THE EDTECH JOURNEY SO FAR: MAET and CEP810

This year has been a blur. It has been a banner year of transformation and challenge, and the year isn’t even over. In March of 2018, I started a trajectory of new thinking inspired by several PD experiences. I attended my first EdTech conference, a small gathering called Cue in Palm Springs. I also served […]

COOKING WITH TPACK

Few technological tools were designed specifically for education. Indeed, most tools were created for entertainment or the business world. The task of the teacher is to use the tools available to them to help improve student learning. The teacher in today’s classroom needs to be creative in repurposing existing technologies to instruct better and enhance […]

Vetting “Fake News” with Flipboard and Flipgrid

21st-century technology demands a 21st-century approach to teaching and learning. The ways things worked in the past will no longer work. It is not so much that students have changed (as the disgruntled teacher down the hall complains. Our society has transformed thanks to the internet and compact computing devices, like smartphones. How we consume […]

USING PHOTOSHOP TO CREATE A FUN SYLLABUS: PART 3

Over the last several weeks, I’ve set out to learn some basics of Photoshop (Check out Part 1 and Part 2 Here). I’m no graphic artist, nor do I desire to make a career shift from education. Instead, I see this—and Adobe’s suite of tools in general—as incredibly useful technologies that can be effectively utilized […]

PHOTOSHOP PROJECT: PART 2 — REMOVING SOLID COLOR BACKGROUND IMAGES

(For Part 1, click here) Photoshop is overwhelming. When I first opened the application and uploaded my first picture, my eyes glazed over at the vast number of buttons and options. Like all new platforms, systems have their own logic and order. I had always been accustomed to specific technology platforms—MacOS, Windows, etc. This was […]

CREATING A BETTER PROFESSIONAL WORKFLOW: PART 1 — FANTASTICAL

My inbox, and by extension my mind, is a torrent of tasks, requests, and reminders. The fog of busy is blinding. Occasionally a moment of clarity emerges, and I am able to write categories of tasks and to-do lists on what seems to be an endless stream of sticky notes. Some of those tasks get […]

Ed Tech Can be a Firehose! This will help.

Just a year ago the President of the Catholic High School at which I work suggested that another colleague and I attend CUE Conference in Palm Springs. He was an old school advocate for technology, working with Apple to bring computers into the classroom in the late 80s and 90s. While the tech has changed, […]

EdTech PLN Popplet

PLNs—Professional (Personal) Learning Networks catalyze broader development, education, and growth in all aspects of society. Whether personal or professional, developing a set of thoughts and skills in a community allows for more faster developments and breakthroughs in research, growth, and practice. Before the digital age, people would either learn in isolation—recreating the wheel as it […]

OPERATION PHOTOSHOP: PART 1

I am a creative by nature. I love well-designed art in all forms. And I especially love when quality and care is crafted into the classroom content. Perhaps the students don’t care if the teacher uses clip art on their handout or powerpoint, but I do. I love media-rich presentations created with care and attention […]

Creating a Culture of Lasting Learning

Once again, Simon earned a perfect score on his weekly quiz. While other students struggled, this student thrived on the vocabulary and grammar chart quizzes. He outperformed most of his peers and had a perfect 100% in his quiz grade category. The trouble was that Simon was failing every test and most homework assignments. He […]