Adventures in Administration

  http://www.flickr.com/photos/fdecomite/499144126/in/photostream/ Some schools are more willing to embrace technology than others.  Quite frankly, this is beginning to puzzle me deeply.  I understand the concerns that many adults raise regarding their fears for student safety, the inability of many students to comport themselves appropriately in the on-line world, and the lack of a clear understanding of how to meaningfully integrate technology.  After all, it is the teaching  that is important, not the tools, right? As a Catholic educator, I understand all of this.  However, I would like to counter all of these reasonable concerns with the fact that as Catholic (you can actually insert any religious denomination here that is in the business of education) educators, we are in a unique position to do more than just simply bring technology into the classroom.  We have the amazing ability to teach morals.  We get to talk about God (yes, I said...

http://goo.gl/hN3wJH The Renaissance is perhaps the most popular example in the western world of creativity  And why not?  Just think of the art, architecture, and literature that we have inherited from that time.  We marvel today at the ingenuity and originality of the times.  And we sometimes long for just a smidgen of the talent represented by that era. I believe that technology is presenting us with an opportunity to reclaim some of that creativity and originality.  I believe we are living in a new renaissance.   However, because it is driven by technology I think many discount the potential. When Brunelleschi figured out how to complete the  duomo  atop Santa Maria in Florence in the 15th century, he was creating.  He saw a problem and took a risk.  The result?  A spectacular piece of architecture that is still marveled at today.  He had some tools at his disposal and with some design thinking, built a structure ...

photo credit: Flickr.com courtesy of Jonathan McIntosh This past week marked the start of the new semester for us and I was eager to begin work on my plans, projects, ideas, and in general get back to the business of school after a few weeks off.  I started, however, a few days early by attending EdCamp Home 2.0.  It was an awesome experience!  I finished the day completely pumped for the new semester.  I attribute my enthusiasm to the two sessions I attended.   My first session was a collaborative conversation in which we contributed to a Google Doc, shared best practices,and  threw out questions and challenges to crowd source solutions for.  It was a great opportunity to learn with other educators from a round the globe.  My second session was an unexpected opportunity to sit at the feet of the amazing @garnet_hilman to hear about #sbg.  It was such a fabulous session because we had THE guru in the room.  I was extremely gratef...

Photo Credit: http://goo.gl/Lo9qtK October 2013 was Connected Educator Month.  Twitter Chats referenced it, the hashtag #ce13 was popular, people reflected on the idea of being a connected educator, and @arneduncan even moderated a chat for #edtechchat at the end of the month!  The official website: http://connectededucators.org/ was, and is, full of lots of information to help anyone become a more connected educator.  Questions such as: "How do you stay connected", " Why is it important to be a connected educator", and "What does it mean to be a connected educator" were discussed throughout the month.  Though I very much enjoy participating in Twitter chats and have come to greatly value the PLN that I have created, I must be honest: it wasn't until the end of October that I began to truly reflect on this phenomenon of Connected Educator Month.  So with the turn of the calendar page to a new month, I felt it appropriate to pause and consider ...

This week we had our first "official"--as in calendared so you MUST participate--Professional Development opportunity.  Let me first clarify that the calendar was something I inherited and the system of scheduling PD is, as I am aware, starting to go the way of VHS tapes.  Be that as it may, the day was on the calendar so I had to do something.  Oh.  I have to plan an afternoon (only 2 hours were officially designated for PD as the morning was dedicated to National Testing Day) that is meaningful and valued by all departments?  Really?  O.K.  Time to implement some of those "Best Practices" that I have been hearing about and talking about with my Twitter PLN.  This blog is my chance to reflect on how the day was organized and start to plan for any changes that should be implemented before our next PD day (that one is in the Spring). Step 1: Information Gathering   My thoughts, very early on, were that 2 hours were in no way sufficient to br...

There has been a lot of chatter lately in the Twittersphere and at conferences about two ideas that seem to be slowly gaining traction in education:  1. Project Based Learning (PBL)--and you might as well include 20% Time in that conversation, and  2. the notion of schools being THE best place to allow our students to fail.   I have been ruminating on both of these concepts a lot the past few months.  In this post I am going to attempt to tackle both succinctly and intelligently Let's start with the first one: PBL/20% Time.  finally came to the realization that this is the way to approach learning at all grades.  And it only took my 7 year old and a talking bus to help me realize this.  After all, I'm a history teacher by trade so how exactly does one teach the French Revolution or the writing of the U.S. Constitution or the origins of civilization or the causes of WWI as a project?  I know that all you PBL evangelists are moaning at t...

I was reminded that good coaching is not about dynamic coaches serving as heroic educators, but rather stems from the simple habits of connecting teachers to resources and asking them reflective questions.  ~Shane Safire  July, 2008 This week has consisted of a lot of coaching.  I know that last week I reflected on coaching.  However, I think our Monday #edleadchat topic on coaching and observing kept this topic in the forefront of my mind.  That coupled with a number of issues on campus related to new teachers seems to have forced my hand to circle back to this topic once again. I was not able to observe as many classrooms as I would have liked this week.  But the ones I did get into provided a real range of experiences and helped me to really think about the reflective process.  I realized that it isn't enough to observe a classroom and pen a few notes of gratitude and "way to go-s" for each teacher.  There were some real opportunities for...