This summer I have spent countless hours outside planting, weeding, trimming, mowing, replanting, clearing, building and rebuilding areas of my yard. As I work the soil, tend to plants, harvest vegetables and care for the living things around my house, I am often struck by how many lessons we can learn from the soil and…
“A good education helps us make sense of the world and find our way in it.” – Mike Rose, Why School?: Reclaiming Education for All of Us I have been engaged in the educational technology landscape for over a decade. From the very beginning of the advent of “Web 2.0,” I was caught up in…
As I sit at home with my 5 1/2 year-old and 2 year-old attempting to figure out some kind of routine and manage my own anxieties, I have been struggling not to cringe as I watch the entire country turn educating kids into a huge social and technological experiment. The approaches range widely, with some…
Over the last few weeks there have been a number of conversations centered around who owns the content that teachers create for their classrooms. Anyone in the teaching profession knows that part of being a teacher is actually not that different from being an artist. Teachers have to think outside of the box about how…
Just last week, a relative of mine posted an image on Facebook that grabbed my attention. I teach juniors and seniors in a Media and Design class, and our first project was based around image editing. At first glance, the photo just didn’t look right. The next day, I showed the image to my students,…
Welcome to the first installment of my blog series focused on my upcoming book, Digital and Media Literacy in the Age of the Internet: Practical Classroom Applications. I always start the year with my freshmen making sure that they have a basic, underlying understanding of how the Internet works. I ask them to explain how…
As I look at the conference offerings for this year’s ISTE conference, I am concerned to see Alexa-focused sessions about how to incorporate the device into your classroom. I have an Amazon Dot in my kitchen, which I purchased on a whim a few years ago and use for listening to podcasts, checking the weather,…
I was honored today to take part in the first “Tea with Teachers” round table discussion of 2016 focused around teacher retention. While Acting Secretary John King was the host, he mostly listened and asked questions. With only an hour to discuss such an important issue in education, it felt as though a lot was left…
It was 3:00pm on June 20th, the last day of school. The inaugural staff of SLA@Beeber sat around the huge conference table in the main office going over highlights and areas for growth for next year. We picked apart processes, events, successes, failures and made suggestions for next year. We discussed our capacity as a…
A few weeks ago I was sitting in a report card conference with one of my advisees discussing his classes, his school work and some struggles he’d been having. At one point he said, “I think I’m taking advantage of the freedom I have.” It was a powerful statement and a one that really stuck…