I have decided that in the near future I am going to let my 5th graders share their learning with each other, their parents, and a world-audience using Kidblog. I’m planning on doing this for a few reasons: I want my students to have an audience for their writing that goes past me. I have started…

This was a superb one-day event put on by Scholastic. What sold me on this event was that Donalyn Miller was going to be there running two different workshops. If I had to pick one person/book/idea that has sparked my desire to grow as an educator it would be Donalyn Miller/The Book Whisperer/free-choice independent reading.…

Well, went to my first CUE Rock Star Camp…and it rocked.  It was a three day event, a Wednesday-Friday at Mammoth Lakes, CA. There were seven California locations to choose from and I chose Mammoth because it is a beautiful mountain location and my commute took me through Yosemite. It was also a major perk…

Going into my 6th year of teaching, I am taking a different approach to my summer this year. This is day one of my summer vacation (the main perk for becoming a teacher, right?!) and I’ve already written a reflection on a workshop I took on YouTube and GAFE for my CUE Innovative Educator Certificate…

Telling a student to pay attention to your lesson because it is on an upcoming test is, in Dave Burgess’ words, “piss poor motivation.” Hmmmm….guilty. Guilty as charged. I probably have said something similar, the “take your medicine approach” as Dave calls it, multiple times in the past month. What really sticks out to me…

  Meeting the right people. Reaching out to others. Linking up. Interacting and building contacts. This has always been pressed upon me by outside forces to be important. From as far back as high school and applying for my first job the old adage- “It’s not what you know, but who you know” was repeated ad…