My last post, Research: One of the Hardest Things You’ll Ever Do, was a reflection on a lesson with my 6th graders about evaluating sites. I shared it with my network on Twitter and was met with some dialogue about my choice of “Is it a blog?” as an evaluation question. Here is some of…
My grade partner happens to be our 6th grade teacher, since there’s only one of her in the building and she’s right across the hall. She and I have been collaborating a lot this year, and her students see me 3 times a week. She and I also share a love of Science, which has…
photo courtesy of K. Sawyer on Flickr Just last week I had the first serious observation I’ve had in a long time. I was observed during the first time my 3rd graders used the computers all year (no pressure!). I was nervous because this is my first year in the school, but I was also…
My 6th graders just completed their Digital Citizenship websites using iWeb. I am very proud of them as this is the first project we have completed together and it is the first project they have completed using Macs. As I have no server yet, I had the students hand their work into my favorite site,…
As most of you know, I am at a new school this year with a new twist on my former position. I still teach technology but now I have time to plan my lessons around what students are learning in the classroom. I did write a technology curriculum, but will only need to fall back…
Tonight’s #edchat discussion on how we move from the idea of tech as a ‘tech tool’ to a ‘learning tool’ was one I’ve had numerous times over the past year. It was the perfect conversation to end my day. Today my 1st and 2nd graders with whom I have been working over the year on…
Recently I’ve been contemplating what I teach, why I teach it and how I teach it. As a technology teacher I know my job is to teach, well, technology. But these days there’s no such thing as teaching technology in isolation. Correction. There should be no such thing as teaching technology in isolation. As such,…
Today, one of my 2nd graders clicked on an ad at the bottom of my PortaPortal page and discovered a PBS Frontline video called “How Google Saved a School.” He watched the whole thing through, commenting at the end, “That was decent!” I immediately found the video (using my PortaPortal page ad), Diigo bookmarked it…
Today we had district-wide Professional Development. On Wednesday of last week the “Activity Catalog” in our web-based ‘PD Planner’ updated to show the options for the full-day sessions. Immediately emails began popping up on the PTRN listserv. There was NOTHING being offered for TTLs (Technology Teacher Leaders) or lab teachers. As such, we were all…
“Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once and while, you could miss it.” — Ferris Bueller, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off So yesterday I decided to go “Off the Grid,” or “OTG,” as I called it on Twitter. I got the idea from Vicki Davis‘ blog post in which she stated…