Day 10 Share five random facts about yourself. 1. Youngest son of 7 children. 2. Parents are immigrants from Latvia. 3. Wanted to be an actor or writer. 4. Loves collecting vinyl. 5. Has very vivid dreams. Share four things from your bucket list. 1. Get a bucket list. 2. Take my kids to Latvia. …
Day 7 Who was or is your most inspirational colleague, and why? My most inspirational colleague is… wow… I feel like if I name a name, then I’m excluding all the other great colleagues that have inspired me. I also have so many great people to choose from. But here goes… Susan Martens: Susan started …
I have no pict to share yet, but I have two different classrooms, so I will add photos and reflect on those. More to come. I’m a few days behind, so this is a place holder.
We’re about a week or so away from the start of another school year, so I am shaking the dust off of my blog and getting back into the writing mode. I though I would start with an ode to my new Macbook Air. Here I am in New Orleans reading from the Macbook. I …
Last night I was just thinking to myself how I’ll probably never get to solve a big mystery like Sherlock Holmes. I am pretty sure that most police investigations are rather mundane, and, because most criminals are stupid, there are no clever clues to figure out. So it is interesting to note that I now …
This should also be titled, “Or what I can learn from my students.” I am a pessimist by nature. I admit it. I have this negative streak a mile wide. I always feel like more could be done and in a better way. Maybe I’m not a pessimist, maybe I’m just never quite satisfied because …
This writing stems from an article in this month’s Car & Driver. They ran a comparison test between all the major electric cars on the market. Fiat, Chevy, Ford, Smart, among others were tested. After reading the article, I was bothered by one thing. Here were all these electric vehicles built for the sole purpose …
Today I found myself in a bit of a conundrum. I am the team leader of a group of three teachers who have all agreed to use a common rubric to grade student essays. I have been using turnitin.com for years to grade student work. I have found the ease of use combined with the …
Every year that I have taught, the first week of school is always a race. Students are getting into the groove. Teachers are exhausted. And to make matters even worse, technology never ceases to fail. This year, apparently we implemented a new security “feature” and they are still ironing out the bugs. This summer, my …
Today I encountered a student in our one-to-one school who has decided not to get a school-supplied laptop. This created a minor speedbump in my creative writing class because we were just figuring out how to use Google docs to share our writing portfolios. I found out that it wasn’t an issue with technology; she …