Sustainably Digital

HowTo: Have a good advisory Eat. Stop at the store. Pick up some donuts, mini-muffins, and assorted fruit. Advisory isn’t a fun place for students. Make it more inviting. Bribery through food is a good start. Apologize. Mainly apologize for using the “curriculum” you’re supposed to be using. Be honest. Tell them you were trying [...]

“But I’m multitasking!” -What nearly every student tells me when I tell them to get off their MyBook and focus on their academic work. “If you’re multitasking, why is it you’re not getting anything done?” -A rough paraphrase of my usual response Somehow all my students have been sold that multitasking is a wonderful thing [...]

Week one of my new job is done! We only had students on Thursday and Friday (today), but the rest of the week was jammed full of “professional development” and meetings. This semester I have mainly upper level freshman classes, which means the last couple days has involved lots of wide eyes and not a [...]

Despite the problems I’ve been having lately with my new position, I feel (mostly) ready to go for day one. As part of my continuing crusade against my previously poorly designed presentations and handouts, I decided to peruse what my blogosphere (the one in my aggregator) had to say about the matter. I found plenty [...]

Do you remember your first day in high school? Perhaps you were in a new building- more likely than not surrounded by many new, unfamiliar, and large faces? I vaguely remember being excited, yet apprehensive and anxious. Would I be able to hack it? Would I make some good friends? Would it be a fun [...]

For the last several weeks I’ve been following the story of a student teacher who has been blogging his triumphs, failures, and frustrations of his credential program and of teaching in the classroom. Recently a teacher from within his department confronted him on it with the ominous: “We, the department, know you’re blogging.¹” The blog [...]

A little background: This year, I essentially threw out all large tests in my classroom. I still utilize small quizzes, but I wasn’t feeling the validity of large tests. Instead, I developed what I call “artifacts.” Essentially I have the students create something (a book, song, comic, presentation, etc.) that demonstrates their knowledge of the [...]

There’ s a school in them there Woods. Matt Schlein raised the funds to purchase 260 acres of land and open the Walden Project- an innovative high school where class is held outdoors (except for when they have it in a motley-looking tent). The curriculum is based around Thoreau’s writing, but by no means is [...]

In my few short days as an active member of the educational blogging network, I’ve been (somewhat) involved in some stimulating conversations regarding the idea of using Personal Learning Networks in the classroom. I first encountered the idea from a post last week by Clay Burell on his blog, Beyond School. Essentially the idea is [...]