All Blog Posts (1,684)

Illustrations: University of Missouri

“The intuitive mind is a sacred gift

and the rational…

Hi,

My blog is made for ===> LEARNing To LEARN <=== about ===> #digcit #DigitalCitizenShip #Privacy #InternetSafety #CyberSecurity #ICT #Awareness #CriticalTHINKing #ProactiveTHINKing <=== for #EDUcation #EDUcators #TEACHers #Students AND #Parents.

Check it, please ===> Education: Digital CitizenShip, CyberSecurity by Gust MEES

If…

There are now hundreds of Education Twitter chats taking place around the world at almost any time of day or night. To follow any chat in real time all one needs is the hashtag (#). The hashtag is the key to the chat. Using TweetDeck, Hootsuite, or some other third party application it is easy to create a column that will follow only the hash tagged tweets of the chat. That will focus on and deliver each of the tweets in the chat in the order that they are posted.

Of course in a chat…

Almost daily someone comes out with a plan to do something different in education to make some progress in reforming the system. Most of these changes require that teachers or students make the change. The truth is that until we change the culture, there will be little change in the system.

In thinking about how we approach, analyze and evaluate things, it seemed to me that the people held most accountable were the students and the teachers. They were the most visible and easily…

Dear Teacher colleagues,

I am working with a company in Beijing that is hiring teachers who are native English speakers to teach a humanities curriculum to very small classes (4-6 students). Shang Learning works with students in Beijing who wish to attend boarding high schools and colleges in the United States.

Compensation is very competitive. This is a great chance to live and work in Beijing and to work with great kids on a rigorous curriculum.

Please contact me with…

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…