Technology in Education

Reflections on Education

2011-12-29T11:50:00.000-05:00

I remember when I was a kid I loved the beginning of the year because the new "Year in Review" and "Science Year" encyclopedias would be coming to our house.I loved the pictures about the space program and the Year in Review always offered cool stories and a chance to reflect- like those movies during the Oscars that tell us all the great people we lost in the past year. Here it is the end of

Professional Development in Pajamas!

2011-11-20T13:19:00.001-05:00

Teachers and administrators alike are often frustrated by their lack of time for professional development. Sure, we have PD days, but that is never enough. There is a solution out there that I find charming, easy to use and full of good content - that is Simple K12. Check out their Webinar page - there are some fabulous free webinars. I attended one of the "Day of Learning" webinars last week

Innovative Education and Mind Meister

2011-10-23T16:25:00.000-04:00

As I continue delving into innovative education and blending my classrooms, I receive input from many of the people in my network. This morning I received a copy of the NY Times article, "A Silicon Valley School That Doesn't Compute" An article about the Waldorf School in Silicon Valley that is devoid of technology in their classrooms. The author says, "When asked for evidence of the schools'

Edscape 2011 - A Restrospective

2011-10-16T15:57:00.000-04:00

When I arrived in New Milford, New Jersey for Edscape 2011 I was struggling to find a parking spot. I find this a disconcerting way to start any day, but in this case I was happy. So many people interested in Edscape that parking was difficult in this sleepy New Jersey town??? Awesome! After registering I was disappointed to learn that Chris Lehmann was not presenting, but, in retrospect, that

Infographic Taxonomy

2011-10-01T15:24:00.001-04:00

Disrupt me! Make me uncomfortable! I was fascinated the other day when I cam across The Top 10 InfoGraphics for Learning by Sarah Cargill. I was both inspired and excited. I am always inspired by graphical ways of sharing information - but I was excited to think of a new Infographic to create in the classroom. What a great way to get students from every type of intelligence working together to

Engaging Students with Digital Posters

2011-06-30T23:33:00.002-04:00

I am always looking for new things to share with teachers to help them inspire their students. At a recent professional day at our school I ran a Web 2.0 class and showed off Glogster EDU. With this awesome tool students can show off what they know about any array of topics. For Social Studies they can create a living, digital poster about the Civil War. They can include Discovery Education

Effective Video Conferencing

2010-07-16T17:40:00.005-04:00

The past school year was so overwhelming I didn't post a single addition to my blog. Now that this is past I am ready to begin again. Let's start with some easy stuff: Virtual Field Trips. In a recent article in Learning & Leading by Jan Zanetis. "The Beginner's Guide to Interactive Virtual Field Trips" I was enthused that there was plenty of good information to share with teachers. In fact,

SchoolTube - CAPspace Training for VC Coordinators of Multiple Systems

2009-12-11T11:37:00.000-05:00

SchoolTube - CAPspace Training for VC Coordinators of Multiple Systems

Managing Your Electronic Life

2009-12-10T14:24:00.004-05:00

If you are anything like me you love all the latest gadgets. Also, if you are anything like me, you can find it exhausting to keep up. Some great tools that have made their way across my desk have disappeared from hyperspace - I believe - simply because there are too many of them that do the same thing and we [users] are a fickle lot.However there are two tools I could not, would not do without.

Video Conference and Immersion

2009-11-22T19:22:00.003-05:00

We have just solidified the first Hebrew Immersion program at the Elementary School level. Our fifth grade students attend classes everyday with a teacher in Israel who is teaching them Hebrew. We use a SMART Board in the classroom as well as PowerPoint presentations from Israel. The teacher is conversant with the students as she implements oral and written exams as well as administers worksheets

2009-08-30T21:33:00.000-04:00

New Ideas for 2009 - 2010 School Year

2009-08-30T14:46:00.003-04:00

New ideas are brewing as we return from the summer and I would like to share them with you. In the Middle School one of the faculty has spent the better part of this summer preparing for a paperless school year. Focusing on Adobe Acrobat and PDF technology, he has prepared all his Judaic Studies classes to be run through LAN School (I prefer this to Synchroneyes - easier to use, simple user

Virtual Jogging

2009-05-20T08:23:00.007-04:00

Have you ever wished you could walk your students through some websites to share ideas with them? Did you ever just want to share a few links with someone without having to send the links but, rather, show the page. Well, why not jog there?That's right! Send someone a bunch of web pages and let them "jog" through them. Give this "jog" a try and let me know what you think. It is easy and fun.Now

Have you met Animoto, yet?

2009-03-19T22:36:00.003-04:00

As a Tech Director I am always looking for the short and simple path to help my teachers achieve their goals. Now, as the school year draws to a close, classroom teachers prepare final projects. A great culminating project is to capture the highlights of the school year in a PowerPoint presentation. These are usually time consuming and frustrating to get right. In particular, it is difficult to

What Took You So Long?

2009-03-17T18:41:00.010-04:00

I know it has been a while since I have updated this blog, but, in my defense I have been very busy. I initiated a laptop program, installed a wireless network, supervised the reconstruction of our network, and well in general took over a different Technology Department. It's been fun, but I think for it to be enriching to you let me share some of what I have learned.First, when initiating a

Super Interactive Websites for Your Arsenal

2008-04-24T02:00:00.004-04:00

My vacation started on Thursday last. I have been relaxing and surfing like crazy. I don't get the opportunity to really snoop around much on the web while I am at work, so this is a real treat. I recently came across so many great ideas and observed my colleagues trying exciting and interesting things in their classrooms. I would like to share a few of these ideas with you.Voicethreads. If you

Using a Visual Thesaurus

2008-03-26T22:57:00.006-04:00

As technology educators we are always confronted with the issue of trying to get faculty to try a new idea. Well, I found a few products that were enthusiastically received by Language Arts teachers and I would love to share them with you.The first is Visual Thesaurus. Sometimes when students are assigned to write an essay, it is so hard for them to find the right word. The Visual Thesaurus is a

Hovercraft, Anyone?

2008-03-21T09:09:00.005-04:00

My head is still spinning! I just came from the NJECC conference over the past three days. I have been in EdTech for more than 15 years and I still learn more every day. This conference gave me ideas for new podcasts with my students, a working knowledge of how to use Google Apps in the classroom, offering my students a place to do real "higher order" thinking at yourtake.org, setting up an

What's Del.icio.us?

2008-01-13T18:50:00.002-05:00

Social Bookmarking is a very useful tool for teachers. It allows us all to select and mark with tags those websites we find helpful. Then, since it is social, we can share what we find with others. This is great because sometimes you want to find a site and, well, Google's results can be overwhelming even for the best Boolean users. So, you can log into your favorite Social Bookmarking site (

Attention Social Studies Teachers!

2007-12-30T11:19:00.001-05:00

Even if you missed this year's Geography Awareness Week, you can still check out the great information available to you at "Geography in Action!"hosted by National Geographic. This year the focus was on Asia, last year Africa. So if your lesson plans include these continents, or you would like to add this to your repertoire, check it out.On a personal note...My youngest son hates to read. At his

Web 2.0 Directory

2007-09-29T22:48:00.001-04:00

Go2Web20.net - The complete Web 2.0 directory www.go2web20.net/ According to their AboutUs page, the Go2Web20.net is a directory of web 2.0 applications and services that was born around mid 2006. In June of 2007 there were 1308 logos and 1635 logos as of Saturday, September 29, 2007.There are thousands of visitors every day and it converges Flash and AJAX technologies.Visit the site and

2007-09-22T00:28:00.000-04:00

Gilda Radner used to do a bit on SNL where she would play "Roseanna Rosannadanna". The bit always started the same..."What's all this talk about.." one night it went like this:"What's all this talk about eagle rights. I don't think eagles should be allowed to do stuff like sit on the bus next to me." "Roseanna", Chevy Chase would interrupt, "it's equal rights, not eagle rights!" She would

2006-04-16T08:57:00.000-04:00

There are so many great sites on the Internet, you could spend entire days flipping from one to the next. I have found it is fun to save my favorites in Furl. Sign up and start an account, then you can take your bookmarks with you everywhere you go! I have a section called favorites, one called lesson plans, digital cameras, etc. It has come in handy so very often. Another great site I have