Remote learning begins: connecting with students and joy

Our district and many others found out recently we will be starting school with remote learning.  It’ll be different from last spring because we already knew many of our students then, but when school starts we’ll all have many students who are new to us.  It’s had a lot of us thinking about how to build connections with students.  Whether we are librarians or teachers, finding ways to bridge the gap and create a sense of community matter.  And it reminds me of what my […]

Annual Edublogs Awards!

Time to nominate some of your favorite blogs for the annual Edublogs awards, sponsored by the wonderful folks at Edublogs! For more information on how to nominate a blog, check out the instructions here.  For those of you newer to the process, nominations by everyone are welcome, so join in to nominate your favorites! I’m not into this because of the “contest” part of it, but because it affords me the opportunity to consider what I’m currently reading and thinking about in terms of the […]

Taking the reins of professional development — PLP

Too often it seems as educators we find ourselves “at the mercy” of professional development that is last minute, impersonal, and of which we are just passive recipients.  One of the things I admire most about the work that colleagues Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach and Will Richardson have done is that they’ve “taken the reins” of professional development, so to speak, by creating their PLP (Powerful Learning Practices) professional development venture. Realizing the problems in terms of professional growth with one-time PD opportunities, they created a model […]

Listening to teacher voices

Dear Brian Williams and NBC– NBC recently announced that they are hosting a series called Education Nation taking place across all their networks the entire week of September 26.  The project is a laudable goal, and one always holds out hope for a “real” conversation about these issues.  Yet when I looked through the speakers at the summit, I noticed to my surprise not one educator,  principal, teacher, or prominent education writer/blogger, or author was included in the summit.  Yet you did include several reporters from your network, […]