Recess is a good thing

Recess is a good thing

Sometimes people will tell me “There’s more to life than computers and technology.” Of course I know that. There are times when a computer just can’t compete. Like today, it’s 75 degrees outside and the Pre-K and Kindergarten kids have been working on this for two days now. Sometimes a little chalk, a nice sunny day, and just time to […]

30boxes sync to Palm

30boxes sync to Palm

So I started a 30boxes account a couple days ago as a way for my wife and me to keep track of our summer plans. So she has a calendar and I have a calendar and we added each other at buddies. So now as we make plans we can both add them to basically the same calendar staying in […]

I was almost right!

I was almost right!

So my wife and I are sitting at this nice little sandwich shop on TaiKang Lu enjoying our toasted sandwiches when all of a sudden she turns to me and says, “It won’t work, you can’t lock down the computers like that.” Shocked I replied, “What?” “You can’t give a computer to a teacher and then tell them they can’t […]

Computers may or may not boost student achievement

Computers may or may not boost student achievement

USA Today ran this article: Computers may not boost student achievement on April 11th. Computers MAY not boost student achievement? Doesn’t that also mean that they may boost student achievement? (You have to love the negative spin) Parents help kids with homework more often and students’ grades benefit slightly In the first year, their grade-point averages rose modestly Those sure […]

My 25% PD

My 25% PD

It has been a couple weeks since I’ve posed my PD entry. The weeks around Spring Break are always hectic. This week is conferences which has given me some free time to get back into the swing of my goal of 525 minutes of PD a week. This week I accrued about 400 minutes of PD time. Helped by 2 […]

Tired

Tired

I’m tired. Tired of hearing “Wait!”, “We’re going to get there.”, “It takes time.” I’m starting to understand John and Will a little better. Can we afford to wait? Shanghai 2003 Shanghai 2005 I wouldn’t believe it either if I didn’t live here. According to The Peking Duck where these pictures are from they were taken about 24 months apart. […]

New Words

New Words

The New York Times has a fun little piece on new words we need to add: Screensucking, which he defines as “wasting time engaging with any screen — for instance, computer, video game, television, BlackBerry.” He goes on to use his new word in a sentence: “I was supposed to write that article, but instead I spent the whole afternoon […]

Creativity vs Experimentation

Creativity vs Experimentation

I’ve been following the conversation that Doug Johnson of the Blue Skunk blog started a couple days ago and have been trying to formulate some response in my head other then “Well, just because it should be that way!” Doug takes on the age old question of creativity vs experimentation. Or in the educational world: Is education an art or […]

Moving towards conceptual thinking

Moving towards conceptual thinking

In order to change an educational institution we all know that you need to start at the top. A great article that you might want to pass on to your school board out of the American School Board Journal this month. Closing the ‘Reality Gap’ Just a taste of the article for you: Studies have shown that many of our […]

myspace and xanga not so cool

myspace and xanga not so cool

Had a chat with some middle school students last week and a tech savvy teacher who talks to her students about the latest and greatest technologies that the students are using. Word on the street is myspace and xanga are no longer cool. A 7th grade student told me: “It just got old!” Blogging at xanga.com was all the rave […]