On Tuesday evening at my home, we experienced a storm front that packed 80+ mph winds that knocked down a number of tree limbs. It caused our electric power to go down for 31 hours. Here are three lessons that this storm: As adult citizens in the western world, we have become increasingly dependent on battery powered devices for communication and entertainment. Having to ration my use of the  phone in mypockets, my iPads for reading, and computers for accessing email and Facebook was not easy. Last evening, we went to friends toting all of our devices to “borrow” electricity to […]

In less than a week, I will be heading out the door to attend my 12th NECC/ISTE conference, attending my first in 1993 (pre-Internet days). I am really looking forward to the conference although my experience has changed. This year, I will be involved with the ISTE Independent School Special Interest Group (SIG-IS) leadership which I volunteered for this winter and conducting two 3 hour workshops, one Monday and one on Tuesday. My goal for ISTE is to maintain a balance between my own learning, connecting with others while living a rounded lifestyle. In order to achieve those goals, I […]

As a new member of the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) Special Interest Group (SIG) for Independent Schools executive board, I have been involved in planning for a new project, a Summer Book Reading Selection. It was at my suggestion that we  selected  A New Culture of Learning: Cultivating the Imagination for A World of Constant Change by Douglas Thomas and John Seely Brown for this summer’s read. For me, this book is a great summer read. It is fairly short (140 pages), very readable, and available in paperback or eBook versions. Jonathan Martin, who I am assuming is a […]

As our newly renovated Upper School is nearing completion, my thoughts and attention turn to the spaces that we have used to build our  blended learning environments. Do the tools that we have chosen support the goals and compliment the goals of the physical spaces? Are there shifts in our framework that we need to move to in order for these goals to be more congruent with each other? First, our newly renovated high school space has been built to support a technology rich environment which supports collaboration and intellectual collisions between learners in the environment, both adults and young […]

Over a year ago, when we were planning for our newly renovated high school space, we had the opportunity to test Steelcase’s new Media:scapes, a collaborative workstation that easily allows for 4-6 users to connect their computers, iPads, or netbooks to a “puck”. Pressing on the puck, one can easily project their screen to a flat screen display that all of the users can see. You can read about my initial experiences using the Media:scape from January 2009 (http://vvrotny.org/2010/01/12/test-driving-collaborative-workstation/) Our first Media:scape was delivered just over two weeks ago and we have been begun using this device various classes. After […]