Lifelong Kindergarten

First of all, I have to thank my friend, Kim Sivick for sharing this awesome gadget with me. ————————————————————————————————————————————– Today I received my Makey Makey kit in the mail and I haven’t stopped playing with it. First, I opened the box. Once I had it all plugged in, I immediately got some bananas and got…

EdReform Impossible

The more I read about school reform here in Philadelphia, the more it feels like an episode of the Food Network show, Restaurant Impossible. For those who have never seen it, picture a professional restauranteur swooping in to turnaround a failing restaurant with his years of experience and no-nonsense attitude. The changes that the host,…

Are You Smarter Than a Second Grader?

This year my 2nd graders completed a research project about African American Athletes using videos from History.com and a public Google Docs presentation. The students worked in self-selected pairs and picked an athlete’s name out of a ‘hat’ (it was actually a plastic beach bucket!). Over the next few weeks, they listened to the videos…

Getting Excited for Edcamp Philly!

It feels like forever since I have been to an edcamp, though I have virtually attended a few through following hashtags and the opportunity to Skype into edcampMKE with some of my colleagues. I have been more and more energized by conversations around teacher leadership, meaningful professional development. The edcamp movement has been growing, with…

A Conversation with ASCD’s Outstanding Young Educators of the Year

As a member of the press here at ASCD’s annual conference, I was lucky enough to sit and talk with Liliana Aquas and Matt McClure, the Outstanding Young Educators over lunch. It was an inspiring dialogue. Liliana, who works at Leconte Elementary School in Berkeley, CA, did not start out wanting to be an educator….

ASCD 2012 Annual Conference — Saturday Sessions

I am very excited to be attending ASCD’ s annual conference here in Philadelphia. I will be blogging about sessions and conversations I attend. Here are some sessions for today that caught my eye: A lunch with ASCD’s Outstanding Educators Session 1270 — EdCamp-Style Professional Development Engages and Empowers Teachers, 1:30 p.m. – 2:30 p.m.  (a little…