We are nearly done with the current school year and for the first time I do not have a countdown to summer. Being a tech integrationist this year is definitely different than being a classroom teacher for the most part, yet there are still many things that were the same. I am still trying to…
While many people easily embrace technology use in the classroom, there are many who wonder why anyone would. They are not sure why they should learn how to do something new or change what they have already been doing. For me it was simple, technology was an easy way to transform the learning that was…
One of the biggest fears for many teachers heading into a 1:1 environment is the effect on classroom management. The problem is that the classroom management that happened before the 1:1 is going to be very similar after the 1:1. If you have good classroom management before, you will most likely have good classroom management after. If…
In case you haven’t seen my previous post, here, I am trying something new this term to help share out the effective uses of technology that are happening in our classrooms at my school. I fully believe collaboration and sharing are integral to a program’s success and this is one way that I am trying…
Yesterday I had the pleasure of presenting at the Iowa 1:1 Conference in Des Moines, IA. This was not my first time presenting there as I had presented in 2011 about the Flipped Classroom I was implementing. This time I presented twice, first on Flipped Professional Development and then on using Doctopus in the classroom.…
Dan Meyer recently gave a keynote at CUE 2014 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRsE6mKkDjw) and discussed how it was not about the tool but was about the mission in the classsroom, and I could not agree more. A teacher recently asked me for a good tool to use and I had to pause, for a long time. I know…
In the classroom I would always make sure that all levels of my students were able to show growth. I realized early in my teaching career that you can not just focus on one level or you will lose the rest. The same can be applied in my role as technology integrationist. As the year…
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.…
Through the use of technology, we can now differentiate the learning for our students more so than ever before. We have the tools to design a learning environment that is filled with the resources and tasks needed for each level of learner. We know one size fits all education does not work, but many people…
MOVE! – Move around and interact with your students. Do not sit in the corner while they work, you should be able to see their screens and be able to interact with them while they are working. Rethink your classroom setup – Rows of students facing forward does not allow for you to easily know…
