Ed Camps vs Traditional PD

One of the best things that I did this year was attend a couple of Ed Camps.  Before last spring I had never attended an Ed Camp or really even heard too much about them.  I would see some stuff on Twitter about them but didn’t think too much about it.  Luckily I had some…

Tech Tips of the Week

TRANSFERRING VIDEO FROM PHONE TO COMPUTER Your phone can make a great video camera, but moving that video to your computer can be tricky sometimes.  If you have already synced your phone with your computer, moving …  Posted Feb 11, 2014, 6:24 AM by Patrick Donovan MOVENOTE: WEB BASED VIDEO CREATOR INTEGRATED WITH GOOGLE APPS Movenote is a nice, web-based…

Audience of More Than 1

One key thing that can happen when students have easy access to technology is that their work can be shared with so many other people.  When we have students produce work in class that just goes to the teacher, there is an audience of 1.  If we have that same student share that piece of…

1:1 Round 2

This is not my first time going through the implementation of a 1:1 as I was previously at another school before and during the first 3 years of the 1:1 there.  There we gave our students the white MacBooks and we had some successes as well as some, well, we will just call them not-successes.…

Technology as the Mutliplier

One thing that many people have trouble with when viewing the effectiveness of technology in the classroom, is that technology can not solve bad teaching.  In many classrooms you will see techniques that are not effective but they are still being used, due to many reasons such as a lack of time to develop better…

iPad as a Portable Whiteboard

A point that I have tried to make before is going to be made again, we have to look at ways of using technology beyond the basics.  There are ways that we can use the technology to really help the learning in the classroom but it helps to not just look at a device being…

Snow Day = Learning Day

As a student I would view snow days as a time to forget about school.  As a teacher I would view them as a big disruptor that would cause me to lose the flow of learning and would delay the next activity, whether it was a test or a project.  While students easily can see…

Using Padlet in Class

I am a big proponent of collaboration and any digital tool that allows collaboration to take place regardless of where or when everyone can use that tool.  Using Google Docs with group projects seems like a no brainer and it has allowed me to let my students work with students who are not in the…