All Blog Posts (1,678)

As if I needed an excuse to curl up with a good book.

I've been reading voraciously since a young age. On my first trip to the library I came home with 21 books. I couldn't believe they were letting me take home books to read and all I had to do was promise to bring them back when I was done. I knew then that I lived in a great country. I average a trip to the library once a month to this day.

The first chapter book that I fell in love with was The…

If I was a student of mine, I would drive me crazy.

I took a PD class last week and I was the one being taught something on the computer. I tried to stay on task, but I sometimes got distracted, or bored and went off to look at something else, and I got lost. I needed to ask for help from the person sitting next to me, I even needed help from one of the facilitators of the program at one point. I was a nightmare.

It made me think long and hard about my…

The NYC Board of Education is lifting it's cell phone ban for all students, which is great news if it happened ten years ago. Students have had their phones with them everyday, unless there's a metal detector at the door. In that case there's a van parked across the street from the school that stores the students phones for them everyday for a fee.

My children have carried their cell phones with them. After some natural and unnatural disasters that affected my family…

I never really thought of myself as a writer. I've written in diaries all my life, but for no one else but me. I've written papers for all sorts of classes, but just to complete an assignment. What writing for a blog has changed for me is that I now write just for the enjoyment of getting my thoughts down and hopefully find an audience for my musings.

What I'm worried about is while I was a good student, I was never taught how to be a good writer. I know nouns and…

There's a new website everyday that will change your life, and that's great, but I think we're forgetting about the basics.

If you don't know how to use the tab key correctly to line up data in a table, you're always going to struggle. 

I teach my students how to create their heading using flush left alignment and a flush right tab. If you don't know what I'm talking about, keep moving. This is not for you.

I'm a firm believer in…

Sometimes it's hard to be a technology teacher.

Students don't know more about math than the math teacher. They certainly don't know more about science or history. That's not the case with technology. In some cases, they know more than us and we are assigned to teach them something.

What we mostly do is find out where they are, and try to keep up. We think we're so groovy because we're on Facebook. Well guess what? If you haven't noticed, they're not…

I graduated from art school a long time ago, so at one point I did know how to paint. I hadn't painted in quite a while though, so when I went to Paintnite and picked up a brush after such a long time, it stirred something in me. I want to paint again, but how do I go about it?

I bought a few supplies and got a bunch of books out of the library, but what really helped me was watching a few YouTube videos of painting techniques. It made me think about learning methods.…

Just this week I found the file where I have all the addresses for my Christmas cards. I pull up this file every year and print it out on labels to remove yet another human element from my holiday wishes.

What makes me stop and think as I go over the names and addresses is all that has changed in one year. Who I sent a card to last year who's no longer with us. The address of a Mr. & Mrs. who no longer are married. It makes me sad to think of all that is different…

Microsoft just announced that it will discontinue clip art in it's products and I'm in mourning. Those trusty graphics have always been a simple and lovely way to brighten up any page, slide, or spreadsheet. Now you will be sent to Bing to search online for graphics. I have three big problems with this.

1. When little people are using these programs at first, having a simple way to insert art is not as overwhelming as searching online for appropriate artwork.…

Any planning for Christmas? Find five amazing activities that are all Christmas themed and very educational for mental growth and development. Read First School’s latest blog to find…

It has been 3 years since my last confession/ blog. I have had several enriching opportunities. I hold on to my involvement in establishing a Special Assistance School as a landmark in my teaching career. I learned the value of educational leadership from within the teaching team. The opportunity to design a whole school curriculum that was innovative and made sense to students who were at both ends of the spectrum but at the school because of life circumstance.…

Thanksgiving is a wonderful occasion to give back something to the community. Learn practical ways to encourage gratefulness this Thanksgiving. 

Most people view Thanksgiving as a holiday when family comes together to share a delicious meal. However, there is more to this…

I love typefaces. I fell in love with them during my graphic design classes in art school. I think that some of them are so beautiful, they give the words they display more meaning. They are a subtle way to add a level of expression to the words they spell out. "I love you" written in Times Roman is a much different expression than when it's written in Edwardian Script.



I have my favorites, of course, as everyone does. The delicate shifts in weight and graceful…

I received some mail about the Hour of Code last year around this time. I had no idea what it was and I was barely interested in it, but I looked through it because I'm always looking for new things to add to my technology curriculum. I went to the website and watched the intro videos and started working through the activities. It took a few minutes, but I was hooked and I knew my students would be too. The Hour of Code introduces students to a skill they might not know they have; the…

EdTechLens is offering a free pilot test of Rainforest Journey, a web-based K-5 life science program. Rainforest Journey uses video, photos and leveled text to engage students. The program is aligned with the NGSS standards and can be used for classroom lessons on digital whiteboard, or individually by students on computers or tablets. Testers complete 3 feedback surveys during the pilot testing period, and receive a license to use the program for a year. To sign up, to this link:…

In the 21^st Century our approach to education can and should be very different from previous centuries. The basic skills we teach are pretty much the same, but the tools we have to use require a different approach, as well as additional and very different literacies from centuries past. Information once difficult to find, maintain, and disseminate is now found by a voice command to a mobile device. The model of the teacher as the content expert standing in the front of the room,…

Motivating students in math is one of the challenging tasks for many of the parents and teachers. Student’s engagement is the key of learning math and math engagement comes from motivation. This article will explore many learning techniques to parents and teachers which allow them to encourage students to get excited about math learning. Many students hate math because they have the feeling that math is a hard subject. Below you can find 7 guaranteed ways which will help students to motivate…

Statistics is a branch of mathematics. Statistics is the art of analyzing and concluding of data. Most of the developments of the statistics occurred in the 20th century. Statistics are used in daily life. Statistics use in medical, business, engineering, media, politics, sports, etc. To understand some basic concepts of statistics follow the below article.…