graders for a Reading Enrichment period every day for 45 minutes. At first, I grumbled and complained. I had at least 3-4 ‘behavior problems,’ no lesson plans and no idea what the students’ reading levels were…
Just recently, I received a tweet from my friend Shelly Terrell who ‘tagged’ me in her post about educators who have influenced her as a teacher, challenging me to reflect on my own teachers. I have named this post after hers: Lessons Learned from Great Educator. My grandmother The first teacher that I had…
At NECC 09 in June I was lucky enough to pick up a CD of Tech4Learning‘s software. While I have played around with Pixie and enjoyed in immensely, my new favorite product of theirs is Frames.What makes Frames so great?Well, for starters it’s kid-friendly. The icons are fun and simple as well as the editing…
This past Friday the school counselor and I took 10 students on a trip to the Arthur Ross Gallery at the University of Pennsylvania. We’ve been working on a history project based around the fact that our old building, which stood for 100 years, is being torn down. (For more on the project, check out…
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…
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…
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…