February 2012 Blog Posts (24)

We're in the communications business. We need to get our lesson across to kids, let our administrators know how well we're doing in the classroom and help parents understand how to help their child succeed in academia. As in all other communication fields, there are 4 primary ways we get information across. Each of these is important and each can be improved by technology.…

Check out my newest blog post on "Reading. Writing. Thinking. Sharing"  about bringing a {Fluency Boot Camp} into your classroom!…

Hi, 

This is my first post here - and I confess that I did not look to see if there were already similar posts.

This weekend I've read both (Sat and Sun) NYTimes pieces on the release of teacher rating data.

Until this weekend I'd been all for linking teacher evaluation to student performance.

To an extent I still am, but the model used, and the current popular value added component will have some unacceptable consequences.

First - the data is old and does…

My wife and I had been saving up our rewards points from airlines, hotels, and credit cards in order to celebrate a 24^th wedding anniversary in Las Vegas. We finally did it this past week. As a lifelong “Rat Pack” fan I looked forward to the Landmarks, the Legends, the Lights, and the Luxuries of the Las Vegas Strip. Ironically, however, our most enjoyable venture was a helicopter tour and landing in the Grand Canyon in Arizona.

One of the most impressive feats of Las Vegas…

As teachers we are charged with increasing the amount of knowledge in the world. We work with our students whatever their age to help them gain skills and information. Most of us, though (myself included) are in the business of spreading information rather than generating new knowledge. Now, what if you knew you could aid researchers by playing online games? What if, just by goofing around on the internet, you could add to the knowledge pool in addition to passing it on to students? Well,…

Technology can improve learning on days that teachers have a substitute teacher. The teacher and the sub can both make online preparations to ensure a sick day is still a day full of learning.

Lets first consider the classroom teacher. There are any number of ways that you can prepare for a sick day. Traditionally, a teacher will have a subfolder prepared with a map, the teacher's schedule, trustworthy students and some simple lesson plans. If you know in advance, you can also have…

Can you imagine every student at your school or in your organization improving raeding reading skills? The Launchpad Company is starting a nationwide campaign to make a difference in how students enjoy reading.  The company helps students by providing reading level using Lexile scores.  A Lexile score is a measure of a student’s reading ability.  The student gets to select two books that get them excited about reading  each month.  Right know too many students are getting books that are not…

I recently worked with elementary and middle school teachers on infusing Web 2.0 tools into their classrooms.  This is the resources we found most useful.

Check out my blog at http://mrskeehnersblog.blogspot.com/

The beginning of the month saw the publication of an insightful and thought provoking post at Mathalicious. This post really probed the conversation around Khan Academy and the changes that this product and platform has brought to the world of math education. While I agree with much of what was written, there are some aspects of the authors claims that I find problematic.…

Several weeks, “How do educators collaborate within a building to better their professional practice? What would make such collaboration easier/better?” was the #edchat topic. I enjoyed participating in this chat because I have had major concerns about the lack of cross curricular planning and collaboration among the staff in my school. Despite the hard work of my administrator, our staff lacks the collaboration and consensus of what ideals and goals we share. A portion of our staff are…

As an educator for the past four decades there is very little in the way of conversation that I haven’t discussed about what it is to be a teacher. In these discussions, over all of these years, there is one position taken by many people which always gives me cause to think less of the person with whom I am having the discussion. It forces me to question their bias on the subject. The statement that sets me off is usually some variation of,”teaching isn’t really a profession”.

The…

Has the growth and technology decreased reading scores? Are students reading less? This is a big topic of discussion in many education circles. Everyday students are on computers, Ipads, Kindles and other devices. Students are getting information much faster and they are very enticed by three dimensional images. In spite of all of this technology it is still important to read. Learning to read feeds students brains and it challenges them to grow intellectually and emotionally. Students…

Reading and writing used to be much simpler. We would get some sort of sharp stick (a pen or pencil) and scratch at paper until the marks we made could be interpreted by someone else. Well, our writing has evolved somewhat and along with it, so has our reading. Nowhere is this change more evident than in the home of reading, 'riting and 'rithmetic... academia.

Lets start by looking at our writing tools. Lets start off with PDF's. For those of you unfamiliar with the term, PDF's are…

Co-founders of Flat Classroom®, Julie Lindsay and Vicki Davis, are excited to be able to offer this global collaborative project to classrooms around the world. This project will run as a pilot for the coming semester, February-April 2012 and be open to Prep/Kindergarten, Grade 1, and Grade 2 classrooms (4-7

year old students).

Can very young students effectively connect, communicate, and collaborate in a global project?

What does this look like? What products can students in…

Classroom, a photo by James F Clay on Flickr.

As teachers, sometimes we think of ourselves as only giving the lessons and not receiving them. This year that has changed for me. I love to learn and always have. I have a master’s degree…