“The Choice is Yours” by Black Sheep. I used to love this song, and still do. My favorite part of the song was/is the following: Engine, Engine, Number 9 On the New York transit line If my train goes off the track Pick it up! Pick it up! Pick it up! It’s Easter time, a […]
Reading, Writing, Arithmetic, and __________________ (fill in the blank). Mark Surman, executive director of Mozilla, would fill in this blank with the following: Digital Literacy This, he believes, is the 4th “R” of 21st century learning (video here). Last week I began discussing my experience working through a new curricular unit, attempting to bridge traditional literacy […]
The Blue Devils certainly gave Bucky Badger and the rest of Wisconsin a bad case of the basketball blues. Over here in NJ (where there weren’t even any teams in the tournament!), fifth-grade students were busily researching each team, working with collaborative documents, and learning to utilize Google Maps and QR Codes. To begin this process, I […]
A way to use Google Forms for data analysis (in 5 steps): Currently, in a Connected Mathematics unit called Data About Us, my fifth-grade class is learning about data: collecting data, organizing data, and interpreting data. Striving to provide authentic learning tasks, my goal was to incorporate my students’ enthusiasm for March Madness into this […]
iPads vs. Chromebooks? I believe each have their own merits in advancing student learning. Our district decided to go full throttle with Google Apps. I’m fortunate enough to have each student equipped with a Chromebook this year. As such, I find myself using Google Forms ALL the time. This has immensely helped in my ongoing assessment of student […]
Why document student conferences? To be honest, sometimes I just don’t feel like doing it. Sometimes I don’t feel like working out either, but I do it because I know it holds value. Value. Perhaps that’s part of the problem. Maybe some teachers just don’t see the value of conferring notes. I think teachers who feel this […]
Bad days. We’ve all had them. It’s during these days that a kind gesture of the smallest kind can encourage us to press on, or perhaps change the entire course of our day. I recently received the following email from a parent in response to a conferring note. Here’s how it happened: Google Apps is […]
