One of the best metaphors I have heard when it comes to talking about identifying those barriers that are created around student learning in our instructional design has to do with fish and the water they swim in. A fish may not be fully aware of the water they are swimming in as it is…
Over the summer, Swivl announced they were going to release the ability to record from 2 cameras at once for free in their Swivl app. Earlier in the year they updated their app to allow you to record from up to 5 devices at once to get a single video that allows you to see…
One of my favorite things to do as a kid growing up in Minnesota was to go out on the lake and spend all day fishing. I spent a large part of my childhood in the summers fishing and would jump at the chance to learn something new in order to become a better fisherman.…
Back in 10th grade, I started playing golf as my spring semester sport. The three years before that I had been playing tennis but we moved to a different district, and they did not have boy’s tennis. I had only golfed a little bit before then but it was a sport that seemed like fun…
I created my Twitter account in November of 2009 to connect with my own students and share out news articles or resources about science topics. The major byproduct of this was the connections that I started to make with other teachers, whether they were teaching in neighboring districts or even across the country and world.…
Recently I was watching an episode of Scrubs, one of my all-time favorite shows, and they were reciting the hippocratic oath: DO NO HARM. This is a great oath to follow even for us as educators. It should be one of the primary oaths we operate by as we are here to help ALL students…
While wandering around the Art Institute of Chicago this last weekend, I ran into a quote by an artist that spoke to me as an educator. The artist was alive in the early 1900’s but spoke about the use of technology as a tool of production, and not just as a way to reproduce what…
One of the things I am happiest with that we tried last year, was the start of our own district Twitter chat. We have been sharing Twitter as a powerful professional learning tool for the last couple of years but I wanted to help our teachers experience the effectiveness of a chat by giving them…
On the 15th anniversary of 9/11, it is still very easy for me to remember where I was and what I was doing on that day. I remember waking up to the sounds of my AOL instant messenger beeping like crazy, back in the days when AIM and ICQ were the main forms of communication between…
One of my favorites hobbies is golfing. I started golfing in high school and still go out and play 18 holes when I get the chance. I come from a family of golfers as my dad and grandpa both played. When my grandpa started golfing he had to use wooden clubs, because that was the…
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