Jeff Utecht – Educator, Consultant, Author
Celebrating Teachers – Jim Fitzgerald
Apr 24th
As I mentioned in my last post what I love about this COETAIL program is it allows me to see education across the grade levels.
Earlier this week I was in Jim Fitzgerald’s Higher Level Year 1 IB English Class (11th Graders), where students were working on a Semester Long Unit on Ekphrasis.
Students are using their blogs as a way to document their learning (creating e-portfolios). We have a few teachers in the high school using blogs with students and I had an opportunity yesterday to chat with them in Mr. Fitz’s class about their blogs.
You have to love an English teacher who More >
Celebrating Teachers – Mike Jessee
Apr 21st
Sometimes there are teachers you just need to celebrate…..and that is this blog post (and the next).
This week is only two days old but I’m already excited at what teachers who are finishing our COETAIL course are producing. The final course has them implementing everything we’ve learned in the four classes before into units or lessons within their content area. It also calls for us, the instructors, (Kim, Dennis, and I) to observer a lesson where they implement everything they’ve learned and using this rubric have a discussion with them about what we observed in their lesson and room.
The last two days have More >
What I learned from Laos
Apr 19th
Yawn……stretch…..nothing like a week off relaxing to get the creative juices flowing. Spring Break is now over and we’re in the home stretch here in Bangkok with 7 weeks of school to go before summer vacation starts.
Over Spring Break, my wife and I spent four days in beautiful Luang Prabang, Laos (pictures can be found here).
While in Laos, I learned a couple things that I’d like to share with you.
1. How to keep your cell phone dry during Songkran Songkran is New Year’s in South East Asia and it typically calls for country wide water fights. No better way to celebrate New More >
Games and Bugs
Apr 6th
As our first Certificate of Educational Technology and Information Literacy program (COETAIL) draws to a close here at ISB educators are starting to put the finishing touches on their projects for the 5th and final course. They’ve been working all semester on putting into practice what we’ve been learning about the first 4 courses. They have been paired with a mentor (Kim, Dennis, and I) to help them create a unit or lesson to use in their classroom. We then schedule a time to go in and observer them using this rubric that the three of us created (worth checking out) based on More >
Two Pitches
Apr 5th
(Stories from my side of the field Part 1 and Part 2 here)
I throw another hand full of seeds into my month and wrap my jacket tighter around me.
Man it’s cold today…wish the wind would quit blowing….I’m freezen!
We’re in the second game of another weekend doubleheader at home. We’re up by a run going into the 7th inning. As cold as I am I can’t believe she’s still here, in the stands, watching this game. Why doesn’t she go sit in the car? Or why is she even still here?
She sits there huddled in her blanket by herself, just watching. She More >
What’s Your Container?
Mar 29th
What I love about presenting is how themes emerge within my presentations that I was never thinking about before the conference begins. But somewhere in the process of doing 6 presentations at the EARCOS Teacher’s Conference a theme in my sessions emerged. What is your container?
We talked in many of my sessions about having a container to house all of your web “stuff”. What that contain looks like really doesn’t matter as long as:
A. It works for youB. It allows EVERYTHING to be embeded
When you create a “class container” think of it as not just a place to actually put More >
ADE Wrap-up
Mar 28th
A big part about ADE is creating something within your group. They call it challenge based learning…..I’d call it getting creative!
We….teachers….do not get creative very often….do not take the time to get creative. I mean really creative.
That’s what we were able to do at the ADE conference. We took time to be creative for us. Have an idea, and be creative.
Here’s what we came up with.
InOnePlace.org is our idea to bring the best educational resources, people, and ideas together for teachers. One Place to access and send you on your way. What makes us different, or so we think, is that More >
Creating your Personal Brand
Mar 21st
At day two of the #ADE2010 conference here in Singapore we focused our time on thinking about personal branding. Something that I believe all educators should think about and that I’ve discussed on this blog here, here and here.
It's been frustrating getting connected to the Internet at ADE. Something I didn't think I'd have to worry about at this conference. Picture taken by teachingsagittarian
The presentation from Apple I believe was spot on in the fact that educators do not take enough time to pat themselves on the back, reflect, and think about themselves as a brand. Especially international teachers like myself who More >
