I will not call this my Christmas letter or epistle or whatever. I am just sitting here on a Sunday night thinking that I should really probably be writing something. There is this interesting phenomena that I have noticed happening when you disconnect from people. When you are in the immediate circle of intimacy with …
I am sitting in one of the dark classrooms at one of the schools I teach at in Riga, Latvia pondering why one of my students said that they would like to see the school burn down. What are we doing to make high school students feel so demotivated and even angry at the system? …
Okay, America, let’s get this right! Latvia makes the first day of school a national celebration. Every public school in the country starts on the same day every year—September 1. And on this day, students walk to school with flowers in hand to give to their teachers. I was excited to see this spectacle, so …
The Pew Surveys have inspired me to do a quick inventory of how I use technology in my classroom. This seems like a good time to examine and reflect on how I have used technology to inform my choices for the next school year. Ah, the joys of summer. I teach in a one-to-one school …
Okay, so that title is misleading. As teachers, aren’t we working together with technology to improve student learning? That’s kind of the point, right? This is supposed to be the case, but in my sixteen years of classroom experience, I think I’ve seen more resistance than acceptance when it comes to the changing world of …