I was delighted today to notice that I have 20 comments on my blog posts! 20 comments from people all over the world. How wonderful. I think that spam is proof that people are evil by nature. Who does that? Just once, I want to meet the actual person behind just one of the spam …
I am looking at poster in my classroom that a group of students created. It reads, “It’s not where you are, it’s who you’re with.” Where am I right now? I’m in my classroom sitting at a table somewhere in Omaha. I’m with students who are attempting to write. We are all here together in …
The kid without a computer walks into my room at this 1-1 school. All the other students get their laptops out obediently and look up what they are supposed to look up. The bell rings, and the student without a laptop just sits there looking kind of lost. Sure, it’s probably his fault that he …
I am reflecting on the Summer Technology Institute that I had the pleasure of facilitating in June 2013. I worked with two amazing facilitators and got to meet some great teachers who all had something to share. During these three weeks, I was infused with knowledge about all things techy. Techie? Diana, one of my …
I have just finished teaching for nine weeks. Honestly, it feels like four. Time just rushes by so quickly that it’s good to take a day to just think about what happened. As far as technology goes, I think this was a solid quarter for me. I feel that google docs and creative writing have …
So as I was walking to school this morning, I saw a double rainbow. Unfortunately, I only had my iPad as a camera, so the image isn’t as great as it could be, but it was still a splendid sight. Of course, my mind (and my wife’s mind) went immediately to the “double rainbow guy” …
I just read an article in The Week magazine about the difference between education in Finland vs. education in the United States. “Why Finland has better schools” by Amanda Ripley discusses her own personal experiences while observing the educational system at a high school in Finland. She made many good points, and, although I’ve heard …
Two conversations came up this weekend that drive me to the conclusion that the best motivator for students (and just about anyone else) is competition. I teach four sections of the same Humanities class. These are seniors who are feeling senioritis long before they can even find graduation on the calendar. Each of my sections …
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 …