Point A to Point B

Category: Learning

  • Some Need 30 Minutes, Some Need 30 Years

    Not too long ago, I was with my son in the local toy store helping him pick something he could spend some gift money on. Rather quickly he decided on a Rubik’s Cube. The flashbacks started rolling in… The first time Rubik’s Cube was all the craze (circa 1980), I had one like everyone did. […]

  • Staff Development Focus for Next Year

    Thanks to the staff who responded to the brief survey I sent out (it was easy & slick to do using a Google form 🙂 ). While response wasn’t huge (25%), it is the end of the year and there are a million things to get done. I think the sample is big enough to […]

  • The Children’s Machine

    Here is an audio track to accompany this post, if you like: luminous-rain Music courtesy of Kevin MacLeod My recent purchase of an XO laptop moved me to finally dip into the writing of Seymour Papert and his often-referenced book, The Children’s Machine: Rethinking School In The Age Of The Computer. Being in the midst […]

  • Gave One Got One

    Thanks to a presentation by Brian Smith, Gary Stager and Sylvia Martinez at NYSCATE a couple of weeks ago, I get what the OLPC (one laptop per child) laptop is about. Its not about technology. Its not about schools. Its about kids, learning, and opportunity. I watched and considered last year while the Give 1 […]

  • Content Tech: Setting Objectives

    Content Tech Ideas for Technology Use in the Classroom Carrying on with a focus on the book Using Technology with Classroom Instruction that Works, the first planning question is: What will students learn? There is one instructional strategy associated with this question, setting objectives. “…when students are allowed to set some of their own learning […]

  • Content Tech: Using Technology with Classroom Instruction that Works

    Content Tech Ideas for Technology Use in the Classroom We are familiar with Marzano’s research in Classroom Instruction that Works. In 2007, MCREL released a supporting book, Using Technology with Classroom Instruction that Works. What is terrific about this book is that it puts technology in the proper place – as a tool to support […]

  • What in the Wordle Does This Mean?

    Thanks to Doug Johnson and his Blue Skunk Blog, I just learned of a neat tool, Wordle. You can paste a blob of text, or enter a URL, RSS feed, or Del.icio.us user, and see a word cloud created based on the content provided. The resulting image can be customized by color and shape. When […]

  • Podcasting in Science Class

    One of the best technology conferences recently was one I did not go to. Rather, it was one I was supposed to go to, but due to a very busy schedule in the labs, could not. So at the last minute I approached a science teacher to go in my place. It was the best […]

  • Performing Knowledge

    We recently completed a video project with one of our social studies teachers. This 7th grade project involved students picking one topic from the curriculum, and interpreting it with video in some form. We showed the students some samples from TeacherTube, including some done locally in a Buffalo high school. We then set them loose […]

  • Where is the Middle Ground?

    Somewhere between Twitter in the Classroom and old school lecture-till-you-drop teaching is a middle ground that begs to help move our classrooms forward. The majority of K-12 classrooms today are f2f. How do we acknowledge and incorporate that underlying fact? The online, global, always connected network is incredible, valuable, necessary and worthwhile, but how do […]