To start off the year, I decided to make sure that all of my 9th graders understand what the Internet really is and how it works before they get their Internet-ready laptops in a few weeks. When they came in, they had the first five minutes of class to “draw the Internet.” I got a…
I am so exhausted I can barely keep my eyes awake, but it’s a good kind of tired. After weeks of team building, inquiry into our own pedagogical practices, building units, discussing and working out details on school operations from scheduling the first day to student flow through the building, loading up UHaul trucks with…
I have been blessed to have spent the last 3-4 months working with eleven 7th and 8th graders as they create projects for the annual PA Middle School Computer Fair. We are now only a couple of weeks away from the Fair and I can’t help but reflect on the way my role working with…
This past summer, with the help of my brilliant friend, Kristen Swanson, I took my Technology Curriculum to a place I had never imagined it could go. As a computer lab teacher, there has never been an easy to follow, mapped out path for instruction. As such, over the last 5 years I created a…
One of the struggles of teaching a “special” is meeting the needs of over 250 students a week, sometimes for one measly 45 minute period. Differentiation in this setting is hard. Today I won a simple but hugely important battle in this arena. One of my 7th graders struggles to do anything independently. She is…
One of the struggles of teaching a “special” is meeting the needs of over 250 students a week, sometimes for one measly 45 minute period. Differentiation in this setting is hard. Today I won a simple but hugely important battle in this arena. One of my 7th graders struggles to do anything independently. She is…
As Obama’s inauguration approaches, I have been hearing more and more about how racism in the US has ended, is on its way out, or is no longer an issue. This unprecedented event has me thinking a few different thoughts, but not one of them includes the idea that racism is ‘dead.’ The election of a…
So, I decided to start this blog after 4 long years of teaching in a school that is literally crumbling apart every day. From days when it was 60 degrees in my classroom, to days when my outlet falls out of the wall and I have to (no joke) tape it to the wall, to…