Last year I had to replace my kitchen faucet. I had never done this before so I did what I do a lot when faced with a problem for the first time, I do my research online which includes a lot of YouTube videos. In most of the videos they showed the people using a…
In the next couple of weeks there will be a large number of teachers starting their first day as a teacher. They will get advice from many experienced teachers and I have my own. Most of this advice can also apply to teachers who have been teaching for awhile and this list does not include…
I was reminded this past week how much our mindset can affect that which we can accomplish. Our mindset can easily help us reach our goals or keep us from being successful. As we encounter challenges and obstacles, our mindset will determine which direction we will take and whether we will keep moving forward or…
This summer I am trying some new things to help keep the learning going with teachers that I work with. Some of them are tools that I used during the school year that I am still using while others are new to me in the way that I am using them. I believe, that as…
Tonight I will get to walk across a stage in Hilton Coliseum for the second time as I complete my Masters program. I graduated with my Bachelor’s degree back in 2004 from Iowa State University and am getting my Masters of Education in Curriculum and Instructional Technology tonight from the same school. I am a…
Last week I made my first trek to the NETA (Nebraska Educational Technology Association) conference. As part of my goal to connect with other educators in the midwest, I had presented at TIES in Minnesota in December and was very happy to be able to present at NETA which was in Omaha. I had connected…
I was challenged by another educator to respond to the challenge by Scott McLeod to post 5 things we must stop pretending to do in education. I think there are many things that, as educators, we need to stop doing or allow to happen in our schools. I will post 5 now but I am…
I started this week off by heading down to Fort Madison, IA to talk with their MS and HS teachers about effective technology use in the classroom and to conduct some Google Apps workshops as part of their professional development day. The main focus of my talk started with a simple slide that asked “What are…
Last week we rolled out the use of #ameshighpride to all students at the high school through homeroom. Teachers were introduced too the use of the hashtag in the fall and there have been a lot of great posts using that tag before we rolled it out to students. There are a couple reasons why…
During our Cognitive Coaching class this week, all of our current instructional coaches are taking this course, we were to focus on an issue that was making us “stuck”. For me this was easy, I was “stuck” on how to develop the last round of professional development times with our teachers that was going to…
Donovanscience 