I’m helping facilitate a wonderful series of video conferences this week and next in my school district, and I wanted to share a little bit of the excitement as students in Michigan connect with others in Texas, Pennsylvania, New York, Oklahoma, and many other states! Read Around the Planet is a huge collaboration in celebration of reading that happens alongside many other celebrations in the U.S. and schools for “March is...

I work with many different teachers in my district that in turn work with many different grade levels of students. While most of the teachers call for my technical skills for a project to take care of the nuts and bolts of getting the students up and running with a technology-rich project, I usually bring my former teacher self as well to the classroom. When I present students with a potentially new work space, especially one in which they...

It’s only 2 days until one of my most beloved holidays here in the United States, Thanksgiving. A day for families far flung around the country or close-knit to come together and be thankful for all that we are be blessed to have. Whether you’re thankful for your family, a roof over your head, a car that gets you to work in one piece, or perhaps something as simple as a pen and paper to journal your thoughts, Thanksgiving is an...

I’ve had a LOT of traffic on a Google Document that I created last year while exploring the Common Core State Standards. At the time I created it I was looking for a way to impress upon the teachers in my district that technology standards are now for the first time being embedded within the content standards (at least here in Michigan). Previously, the technology standards were published by the state separately from the core content...

The New York Times has published an amazing interactive online application that allows readers to explore and analyze all the words and phrases spoken during all of the big speeches at the two major party conventions that just wrapped up last week here in the United States. On the surface, the tool looks like a fancier version of Wordle, with words and phrases that had higher frequencies during speeches being placed in large bubbles, while...

It’s no secret that I’m a “hit and miss poet”. While I’d like to believe that my expository writing has improved since I started writing on a regular basis via this blog 7 years ago (I’ll let you pass judgement on the quality of my writing), I find that prose and other literary forms escape my realm of competence. Sure, I can turn out a decent poem or two if given enough time to consider meter, verse, and...