It used to be that I spent Sunday mornings with a cup of tea and the newspaper. Now, I’m typically catching up with the posts that are in my reader and enjoying leisurely conversations online around all matter of things. Yesterday, a number of people were tweeting and blogging about grades, grading, and report cards. Then I went to a Christening for my friend’s baby and bumped into a former colleague of mine. She’s in the midst…
In recent weeks, it seems as though thousands of educators have drunk the Twitter Tang, because suddenly, I am finding it hard NOT to follow more and more people there. Take a peek at my Twitter Mosaic: Get your twitter mosaic here. As new users join and the opportunities for me to learn from them grow, I’m trying to be selective about who I follow. I’m choosing those who might contribute most to my own learning,…
I work with many teachers whose students do not have access to computers outside of the classroom. I work with some whose students do not have access to computers inside of the classroom. And I know that at least ONE school in the area just received it’s first shipment of desktop computers LAST YEAR. Teachers in this school were still writing report cards by hand. Not happily, I might add, but that’s their reality. We…
Teachers ask for alternatives to traditional book reporting because they know that if there is anything worse than writing and reading a four paragraph text summary to a classroom full of your peers, it would be assuming the position of audience member AND evaluator. I know that there are more than a few WNY teachers in Florida this week, lounging by pools with stacks of papers next to them, waiting to be graded. That’s one…
Six-Word Memoir book preview from SMITHmag on Vimeo. My six words? Could work well for book-reporting!
Shakespeare On Facebook Published at Scribd A few years ago, Sue Rooney, a teacher at Cleveland Hill High School shared her Facebook literature project with me. The resulting products were very similar to the example above, and I was really impressed by the fact that she was willing to offer up the use of this tool as an alternative to a pen and paper project, even though Facebook was (of course) blocked in her building.…
We’re enjoying winter break in Western New York this week, and I’m glad to have some extra time to myself to catch up on all sorts of fun things like laundry, tax preparation, and car maintenance. Did I mention the dentist? I have to schedule that appointment too. At times, I’m a huge procrastinator, and there is no better way to stall than logging on to Twitter and asking for some help from my friends…
My daughter Laura skipped four days of school this week. So did Noah. They were accompanied by dozens of other kids from all over the globe who met in Boise, Idaho to participate in the Special Olympics World Games Global Youth Summit. I know that Laura and Noah are grateful to their teachers for supporting them on this one. Laura did her homework on the plane, and Noah shared his accomplishments with his classmates upon…
Last year, Jenny Luca reached out to my daughter Laura and invited her to Skype with her students, who live a world away from us in Australia. I remember how mesmerized Laura was by this possibility and the way her eyes widened when she caught view of Jenny’s students on our monitor. “They look like the kids from Harry Potter!” she said, marvelling at their uniforms, which are a novelty to her. Since that day, Laura has been…
My daughter Laura invited me to tag along with her on her trip to Idaho this week for the Special Olympics World Games. She’ll be blogging about her experiences here and all that she is learning, but I wanted to introduce the readers who follow me here to Noah Gray. Laura got to hang out with him last night because both of them were asked to speak at a dinner for the Global Youth Activation…