Four Essential Questions That Need Answers

Like many, I am intrigued by the promise and potential that integrating Web 2.0 tools provides for learners, both students and teachers. I know that in many instances, that I leading the charge full bore down that path because I believe that it is imperative that we provide experiences for our students to begin to construct their learning environments using these new collaborative tools. But as we delve further and further down the path, there are three questions that need to be answered before completely committing to these tools. 1. Who owns the data I will admit that I do […]

Playing While at School

This fall, I have had the most invigorating educational experiences that I have had in recent memory. I will focus on two that exemplify playing while at school, which is a really motivating way for all (teachers and students) to learn and have led to enhancements and curricular modifications which I feel will enhance the students experience. Sketchup The first example occurred in October. The majority of our 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders had a wonderful opportunity to work with Jim Papoulis, creating and recording a song. Our Lower School head asked if I could come up with an activity […]

My Online Conference Experiences

The past three weeks have provided wonderful professional development opportunities for me and at the same time have created a tension which these new opportunites create. During this time, I have been trying to keep with the content and conversations provided by both the K12 Online Conference and the New York City Independent School Technologists conference in Mohonk. Because both of these conferences have made their presentations available via a variety of different modes, podcasts, vidcasts, and screencasts. Via the variety of blogs and aggregators, such as hitchhikr, I have been able to gather the notes and follow the conversation […]