…eat a pizza prepared by Geoffrey Zakarian wielding an Easy Bake oven, than one prepared by, uhhh… damn near anyone else using a $1000 oven. Just saying. Maybe that’s important, maybe it’s not. I’ll leave it up to you to figure out what business this post has on my blog. Perhaps nothing. I’m open to that.   [...]

Transforming by connection In my time as a teacher, I have tried purposefully to connect my students to experts beyond the walls of our classroom. When I began as a teacher in 1991, this was a pretty difficult task compared to today. Contacting local experts in biology or conservation took going out of the way [...]

A Conversation In 2007, a then virtual-only colleague asked whether it was, “okay to be a technologically illiterate teacher?” NETS-T provides one standardized, big-picture perspective. Many others speak of new literacies unleashed by the reach of the Internet. A few have mentioned “big shifts” that define the changes and challenges to educators in rather recent [...]

Ever find yourself beginning a blog post in an atypical place? Ever write an email to a friend only to later complete the reflection on your blog? Ever tap out the seeds of an essay while posting a photo online? I’ve done both many times. What about while tagging something to read later in a [...]

One of my most respected virtual friends (who will become a “real” friend if Educon 2.3 doesn’t get snowed out) recently blogged about five reasons to avoid Facebook in the classroom.  His post was a response to another by Jeff Utecht advocating the use of Facebook in classrooms.  While it might seem a bit odd, [...]