Opening Camp Rewrite for its First Season of Summer Learning Last night, I wrapped the last of the professional learning experiences I’ve been facilitating during this school year, and it was a perfect sort of segue into the summer. I met with colleagues I’ve been learning beside for years, and we spent much of our time together talking about the memories we keep as practitioners. We spoke about the moments we try to hold onto,…
Here’s a quick last call before the doors close on a few of my professional learning opportunities in June. Click on the links below to learn more about each one. I’ll let everyone know when things open for July and August, too! Important details about pricing: Individual, self-paying teachers who choose the asynchronous option when they register and pay in full for my Multimodal Composition course below (which is $100), will receive a free upgrade…
One of the funny things about parenting as an educator is that often, your children teach you a great deal about things you think you already know a few things about. Take, for instance, protocols. “We’re doing these things called modules in my English class,” my daughter Nina explained over dinner one autumn evening at the beginning of her eighth grade year. And I’ll admit, my stomach clenched. I wasn’t well acquainted with the New…
Recently, several colleagues asked me to begin a professional writing support group. If you are eager to begin blogging, publishing articles, or drafting a manuscript, you are welcome to join us. If you have any of these things in the works and are in need of good company, you are welcome to join us. And if you can’t attend face to face but would still like to be a part of things, you may still plan to join…
Anyone can write, but few people write exceptionally well. Myself included. I’ve been blogging for nearly eight years now, but I’ve always defined myself as a teacher who writes rather than a writer who teaches. I make no apologies for this, and in fact, if I had waited until I felt confident in my writing skills to share my stuff with others, I never would have grown as a writer. I wouldn’t have learned half…
One of the greater challenges that people in positions like mine often face is creating alignment between what learners, administrators, and teachers need in order to be successful. Sometimes, people have different perspectives about what is truly needed. They may not share a common view of what success will ultimately mean or what it is supposed to look like. They have different thoughts about how it will be achieved, how quickly, and to what degree.…
So last week, I was planning my work with teachers in a district that is beginning to design curricula. At one point, I knew we’d be taking a peek at the draft of the new Core Standards, and I wanted to provide everyone the opportunity to highlight different aspects of the draft that they were interested in discussing together. My inclination was to show them Awesome Highlighter, a nifty little tool that allows for highlighting…
I’ve spent some time this summer taking stock of my online habits, including the ways in which I’ve established and engaged with my personal learning network. Bud Hunt recently shared his own reflections about this, describing the intentional shifts he has planned and the ways in which he intends to study them. His process intrigues me because I’m hoping to make some purposeful changes in how I engage online as well. This should come as…
People debate the pros and cons of immunization quite a bit in my personal parenting circle. My kids are immunized of course, as they have to be, but I’m fairly certain that every parent considers the safety of wide-range immunization practices. We have to, after all. We’re responsible for our childrens’ well being. Most of us learn what we need to and allow that knowledge to inform our widely varied choices. We all know that immunization…