Avenue4Learning

Recently, I overheard some educators discussing personal websites, Facebook, Twitter, and blogs. Although I wasn’t a part of this conversation, I couldn’t help but hear what they were saying (okay, I was eavesdropping).
The most disappointing part of what I heard was this statement: “Oh, who has time for all of that garbage?!?! All those things [...]

I am a teacher. By choice. Why? Because I love learning more than little kids love candy… and helping others learn makes me incredibly happy.
Too altruistic? Too sappy? Sorry, but it’s the truth, and it’s been that way since I was in 2nd grade. At the age of 8, I knew I wanted to [...]

My apologies, Mr. President.
It has been over a month since I wrote Part I of this post. To be completely honest, I have put off writing the second part because I’ve been too angry to write it.  I’m so frustrated with what I hear coming from our government, with so-called “experts” who have not spent [...]

Dear Mr. President:
In the past two weeks, I have read more about schools, teachers, and accountability than I have ever seen in my nearly 20 years in education. Sadly, I can’t say that what I’ve been reading is encouraging. The one word I see over and over again is “accountability.”
Accountability IS a good thing. As [...]

Do we need to protect ourselves from… ourselves?
I’ve been doing a lot of research with colleagues in the last few months in the realm of public school district policies, especially pertaining to internet, web 2.0, social media, filtering, etc.
What we’ve found is many schools who have vague language in their policies, and who rely on [...]

Tomorrow is the first day of the 2009 NETA Conference.
After preparing all day, I’m really excited for this conference, as well as meeting and re-connecting with other educators.
Day 1: Looking forward to Hall Davidson’s opening keynote.
Also, NETA is providing a Bloggers’ Cafe this year. If you’re attending, plan to stop in and see us. You [...]

January Think-About
Scott McLeod posted this photo back in October. I’m using it as a discussion point in some sessions this month.

Answer these questions:
1. What are your initial feelings/thoughts after viewing this photo and quote?
2. What are you doing to change that perception in education?
If you have a response on another site- photo, quote, blog post, [...]

A couple of weeks ago, I asked for “Must Read” submissions, and received some through Twitter and some through comments. I compiled the list  and am sharing them in a Google spreadsheet here:
http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=p-RYpU6NncZV-0d8nYEeUUw
Please feel free to add to the list!
Thanks to all who responded!

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addthis_title = [...]

October Think-About:

If you compiled a list of  “must reads” for educators -  books, articles, blog posts, etc. – what would you include?
Sometimes, I think to myself, “If only they could read [ insert title here ], maybe that would help them wrap their minds around these challenging ideas/philosophies.”
Think of the conversations we could have [...]

Today is Blog Action Day 08, and I started thinking about experiences I had while I was in the classroom.
I taught in a very small school, and there were very few families of “average” socioeconomic status. There were many well above average, and many well below. It was an environment somewhat foreign to me, as [...]