This week I was asked the question “What are some characteristics of an effective and progressive high school?” Now, being in a K – 12 school, I took some time and talked to a few of the students in the senior grades. They were a great help, as were the 4 people who answered my…
It has been a very busy week and it will only intensify from now until the end of June. I’ve been working on several projects and just haven’t had the time to get involved in conversations via twitter or read too many blogs. However, as I was working tonight, I’ve been reading a few as they cross…
The last few days I’ve spent some time just reacquainting myself with what is happening on the different social networks that I follow, adding some comments and thinking about what is being discussed. One conversation that caught my attention was at the Fireside Conversation ning where Connie Weber shared an article about reading. This article discusses that, with the overload of information, there is less deep reading going on and more of the skimming and scanning going on. People have less time for indepth reading as they try to keep up…
My it’s been a busy week. We’ve had all kinds of things going on – a winter storm Friday made it a busy afternoon as our busses were canceled for after school. This meant we were phoning parents and arranging for students to go to their billets in town. For the most part, things went…
I’ve been really busy of late with all the things that go on in the life of a parent, principal, coach and community member. My senior boys basketball team is showing signs of becoming a real contender – which means that we have to play more – with more nights away. I’ve also been working…
This evening I was spending time do other things besides being online – parent things like going to hockey practice, reading stories, playing mini-sticks and yucking it up with my teenage daughters. It was one of those evenings of which I’ve spent plenty just being “home”. I didn’t have to rush off to a meeting…
There’s a Calvin and Hobbes cartoon that has Calvin hammering nails into the coffee table. His mom comes in and freaks, saying “What are you doing?” There is a pause and then Calving replies “Isn’t it obvious!” Sometimes, this is how I feel when I’m working with the various tools that I use each day…
Creating effective and sustained change in education is akin to moving a mountain. When you move a mountain, it usually involves quite a lot of explosions, debris, change of structure and what you’re left with does not resemble the original form. The material is the same but the solid impenetrable mass is now broken down,…
The other night I was working on converting a video from flv to mov format but couldn’t remember the online site that did that. I went to the twitter page and asked if anyone knew of the name of the site. In less than 5 minutes I had 3 responses of sites I could use.…
Recently I’ve been involved in some discussions about how teachers might become better users of technology. It began with a post over at Dangerously Irrelevant where Scott McLeod posted In many industries, knowledge of relevant technologies is a necessary prerequisite for either getting or keeping one’s job. Sometimes the organization provides training; sometimes the employee…