Today the middle school where I work is filled with the sound of hope dying. Why do I say that? Today the State of Michigan decrees that all eighth-grade students must take the PSAT with no accommodations, so today is the day when many students in my school decide they will never be good enough … More The Sound of Hope Dying
A random pair of comments by colleagues led me to today’s post. First, the school social worker asked me if it was O.K. to have some of her students make bookmarks to be distributed in the media center. Just a few minutes later, a math teacher expressed surprise and admiration that I had invited students to … More Who Owns This Library?
via Daily Prompt: Brilliant This black box may not look brilliant to the casual observer, but believe me, it shines like the North Star for me. You see, this is a book locker, the first book locker in Michigan. It is the result of more than twenty years of desire, effort, and planning. I am … More Collaboration is Brilliant
I am extremely excited to be part of the Reading People Book Launch Team. It is such a privilege to get a peek behind the curtain into the book publishing world. I did not even know that services such as Netgalley.com, which allows authors to invite people to read the galleys of their books, even existed. … More Reading People Book
If you love books the way I do, #NerdCampMI is heaven on earth. What could be better than a bunch of teachers, librarians, and authors who get to hang out for two days and talk about books? In my life, that is as good as it gets. I always learn something great, but this year, … More One Idea and Two Books That Made My Brain Explode
If you had told my ten-year-0ld self that as an adult, I would send most of my career teaching people how to do things on computers, I would have laughed in your face. You see, at ten, I was a bookworm who would rather read than socialize and computers occupied entire floors of research universities and … More Setting Students Up for Future Success by Using Hour of Code
My head is still spinning (in a good way) from all the new learning at MIGooglefest. Even if you were not able to attend, there are links to hundreds of resources on the schedule page. One thing that was obvious to me is that every human is uniquely created to innovate. There were dozens of … More Fifty Shades of Innovation
In thinking about how to teach digital citizenship from a positive perspective, I have been studying the work of Angela Maiers. Getting students to recognize their genius seems to be key in establishing a culture of positive contributions. If students understand that they are expected to contribute what they know and can do, then digital … More Helping Students Find Their Genius
Thank you, Vicki Davis and the Mad About Mattering team. You reframed my thinking about teaching digital citizenship. For too long, we have been teaching students what not to do, coming from a place of fear and negativity. I want students to recognize all the positive things they can do in the world, and that … More Helping Students Do What Matters
I have the privilege of speaking with Vicki Davis for her podcast Every Classroom Matters next week on the topic of gamification, so I have been spending time contemplating what I feel are the most important parts of this topic. One extremely important part about any classroom strategy is what factors are needed for it to succeed. … More What Makes Gamification Work
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