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…
School is a multi-dimensional place where the lives of students and adults mix and mingle in a very loosely defined thing we call education. Because I am an administrator and know that some of the students in the school do, on occasion, access this blog, I am in a position that talking about anything remotely…
I took some time to do some reading last week during our February break. There were many great posts and ideas that are circulating via my RSS Reader but three posts really caught my attention. The first was Linda‘s post about the difference she sees between “front line teachers” and those who are contributing to the edublogosphere discussions. The second is a set of posts by Nancy McKeand and a…
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…
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.…
Tomorrow morning life will once again begin that familiar cadence as school begins for 2008. We’re almost half-way through the year but 2008 is just beginning and with it all the expectations of a new year. It seems kind of funny to be starting a new year in the middle of a school year. I…
The new year has arrived and I’m spending time back in my hometown visiting family. It’s always nice to come home to take some time to just visit and catch up. It gives me time to do some reading and blogging and just reconnect with my family – dysfunctional as we are. As I drove…