Reflections of an Educator

I was floored by a statistic cited in the Boston Globe article " Parents seek balance as screens’ allure grows ." It states that, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, American kids between 8 and 18 spend seven and a half (7.5!) hours in front of a computer screen, phone, TV, or some other electronic screen. In 2004, it was just one and a half hours. If this trend continues, in six years, will students be spending nearly every non-school hour in front of a screen? I can only stop and wonder: Is this the reason my students are always so tired in school? Perhaps it's because my cluster's English class just finished reading Fahrenheit 451 , but are we leading our students down the road of awake-all-day, awake-all-night, with no down time to stop, reflect, and think? Guy Montag would be concerned. In middle school (and adolescence), exploration and testing boundaries is normal, typical, and healthy. Like anything, however, balance is key. The Globe suggests that, li...

The past few days I have been using Kurzweil 3000 with my 7 th and 8 th grade students. It's been about a year since I have used it, as our district was updating licenses and reimaging computers. Now that it is done, I've got to say, it's been worth the wait. The potential to revolutionize the way students read and write is contained in this program. The venerable question, "Why are we doing this?" rang out as I began my lesson first period of the first day. I quickly was reminded that learning needs to be authentic and interactive; I needed to not just tell my students they needed Kurzweil , but show my students they need Kurzweil . Benefits of using Kurzweil : 1. It's the future : e-books are around the corner in college, and probably high school soon (think: Kindle from Amazon ). 2. A big payoff : For just the little more work of highlighting while they read, students can have 3-column notes extracted from their highlighting, right from the text. 3. It...

With the upcoming Massachusetts Senate election on Tuesday, January 19, things have heated up across the Commonwealth (and the national peanut gallery has been growing). My own political interest is in overdrive, so receiving three to four calls nightly about the election is exciting! Our students need to be aware of the statewide, national and historical importance of this election, so I created some materials to use in my 7th and 8th grade Social Studies classes. Below, I have shared four documents that I will be using in different capacities with my students. Please feel free to use and adapt them for your own classroom and students as appropriate. Any ideas, lesson plans or reactions, please pass them along, email me, tweet me , or comment on this blog post! Grid of candidates on the views Venn Diagram to process information Explanation of federal and state jurisdictions - from about.com 17th Amendment (calls for special election) Recent Yahoo! News article on state election...

I made my way down to the Boston Park Plaza yesterday for my first EduBloggerCon-East (#ebce09 is the free, one-day precursor to # BLC09 ) . I found some amazing resources, met some great new colleagues, and thought it useful to draw some conclusions to synthesize, find patterns, and make my own meaning. I created a mind map using Mind42 . Best Practices in Textured Literacy - Tom Daccord Essentially, Tom suggests that we can no longer focus on traditional student literacy, but we must also consider multi-modal literacy and texts (pictures and text) Use backchannel Today's Meet to assess previous student knowledge Avoiding multi-modal texts in our schools will leave our students marginalized We must add value to traditional and multi-modal writing by making it: meaningful authentic social Consider the Student News Action Network Tom created the The Great Debate of 2008 ning with his own students New Media Reaching All Learners - Karen Janowski Etherpad is a good place to begi...

I attended the EduBloggerCon-East 09 "Un"Conference on Tuesday, July 28 at the Boston Park Plaza. It was great. Not only did I meet PLN friends in "real life," which was great, but I also learned about new tools for my classroom and met some new people. I created a wordle from the notes I took; I think the largest words is telling about what the focus of our conversation truly was! (One note: I obviously couldn't attend every session! If anyone out there has notes from their sessions they'd like me to include in another wordle, please email me!)

Often considered superfluous, developing the right brain will become an asset with the advent of abundance, Asia and automation. Workers must combat these concepts and be high concept (beautifiers and inventors) and high touch (empathizers) in the Conceptual Age by developing six senses: design, story, symphony, empathy, play and meaning. This 50-word mini-saga (synopsis: see below) of A Whole New Mind by Daniel Pink is proof: I do have right-minded ability! Daniel Pink lays out a thoughtful thesis that I shall apply to the world of education: we must create students (and workers) that can no longer exclusively rely on left-brain analysis and logic, but instead must possess left and right-brained skills. The reason, you ask? With the abundance of "stuff" (cheaply-made and high-quality "stuff" at that - just head to Target to see for yourself), workers who can synthesize, rearrange and create that abundance of "stuff" will be in demand. Further, Mr....

I fondly remember the new NES my parents saved and saved and saved so I could play Duck Hunt and Super Mario Brothers.  I was so happy and content with the NES console, and then my neighbor got the new Sega-Genesis.  Alas, I continued playing my Duck Hunt and Super Mario Brothers, but then arrived Nintendo 64, and Play Station 1, then 2, then 3; Nintendo DS emerged, and Game Boy, and Nintendo Game Cube, Xbox 1, 2 and 3, the Wii, and now finally an incredible Project Natal from Xbox .  With every newly-released game system, I hoped my parents or a rich, long-lost relative would purchase the newest game system for me...but not so.  I forged on with my NES.  Granted, I broke down and bought a Wii last year, but I still have my original Nintendo NES console, and there's something to be said for my perseverance, 20 years later, that every once in a while, I still pick up my NES and play, with my wired controllers (!), trying to perfect level 9-4 on Super Mario Brothers. Since the world ...

What's the true genesis of creativity?  And the true need for creativity?  And how can an educator/classroom/school/district/nation/world encourage it in our students?  This evening at the Twitter #educhat forum on " Nourishing Creativity in the Classroom ," a lively discussion was had, and the conversation finally eventually led to what I believe to be the crux of the matter limiting creativity in schools: grades.  Are grades and creativity mutually exclusive?  Polar opposites?  I should hope the answer is no, but I fear the answer, in 2009, may be yes.  Or at least perhaps.  First, one must consider the determine what creativity is before one can determine if it is being used and encouraged in schools.  According to dictionary.com , creativity is:  "the ability to transcend traditional ideas, rules, patterns, relationships, or the like, and to create meaningful new ideas, forms, methods, interpretations, etc.; originality, progressiveness, or imagination." Lo...

It’s true: The Craigslist Killer will improve education.   Why?   The simple answer: awareness of “what’s out there” will improve our students’ ability to discriminate sources, be safe web users and responsible internet contributors.   Believe it or not, it all comes back to one essential question:  How does peer pressure influence adolescent behavior? As my eighth grade students start to head into young-adulthood, they will be faced with decisions and issues, not unlike decisions and issues adolescents have always faced:         What's my social standing?          Am I popular?          Who am I?        Do I fit in? These questions certainly do pressure and guide students’ behaviors, and I am quite certain that as time goes on, students will continue to face similar issues, albeit some iteration of these questions.   Generations change, but adolescent issues and behavior remain relatively constant.   Regardless of it being 1959, 1989 or 2009, students need to be gi...