by Becky Bair | Jun 26, 2012 | Local Professional Collaboration, Personal Learning Networks, The Teaching Life, Uncategorized, Voices
Teachers are hungry for professional learning but their eyes are often bigger than their pocketbooks when it comes to professional conferences in distant cities and pricey online courses. Connected educators can feed themselves, says Becky Bair, who’s not busting the bank this summer but staying home with Twitter and Google Reader.
by Tim Holt | Jun 15, 2012 | Making The Shift, The Teaching Life, Voices
Everything we hope and expect our classrooms to be — and our students to be doing — is nowhere to be found on episodic television or in the cinema. Look hard for any type of technology being used in the classrooms portrayed on television today. It’s pretty much not there. Teachers are still portrayed as sages on the stage, students still stuck in neat rows. It’s time to demand a change!
by Stephanie Bader | May 18, 2012 | Global Communities of Inquiry, Making The Shift, Teacher Leadership 2.0, The Teaching Life, Voices
Our player is me: Stephanie, a second-year fourth grade teacher and novice player on the teacher-tech stage. I could be any one of the many teachers on a similar journey. I would venture to say that we all experience bouts of stage fright at some point in our careers. It is normal. Expected, even. We ask ourselves the same questions: What do I have to offer that someone else can’t supply? What good will my opinion do? Hasn’t my question been asked countless times before?
by Wendy Eiteljorg | Mar 23, 2012 | Local Professional Collaboration, Making The Shift, The Teaching Life, Voices
I’ve been thinking about conferences recently. And unconferences. And a new kind of get-together that I don’t quite have a name for. It kiind of began when Hadley said she said that she didn’t need more ideas so much as time to implement the ones she already has. Isn’t that the truth! Maybe it’s time to take a step back, temporarily, to reflect and put some ideas into action?
by Jenny Luca | Mar 16, 2012 | Passion Based Learning, The How of 21st Century Teaching, The Teaching Life, Voices, Web Tools That Deepen Learning
Framing a lesson is important to me. I try and do this in varied ways; sometimes I’ll share a story, sometimes I’ll use a quote related to a theme, sometimes it’s a picture, and quite often it’s a short video. Something inspiring that helps my students understand its relevance to what we are learning, something that will fire those brain neurons, something that frames our lesson. Something from TED.
by Jenny Luca | Dec 2, 2011 | Global Communities of Inquiry, Making The Shift, The Teaching Life, Voices
In my early days of immersion, I’d sit among friends in conversation and find my mind wandering. The desire to switch on my phone and check my networks was intense, almost like a primal need. I found myself connected to the network, and disconnected from long term friends, even family. It seemed that they didn’t understand, they weren’t part of what was in my immediate field of interest. None of them grasped the magnitude of my new discovery.