teaching
What Makes a Great Teacher
Monday, February 1st, 2010“For years, the secrets to great teaching have seemed more like alchemy than science, a mix of motivational mumbo jumbo and misty-eyed tales of inspiration and dedication. But for more than a decade, one organization has been tracking hundreds of thousands of kids, and looking at why some teachers can move them three grade levels [...]
20 Minutes Is All ‘Ya Got? You Better Prepare!
Monday, February 1st, 2010While the exchange below was cordial and a followup meeting was scheduled, it highlights the disconnect between the professionals in the educational technology field and, well,….the profession of “education”.
To give you some context: this meeting was on the heels of a hands-on workshop announcement that the faculty member below was unable to attend. Because this [...]
Platform for Participation = Media Literacy
Wednesday, August 26th, 2009Michael Wesh’s video ethnography “A Vision of Students Today” has made the rounds in the ed tech circles for some time but an explanation of how it came to fruition is detailed in his 2008 lecture given at the University of Manitoba. If you’re interested in media literacy, student learning, web 2.0, or education, [...]
Block all the Blogs!
Friday, March 6th, 2009This is a true story of a teacher in a highly regarded southern N.H. H.S. which is also a member of the Coalition of Essential Schools.
Student: “Hey, Dave, we can’t get to our Wellness blog. We were going to post our plyometric training routine but the server is timing out. It was working yesterday.”
Dave: “Let [...]
Academic Affairs Technology Plan at Keene State College
Thursday, December 18th, 2008After laboring over the academic affairs technology plan for over a year, through many iterations, we’re finally done. Or at least done until its annual review.
Have a peek. You might be surprised to learn that it’s not about technology. Really, it’s not. It’s about learning, teaching, and work.
Go on, have a look.
Keene State College Academic [...]
Answering the “so what”
Thursday, November 27th, 2008I’ve never fully embraced the “digital natives/digital immigrants” label of Marc Prensky but I’ve used it often to describe the differences between young, tech savvy students and the their older less plugged-in teachers. It was an easy label to adopt because, on the surface, it made sense. Walk across a college campus and you see [...]
Reno POD conference
Tuesday, October 28th, 2008I returned from the 2008 POD conference in Reno, Nevada on Sunday night and am pretty wiped today (Professional and Organizational Development Network – http://www.podnetwork.org/conferences/2008/index.htm). POD was crawling with academic ‘rock-stars’ such as Dee Fink, Milt Cox, and Terry Doyle; it was not quite like a celebrity sighting but it was pretty cool to rub [...]
Technology as a pathway to engagement pedagogy
Saturday, April 26th, 2008I attended an AAC&U (Association of American Colleges and Universities) conference in June 2007 and had the opportunity, along with the team I was traveling with, to be coached by Dr. Dee Fink. Fink has authored numerous books about student learning experiences, evaluation and assessment of faculty teaching, and team based learning. Fink’s primary focus [...]
The audience is taking to the stage
Monday, April 14th, 2008I found this great clip on YouTube from Charles Leadbeater about the intersection of innovation and community and how one nourishes the other. While creativity and new ideas can certainly happen in isolation it’s not until people come together as a group and allow themselves to think big, listen, and think differently that innovation [...]
411 on academic technology
Friday, April 11th, 2008So today was the day that the ATSC (academic technology steering committee) held an information forum on the college’s Academic Technology Vision that Mike Caulfield (http://mikecaulfield.com), Irene Herold, and I drafted last fall. The idea is that the document will help inform requests, initiatives, and plans involving academic technology so that they align [...]