Jackie and I have been having a bit of back and forth via our blogs and Twitter about keeping up with our resolutions.  She writes: Newsflash: resolutions also often involve stopping doing things that are easy, and replacing with things that are hard. Yep, yep, yep.  Decluttering has been hard but I’ve managed to keep [...]

A discussion arose on an email list about teaching/using Google docs vs. Microsoft Word.  That discussion actually made it to Google+.  A teacher posted reasons why he teaches Google docs, the most important of which is about teaching concepts because applications change.  The conversation on Google+ is interesting and one I participate in at nearly [...]

I’m participating in a P2PU course that examines teaching programming to “free-range” students vs. teaching programming in more formal settings.  I’ve long been fascinated by teaching methods, and, of course, focused on teaching in my dissertation.  But back in those days, technology and programming were in support of another subject rather than a subject unto [...]

Chuck Tryon is revamping his Technology in the Language Arts course and I left a long comment on his blog about what we do.  Here’s a slightly more organized and extended version of that: Google Apps for Education: we have this installed and teachers have taken advantage of it in many ways Google Docs: Teachers [...]

Today, as I was moving around the room during robotics club, checking in with each team, I had a moment where I realized I really liked what was happening.  I still have reservations about robotics as a pathway to Computer Science, but there is so much the kids have gotten out of this.  They no [...]

After my classes today, I started thinking about this issue, of how to encourage students to not just do the bare minimum, but to go beyond that and to do their very best on any given task.  In theory, grades should do that, I guess, but I don’t think it always does, and in classes [...]

I knew that Computer Science and logic were closely tied together, but I’ve been surprised by how difficult that logical thinking comes to my students.  I can’t remember if I’ve mentioned this before, but I have to say my writing background is perfectly suited to CS.  Writing = Logical Thinking.  When I started doing some [...]

One of the most fascinating things about running this robotics club is watching kids figure out how to work together.  The mantra about 21st century learning is that cooperation and collaboration are at the top of the list, because things like cloud computing make it possible to do across time and space.  But working together [...]

You’re never fully prepared sometimes.  I spent the summer developing my course.  And yet, the other day, after going over my plan, tweaking a few things, and adding others, I still didn’t feel prepared enough, and I still feel like, afterwards, the lesson could use some work. Once a week is not enough for my [...]

Last week, I was chaperoning the annual 7th grade trip to camp.  As part of the trip, the camp staff put our students through several challenges that emphasize working together to achieve a common goal.  It occurred to me that while I value these kinds of challenges greatly, I don’t do enough of them in [...]