Yesterday I attended BarCamp Philly, a gathering of people from all walks of life who converged on the University of the Arts building with the sole purpose of, well, seeing what happens! I met up with Ann Leaness on 15th Street as she walked from the train. We had never met in person, but have…
Tomorrow I am attending my first ever BarCamp. I signed up for it without really understanding exactly what I was getting myself into, but I recognized a Twitter colleague, Ann Leaness, on the ‘attending’ list, so I signed up. It turns out I might be in for a treat! So what is a ‘BarCamp?’ I…
Today we had district-wide Professional Development. On Wednesday of last week the “Activity Catalog” in our web-based ‘PD Planner’ updated to show the options for the full-day sessions. Immediately emails began popping up on the PTRN listserv. There was NOTHING being offered for TTLs (Technology Teacher Leaders) or lab teachers. As such, we were all…
As mentioned in my earlier post, we all received brand new 16G iPod Touches today at my TTL (Technology Teacher Leader) meeting. Right at the beginning of the meeting we were given a form to fill out and we approached the table where our regional Instructional Technology Specialists were sitting and traded the form for…
I had a meeting today ‘downtown’ at our District’s main offices. There were about 40 TTLs (Technology Teacher Leaders) from different schools across the city all crammed into a small lab all eager to hear why they were there. What ensued was an overview of resources and procedures that we, as TTLs, should know. Links…
At NECC 09 in June I was lucky enough to pick up a CD of Tech4Learning‘s software. While I have played around with Pixie and enjoyed in immensely, my new favorite product of theirs is Frames.What makes Frames so great?Well, for starters it’s kid-friendly. The icons are fun and simple as well as the editing…
This Saturday I received my invite to Google Wave. I could hardly contain myself–what was all the hype about?! After clicking on the invite link in my email, Wave automatically created my account using my Google account profile information. My picture automatically loaded as well as my name. All of my Google contacts who also…
This past Friday the school counselor and I took 10 students on a trip to the Arthur Ross Gallery at the University of Pennsylvania. We’ve been working on a history project based around the fact that our old building, which stood for 100 years, is being torn down. (For more on the project, check out…
This post was originally posted on Shelly Terrell‘s blog, Teacher Reboot Camp. When Shelly honored me with the opportunity to write a guest post about teaching at-risk youth in the USA, it took me a while to gather my thoughts. What could I share with the world that hasn’t already been on National television or…
At Back-to-School Night, I announced that I would be having an Internet Safety Parent Workshop. I gave out flyers, I put it on the monthly calendar, I announced it on our school’s homepage. I had one parent come. Fortunately, this parent and I have an existing relationship–I have been teaching her children and grandchildren for…