Powerful Learning Practice Blog

Connected Test-Taking: Is It Cheating?

Students sit in the test-taking room, with full access to computers and wireless connections. As they work on national exams, they can be seen accessing the internet from time to time. Are the results from this testing going to be corrupted because these test-takers are not isolated from global information resources? Cheating — or high-tech cheating, as it is called today — what is that exactly? And is it really a problem? Do our old-school definitions of cheating need rethinking?

Six Interviews: Powerful Conversations with PLP Leader Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach

My friend and collaborator Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach is eminently interviewable. Whether she’s talking about passion-based teaching and learning, the secrets of successful online communities of practice, or her ideas about integrating new technologies and social media into everyday teacher and student life, her transformative vision comes through and what she has to say always has valuable take-aways for listeners.

In Praise of Team Leaders

One of the unsung “shifts” that often happens with PLP occurs in those who serve in the role of Team Leader.

Teaching Poetry the Connected Way

Students use Google Docs to write their poems. They use the GDocs sharing function to share their poem documents with me and some of their classmates (if they choose). I read their poems (from anywhere at anytime), give them one specific comment, and offer one constructive suggestion to improve their poem that I hope also adds to their poetry writing repertoire. Then we share in VoiceThread to a public audience.

Twitter in the Classroom

As educators, we are preparing students to succeed in the real world. That’s why it’s imperative for students to be taught not only the ‘fun’ parts of social media, but how to be responsible. In part three of our Twitter blog series, we’ll discuss how to use Twitter in the classroom.

Lessons in 21st Century Leadership

With every turn of the page or scroll through a Reader feed, someone, somewhere, is giving advice on what education leaders ought to be. The articles, blog posts, and books on leadership will keep on coming, because the role of leadership is ever-evolving and increasingly complex with each passing day. (And with each passing mandate.) I enjoy reading the work of leaders in fields outside of education, too. While not every lesson can be translated to the work we do with students, many can, and we should consider them.

Leveraging Your PLN With Hashtags

In our last blog, we discussed the power of educators using Twitter to create a strong network (PLN). To harness the full power of this tool, we encourage educators to not only follow leaders and innovators, but understand how to use and leverage hashtags.

Magic and Serendipity in Our Global Primary Classroom

It was magical learning about a place my students had never before heard of and will probably never see for themselves. Learning that was totally led by the students and their interest in that classroom in Greece. And that learning will continue. The children in Greece, too, have questions for us to answer. More magic. More serendipity. I love my connected classroom.