There are two weeks of high school class left and it’s always a stressful time of the year. Teachers are trying to wrap things up, AP teachers are (often) looking for rigorous ways to teach after the test, admin is trying to keep order and prep for graduation, and then there’s the parents and students. [...]

Posted in grading, school

At the beginning of the school year I took the section on mobile devices in my classroom and made a significant change. Originally it began with the change from “Cell phones, mp3 players, and other electronic devices are not allowed in the classroom to removing the word “not”. I told them to take out these [...]

Posted in AP Lang, Blackberry, books, curriculum, gadgets, iphone, literature, school, teacher2.0, technology

The fear within our schools as we begin another year is that technology is making our students dumber, but a recent Wired article by Clive Thompson reports findings from Adrea Lunsford out of Stanford University’s Stanford Writing Center has done a massive study that suggests today’s 21st century college student has actually become stronger writers [...]

Posted in rhetoric, school, student2.0

Posted in school

Four years ago, one of the coolest and smartest girls I’ve ever taught walked into my room. A year before that the laziest smart boy I ever taught spent a great year with me. The girl, Alexis, decided she wanted to go to an all girl’s college so she could learn devoid of those silly [...]

Posted in school

Earlier today I got a cryptic message from a student that Google Docs was down and they couldn’t get to their directions for tomorrow’s project. Now mind you, I assigned this over a month ago so why wait until today to go and begin to do your work? Later I got another message from a [...]

Posted in google, google docs, google groups, online, school, student2.0, technology, tutorials

On February 18, 2008 Max Rooselvelt published an article on student grading in The New York Times. This article titled Student Expectations Seen as causing Grade Disputes explores the expectation of instructors versus those of students. For example, one-third of students in a recent survey at the University of California, Irvine, expected to receive B’s [...]

Posted in school

The most exciting presenter I saw in the program is Marc Prensky, who has been writing and speaking on “Digital Natives” now for a few years. Some of my colleagues think he’s old hat, and I wondered what his topic would be today. He mentioned his most recent book called Don’t Bother Me Mom, I’m [...]

Posted in NCTE, conferences, presentations, school, student2.0, teacher2.0, technology

The other day I received this article from a colleague that was rather irksome in many ways, albeit it did make me think. As an instructor in both highschool and college, I know how pedagogically inexperienced many (NOT ALL) of my colleagues are at the colleges, but on the other hand I know how content [...]

Posted in school, student2.0, teacher2.0

I had mixed feelings about today, but once I got into it all was good. I am so use to working with Mrs Crabtree that I don’t remember to tell Mrs Deakin some things. I hope I don’t forget anything! For example, tonight I added my kiddies to the Google Calendar but didn’t add hers. [...]

Posted in google calendar, school