It’s the obligatory end-of-the-year blog post. How far have we come? What have we accomplished? Will we remember 2008? For me, December has never really been the end of the year. Sure, we’re changing the digits in the date, but I’ve always been more in tune with the academic calendar. By those standards, we’re almost halfway done. Not a bad time for reflection, but hardly … Continue reading The Year that Was

I don’t like the concept of technology plans. If technology is really integrated into everything we do, we shouldn’t need a separate plan for it. We don’t have curriculum plans and assessment plans and personnel plans in the same sense as we have technology plans. That’s not to say technology planning isn’t important. It’s certainly necessary to invest a little forethought into what we’re doing … Continue reading Technology Planning

For the last couple years, we’ve offered a technology class for teachers the first week after school is out in June. They come for for a week, spending the morning, afternoon, or both with us. We focus on interactive web tools and how they can be used in the classroom. The classes are meant as a smorgasbord of tech tools. Here’s a little RSS. Try … Continue reading Changing the Menu

The well-respected Mrs. Durff asked in Skype: Know any middle school classrooms that would like to be in a global project that would only take one or two weeks out of their lives ? Yes, maybe I do. Working in a K-12 environment, I know a few middle school teachers. Many of them are open to new ideas and new projects. She was talking about … Continue reading Never Mind

I’m trying to come up with a reasonable solution for shared calendars for the staff in my district. Administrators, especially, need to be able to find times when key people are available for meetings. It’s also useful for administrative assistants to be able to manage the calendars for the administrators, without having to check that person’s computer or paper calendar to determine availability. Most organizations … Continue reading The Missing Sync

The year is 2019. The world is afflicted with five major threats. Respiratory Distress Syndrome (REDS) is here to stay. Outbreaks are common, especially in tropical and subtropical cities. The disease, for which there is no cure, has become pandemic, affecting millions of people worldwide. At the same time, we find ourselves facing a global food crisis. We have continued to convert farmland into much … Continue reading SuperStruct

Here’s how education works: You determine what the students need to know. Part of that is identifying what they already know. You find the gap between what they already know and what they need to know. You provide instruction to fill that gap. Then, you use assessment tools to see whether the student has acquired the knowledge and skills you’ve identified. If necessary, remediation is … Continue reading The Test

When I started this job as technology coordinator, I realized that I had five years. I knew that after that, I would burn out on the technology gig, and it would be time to move on to something else. It’s not that I wouldn’t like the job. It’s not that I wouldn’t be good at it. It’s just that things change too quickly, and yet … Continue reading Incompetent

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to provide some feedback on grant proposals submitted by teachers. I’m on the Ohio education advisory council for FirstEnergy, and we were going through this year’s crop of mathematics, science, and technology education grants. I was impressed by the committee, which includes thirteen education professionals from across northern Ohio. These are teachers, curriculum specialists, technology people, and administrators. They were … Continue reading Evaluating Grants

One of our teachers came to me last year and asked about student portfolios. Currently, students use manilla folders to categorize and maintain examples of their writing as they move through high school. The folders get passed on from teacher to teacher, and items are added at several points throughout the year. Since this teacher uses Moodle to manage assignments, he would like to have … Continue reading Mahara

Is it just me, or is the story of Google turning in to a James Bond movie? Consider these developments: A few weeks ago, Google launched its own satellite to take high-resolution pictures of the Earth. They plan to sell the high-res pictures, and put lower-resolution ones into the Google Maps and Google Earth products. Remember, when looking up at the sky, to smile. Not … Continue reading Don't Be Evil

My favorite first grade teacher asked me last week if I knew of any good tech money available to teachers. She has iBooks in her room, but they’re definitely showing their age. Working in a school district where sustainability is a huge problem, there’s no plan for her school to replace them. So if she wants updated equipment, she’s on her own. I asked the … Continue reading Grant Opportunities