Philosophy Without A Home

Ok I've been on this exercise kick this week. I can think of better things to do with my time, but I need to get ride of this spare tire. Well this morning I thought I would do some swimming. Big mistake. I brought swimming trunks, but no goggles. After half an hour in the pool I ruined my day. I spent the entire day in a chlorine fog and righting a headache. In between moaning and complaining I tried to listen to the keynote at the blogger cafe, Why don't they have coffee? I couldn't hear much especially at the end as the conversation got louder so ask someone else for a synopsis, but get one cuz I think what I did hear was very good. Try Budtheteacher I think I saw him in the bloggercafe. I went to one public BYOL session “ Beyond Graphing Calculators: Technology in the Mathematics Classroom ” presented by doublecrosseducation.com (husband and wife team by the name of cross not the bad guys to be known as DC for the rest of this blog) In my district I fin

I skipped the free breakfast, yeah I know I can't believe I did that either. I headed for the session on using Google Earth . I don't know what we expect to get in an hour, but I liked the session. We were taught the basics of marking a point in Google Earth, describing the point, and adding pictures or other data. We learned one very good use for Google Earth in the classroom and the hour is finished. Later on Monday I went to the Gcompris session and it is relatively similar. Here is the program, here is how to use it, and here are some suggestions for the classroom. This is the meaning of the BYOL labs. Here is something you can use in the classroom, here is how to use it, and a suggestion for use in the classroom. I like these because I love taking other peoples ideas and using expanding on the originally suggested use. It's a useful skill and one I think sometimes undervalued. Learning isn't always exploration and discovery. Sometimes learning is

Monday morning almost 6am. I've only been up for two hours. I'm going to need some sleep when I get home, but I know I won't get it because my wife has been alone with the kids for 4 days and will need a break. Maybe I'll make up for it in my next life time when I'm a banker. Sunday was spent in the clutches of the JHU Cohort introduction. I should have taken better notes, but I was just happy to be listening. I think all that stuff leaked out during the night. or maybe it bounced out during my attempt at exercise on the treadmill. Anyway, here are the basics. We want you certificate to mean something so we are going to give you a lot of work and expect quality product from you. You will be working in teams, but just because we try to invite only the best cohorts doesn't mean you won't have slackers. Think of it as preparation for real life and deal with it appropriately. When working with teams play to your strengths and the

Well I made it . Oh wait I've said that before . Anywho, I couldn't sleep Friday night. I was to get up early in the morning Saturday and fly to Denver. I did of course,but I was so excited about an actual education conference ( ISTE ) as a teacher and starting a new course ( JHU/Cohort ), and meeting people, well seeing people I can be shy sometimes, (was that Jeff Utecht and Scott McLeod ) I just couldn't sleep. I showed up at the hotel at around 11am local time, only to be extremely disappointed about the lack of internet connectivity. They want something like $10 a day for connectivity. During the conference that would be more than I pay in a month for connections at home. Listen Mr Hyatt, I am a teacher running for a large part on my own dime can ya cut a brother some slack? Whatever, I can see the convention center from the window outside my door and they have free internet. No, I can't get a signal from my room I tried. So I'll walk across the street and

Different Schools Different Styles I wonder. I wonder sometimes about how we go about teaching. I, personally, am a very student-centered teacher . This isn't a single style of teaching, but rather a collection of styles that generally tend towards allowing students to actively learn through exploration and discovery. On the other hand a teacher-centered would be a collection of styles that generally tend towards giving instruction to students and then giving them time to practice the skills that were explained. Neither style has to be absolute. With that in mind I like to think of myself as a student-centered teacher, I may not always be good at it, but if I teach anything I want to teach my students to think and reason, and hopefully discover. I want their curiosity to guide their learning. I guess you can say that my goal is always just beyond what I actually accomplish. I like to be a student-centered teacher, but I know there have been and always will be times when I am a tea

I am very excited to start the JHU / ISTE leadership program . During the last several years my education has transformed from institutional learning to self directed learning. I think I realized when I was creating my gallery walk video that I used to go to school because that was what was expected. I have changed, during the past couple of years I learned how to learn. I discovered that as a student I don't have to wait for education to come to me. I can choose what I want to learn, when I want to learn, and where I want to learn. So in this new era of choosing to learn I am excited to choose to work with the intelligent and talented people in the JHU cohort. I know how to run a classroom. I also know that running the school is a completely different beast. What happens in my classroom for the most part happens because I wanted it to, or I let it happen, or because learning is taking place. Students no matter where they come from, generally love to learn. They are in t

Overheard, “Fourteen years ago I had a friend leave the district. She said I’ve been there so long I almost forgot what it meant to teach.” ­ What if she isn’t really teaching where she is now either? I work in a poor and underperforming district. What if the low-skills and lack of discipline isn’t just a symptom of the neighborhood but a symptom of the teaching. This isn’t to say we don’t have great teachers. But the honest truth is that our district and others like it are often used as a stepping-stone. Good teachers are often gone just as they are beginning to show a bit of return on investment. While less than stellar teachers might be kept around because they are the only ones willing to teach. Non-educators may not realize that teachers, like you would in any other profession, apply for jobs at the best schools first, then move down the list. During a normal year it is a common occurrence for some school districts to have openings pop up in late August as teachers suddenly