I’m afraid there are a lot of teachers who avoid controversies--talking about guns in the classroom just opens up a touchy subject ..... we, as educators, are obligated to help our students develop opinions that are based on objective facts.
Bring the Masters Right into your Classroom with Google Arts & Culture
Responding to art is an important process in an arts classroom and can be a valuable strategy when integrating art into other content areas. But not all classrooms have collections of art prints like many art classrooms have. Some pieces of artwork have had a profound impact on me. Dorothea Lange’s "Migrant Mother" is …
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Digital Storytelling via the iPad Part 1: What’s My Story?
I recently attended a one-day workshop at the TIES Technology Conference in Minnesota on Digital Storytelling and the iPad. The workshop was lead by two talented trainers from the TIES technology integration team, Caroline Little and Kari Huinker. They based their workshop on the work of Bernajean Porter, the guru of digital storytelling who provides …
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Arts Integration and/or Technology Integration?
I made a career change one year ago, and shortly thereafter stopped posting to this blog. For the past year I’ve been directing my energies toward supporting arts integration efforts in schools throughout Minnesota through a project at the Perpich Center for Arts Education, a Minnesota state agency. Granted, I’m still working with technology, primarily …
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Interactive Whiteboard Debate
Fancy Projection Screens or Transformative Tools for 21st Century teaching? OK, I really come down somewhere in the middle on this question. Despite all the hype, an IWB is really only as good as the teacher using it. In a novice’s hands, an IWB often is just a glorified whiteboard, with electronic ink replacing stinky …
Flipping the Classroom
No, this is not what your classroom looks like after the painters put that new coat of beige paint on your walls and have moved all your bookshelves to the middle of the room. Instead, think—21st century learning, using video and online resources to deliver the concepts and content of your subject to your students …
Mobile Learning at ISTE 2011 in Philly
Check out this QR (Quick Read) Code. I scanned it with my iPhone standing next to Benjamin Franklin’s grave in Philadelphia last week. I was on a field trip with the ISTE SIGML (special interest group for mobile learning). We were using QR codes to discover interesting facts about Ben Franklin as we did a …
Winnowing the Chaff: Part 2
I once had a teacher say to me after a training on using internet resources to enrich and expand teaching and learning, "You're a technology integration specialist. You should assemble a list of all the good website out there! Classroom teachers don't have time to find all this good stuff." I agreed, but shared how …
Engagement (for teachers)
It may be the season of engagements and weddings but I'm not talking about that kind of romance--although I am talking about a kind of love affair. More and more teachers are having a love affair with their new technology tools-- more specifically their interactive whiteboards (IWB). Many of these teachers have been teaching for …
Twitter Postings: Petroglyphs of the 21st Century
So what do petroglyphs have to do with twitter posts? Our spring break this early April was amazing. Normally, in Minnesota, spring break means late winter slush with melting snow and muddy trails. But this year was showing, spring was definitely in the air. I decided I needed a prairie fix. I'm attracted to the …
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Making Connections 