
Teacher as Writer
Whew. I barely got this logged in time tonight. Too much fun making snowmen as of late. Or work? yeah, that too. Allow me to get straight with it...
Last year I nominated Michael Doyle for the "Best Teacher Blog" in the 2008 Edublog Awards in
this post. Dr.…
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Added by Sean Nash on December 9, 2009 at 1:11am —
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We have all seen people - not just our students or children, but friends and colleagues as well - who are afraid of failure. As Sir Ken Robinson points out, this fear of failure is tied to (but not the esclusive domain of) the crushing of creativity by structured education in schools.
I have certainly noticed an increase in this perfectionist attitude in students, but there is one small, seemingly insignificant indicator that really has me worried. Lately, my students have been leaving…
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Added by Ed Hitchcock on November 23, 2009 at 12:08pm —
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One of the never ending ironies in Public Education is this: Arts in schools get little respect.… Continue
Added by Andrew on November 1, 2009 at 8:30am —
2 Comments

Engagement
A friend gives you free tickets to an upcoming concert. Although the group is fairly popular, you are not familiar with the artist’s body of work. Assuming you elect to go, what do you do next?
Between now and the day of the concert, here’s betting that your old pal Google comes into play at some point.
What is the artist’s body of work? For me, iTunes previews would quickly come into the picture. I might…
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Added by Sean Nash on October 18, 2009 at 11:14pm —
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My 7 year old really did not want the summer vacation to end. He has no interest in school. His 2-3 good friends come over and he goes over, so he doesn't need school to meet with them. He keeps complaining about how boring it is in the classroom and how he doesn't want to do all these boring things like to color, cut or glue. Not to mention read or write.
Considering how smart he is this is very sad.
We are talking about a child who knew all the alphabet by the age of 18…
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Added by Or-Tal Kiriati on September 14, 2009 at 5:08am —
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Have you ever wondered why we build sandboxes for children? That’s exactly what I did today. Today I wondered while wandering about the yard, putting the finishing touches on a landscape and backyard garden update. I wondered long and hard about the role of play in learning new things. In between digging holes, sinking plants, and spreading mulch… I took short breaks to watch my two year old daughter play with sand. This backyard classroom is every…
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Added by Sean Nash on August 31, 2009 at 9:18am —
2 Comments
Take a look at these
15 Sexist Vintage Ads and ask yourself how popular cultural values are spread among us of all genders--even today. The question, for those like me who want the cultural change toward more socially progressive and environmentally sustainable values with which to live everyday lives and to dream personal dreams, is how our public media/education does acculturate us and form us in subliminal ways. In what ways…
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Added by Skip Zilla on August 30, 2009 at 12:00pm —
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I just finished watching episode 2 of this series,
Back to School, which, along with original 2002
Time for School broadcast, can be watched in their entirety online. Part 3 is coming in September. I'm really glad I watched.…
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Added by Ellen Pham on August 20, 2009 at 11:36pm —
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It really is a fascinating time to be living and to be an Educator. Why? Because it's all changing. Quickly, too- '21st century skills', 'flat world', 'long tail', digital distribution', 'Google everything', 'wikis', 'mashups', 'twitter', 'learners as content creators', 'digital 'text'books'-these are all 'recent' inductees into the lexicon of Education professionals…
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Added by Andrew on August 13, 2009 at 11:30am —
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This post features a video that a colleague recently added to a developing district-level instructional network. If nothing else it will give your day a lift. If you are willing to view the video with "
The Case for Constructivist Classrooms" in mind,…
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Added by Sean Nash on August 2, 2009 at 5:00pm —
3 Comments
How fun is this?

Three years ago I moved into a position of instructional coach for my building. The majority of my days are now spent as a content-generalist coach focused on helping teachers improve pedagogical skills. Our opt-in model keeps the conversation focused on one thing: pedagogy as opposed to content. This is a very smart model for honing in on the “P” sphere of Mishra & Koehler’s TPACK framework. However,…
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Added by Sean Nash on July 6, 2009 at 2:19pm —
3 Comments
Here's something I don't read or hear discussed much:
There is fundamental difference between how a 30, 40, 50, 60 year-old professional and a tween or teen might choose to use social networking tools. Same is true for any of the media sharing sites we have at our disposal. A professional person (a postgraduate with a job and real life responsibilities)…
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Added by Andrew on June 24, 2009 at 11:01am —
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Original post
here and I welcome your comments.
- - - - -
Games development is slowly becoming a central and one of the largest global industries. Right after our basic human needs, where satisfaction and esteem start, and self-actualization follows, right there you will find games. It’s not news that games promise entertainment, and looking at cubs playing you can easily deduct the relationship between play and…
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Added by Or-Tal Kiriati on June 15, 2009 at 5:02am —
3 Comments
As a middle school teacher, if I have learned anything about being an effective teacher, I have learned it's all about
connection. Not connection with 'the class' because there's no such thing as 'the class'. The connection(s) you must cultivate are those between you and each and every student.
Students will largely forget what you say to them but they will never forget how you made them feel. Connection offers the opportunity for you to build…
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Added by Andrew on June 8, 2009 at 10:30am —
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Ben Grey raises one of the most fundamental questions regarding our present situation:
What are we doing for students accomplishing their most amazing feats of education outside the education system?
Information has become decentralized.…
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Added by Andrew on June 5, 2009 at 3:00pm —
6 Comments

My son, who is three, has a new hobby of building elaborate "mouse houses" on our (king size) bed with all the pillows and blankets within 20 sq. feet.. These houses appear to serve as cushioned bunkers 'just in case' the Big Mouse should come along and, well, SCARE us. The Mouse House building is important stuff with speciifc technical details that I am not privvy to no…
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Added by Andrew on May 28, 2009 at 2:00pm —
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Which is it? A learning facilitator or a teacher? Which of those would better serve the future of education? The future of today’s students? ....
My full blog post is here:
http://ortals.wordpress.com/2009/05/18/facilitatorteacher/
and it is following the blog post by our member, WMChamberlain…
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Added by Or-Tal Kiriati on May 18, 2009 at 9:26am —
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(cross-posted from
Inventing Learning)
This morning, I found this amazing presentation about using Digital Storytelling with students via the
Fireside Learning Community.
Check it out.…
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Added by Gerald Ardito on April 11, 2009 at 2:00pm —
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Added by Gerald Ardito on April 11, 2009 at 2:00pm —
2 Comments
Announcing our Spring conference:
Learning in a Participatory Culture
At NML's May 2nd conference, we will share our new web-based learning environment, the Learning Library, and host a series of conversations and workshops about the integration and implementation of the new media literacies across disciplines. Workshops include "The Complexities of Copyright: Shepard Fairey v. the AP," "Mapping in Participatory Culture: Boundaries," "Using Wikipedia in the Classroom" and many…
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Added by Erin Brockette Reilly on April 2, 2009 at 11:33pm —
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