Ideas related to the big picture of teaching and learning as well as reflections from the learning process.
One of the biggest tips I give to people when using technology in the classroom is to give your students choices. Choices on how they work in the classroom, choices on what they create and even choices on how they are assessed. By giving choices we are allowing students a greater chance to own their…
I have a whiteboard in my office where I write out ideas and post the important stuff that I need to be focused on. I have always done this, when I was a teacher and even when I was a student. In college I wouldn’t have been able to pass my upper level physics classes…
I recently read a news article about a teacher who was using social media in their classroom to engage students. They were using Twitter as a tool to learn and discuss various issues related to the content. The students who were interviewed enjoyed it and the teacher commented on how student learning was improved by…
Last month marked the 50th anniversary of the assassination of President Kennedy. CBSNews.com replayed their broadcast from that day as it happened. You got to see how the news played out that day and how people reacted initially. Watching this I did wonder how many teachers showed this to their students. How many used this…
One of my favorite analogies when talking about the different tools we have in education deals with golf. You can relate teaching to many different activities but one analogy is usually never enough to fully explain ideas and concepts in the complex field of teaching. Teaching is not exact, but there are certain rules that…
I was working on my assignment for my Masters class this week and referenced a talk by Kevin Honeycutt. He discussed how his home situation affected his education, which worked well because my assignment deal with poverty and education. I decided to rewatch the talk and became a bit distracted. It reminded me of one…
Dave Burgess writes in his book, “Teach Like a Pirate”, about his dislike of the phrase, “it’s easy for you, you’re creative.” He goes on to say that everyone has creativity in them and that by saying this phrase, you are discounting all of the work that person put in to whatever they did that…
One of the first things that I wanted to do this year as a technology integration specialist was to create a simple Google Site that would contain resources and links for teachers at my high school. The only purpose was to have a place that I could collect and sort out resources and tips for…
While at the Midwest Google Summit this week at the Wisconsin Dells in Wisconsin, I had the extreme fortune to listen to Krista Moroder. Krista is a Director of Learning for Instructional Technology and Library Media in a Wisconsin school district. She was presenting about their EdTech Challenge, which is the professional development plan for…
Any time that I get to talk to other educators and they ask about what tips I have, I always start with telling them they need to be on Twitter. I have said this when giving presentations at conferences, I have said this when talking with teachers at my school, I have said this when…
Donovanscience 