Tonight I hosted our biweekly committee meeting for the South Philly Food Co-op that myself and a small group of community members are working hard to open. There’s something special and intimate about having a group of people who are not necessarily your friends, but with whom you share a connection, sitting in your living…
So this post is a shameless plead for help. For those of you who have been following me on Twitter for a while, you may know that I have started a new job at a charter school in North Philadelphia. The students have never had a technology teacher who taught more than keyboarding and the…
Just recently I heard a story on Fresh Air, a radio show on public radio, about companies that track your web surfing habits and sell them to ad agencies. It was a fascinating story, and a chilling one. There are companies making tons of money off of your browsing habits. By tracking where you go,…
A recent Newsweek article, Take This Blog and Shove It!, makes the argument that crowdsourcing and interactivity on the web is dying. It calls Wikipedia’s drop in contributors a ‘tipping point’ in the history of the web, stating that “Even the Internet is no match for sloth.” Quoting a recent Pew study that the number…
I have been honored to be included in two education panel proposals for the South by Southwest (SXSW) music, film and social media event held every year in Austin, TX. It draws thousands of people from all over the country and lasts an entire week. The two panels are chock full of talented, innovative people…
I recently began reading The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains by Nicholas Carr. I first saw him on The Colbert Report and was intrigued by his interview. I have only read the prologue, but already I am hooked. Even when I was away from my computer, I yearned to check email,…
Last year I participated in Scott Mcleod’s Leadership Day project with an overview of the NETS for Administrators that I felt were most important and a video of some of my campers talking about technology in their inner city schools. A year later I have grown exponentially as a teacher and as a person as…
Thanks to Scott McLeod for continuing the series! 10) Read Curriculum 21, edited by Heidi Jacobs with your staff, discussing it using the ASCD Study Guide and familiarize yourself with the National Educational Technology Standards for Administrators 9) Try to visit every classroom in your school at least once a week, even if only for…
This weekend I attended ntcamp, an unconference for both veteran and new teachers aimed at providing conversation for new teachers to learn from veteran teachers. I sat in on a session facilitated by Jason Bedell about grades that proved to be a thought provoking one. He created a collaborative document that holds a lot of…
Maybe it’s because it’s summertime or maybe it’s the general atmosphere of education these days, but the online education community has been a flutter with talk of what needs to change in education. What I’m wondering is how much of this is new or different than years past. I am fairly young, so my memory…