Twitter has been a topic for educational Bloggers for several years now. I believe that those educators using Twitter are drawn to those posts, while other educators, not using Twitter, are driven away. Maybe the problem is the emphasis, or focus of the blog posts. Maybe the focus should be on relevance and no mention of twitter. Are educators relevant in our technology-driven society?  The obvious answer is that some are, and some are not. A more important question is which of these two…

It’s one of my favorite seasons. Of course it’s the holidays, but it’s also time to teach one of my favorite topics in American History-the Road to Revolution. I love this era so much not only for its excitement and concentration of iconic historic figures and events, but also because it offers such a dynamic opportunity to demonstrate cause and effect, and…

Caffeinated Teaching

Do you like to take your laptop with you when you travel?  Now, if you have a smart phone, be it an iPhone or an Android phone, or if you have a tablet, such as an iPAD, you don’t have to take your laptop with you anymore.  Use LogMeIn, you can remotely access your home and work computers and work on the computer like you are…

Soon I will be using the Reading Eggs programs with my first grade students. Has anyone used the program?Does anyone have helpful hits or suggestions for using the program? It looks effective and fun!

»Why grade

If grading is such a drudgery, why do teachers take so much time doing it?  In part, it is part of the job.  The greater need to grade is knowing how well students are…

When I accepted an invitation to attend the World Innovation Summit on Education, WISE2012, in Doha, Qatar, I had absolutely no idea what I was getting into. In my own arrogance I thought I was a seasoned education conference attendee. I have been to maybe a…

http://newsroom.opencolleges.edu.au/features/educational-psychology-20-things-educators-need-to-know-about-how-students-learn/

Meet the Insects: Forest Edition is a multimedia encyclopedia of forest insects.  What I am most impressed are the images and videos.  They are so real that you feel the insects can jump out of the screen.  Another thing I really enjoyed is how different elements come together – content, transition between sections, background,…

Britannica Kids: Ancient Rome is such a great app for upper elementary and middle school kids.  It has rich content yet all at the appropriate age level, no matter it is the length of each article or the vocabulary choices.  The games are fun and are tied very well with the main contents.  As an app full of historical facts, it is…

An Infographic by Open Colleges

Caffeinated Teaching

This magician shows us just how magical collaboration can be...

A few weeks ago I received an email invitation to attend an education conference with all expenses paid. This is done to get the conferences noticed in the education community. It is an expense and a necessary element of Public relations. Depending on the quality of the conference, sometimes it pays off, but sometimes it exposes flaws of a conference to the world of connected educators. This is not an uncommon practice, and as a connected educator, I look upon it as an opportunity with each…

I am currently working with a 4th grade student in an after school program. The student is currently struggling with telling time, such as understanding 10 mins after 10, a quarter to 11, half past 12. What strategies would you suggest that I use to help the student understand time vocabulary? 

Little Blue Jackal is a bilingual app.  In addition to an interesting story, it also teaches kids Spanish.

The story starts with the little jackal trying to run away from a village after being caught of stealing food.  He fell into a bucket of blue paint and his entire body turned blue.  Looked…

Today I attended the 39^th Annual Conference for the Association of Middle Level Education in Portland, Oregon. I actually presented for this group for a couple of times about 25 years ago when it was The National Middle Schools Association. That was back in the day when we had far fewer middle schools. The model most often employed back then was the Junior High School. Junior high schools were 7-9 mini high schools. Little kids, little problems (what were we thinking?).

The…

Here are the poems and short explanations of two students:



Katherine  Cross:



As a way to practice verb tenses, we were asked to write a poem. By doing this assignment I learned the proper way to use the conditional form, both in Spanish and in English. We had to manipulate different verbs in order for the poem to flow. On top of that, it was actually really fun to write because it allowed me to be creative. I chose to write mine on nature while others wrote about their past…