Leadership and Technology Blog

My participation in the Learning Transported Twitter book discussion best highlights my ability to meet the Connected Learner Standard 2b which states that the learner will actively participate in professional learning networks to enhance coaching practice and keep current with emerging technology and innovations in pedagogy and the learning sciences . Engaging in the book discussion via Twitter was an exciting and powerful experience for me. I was not familiar with Twitter prior to this course, but became very excited about the promise of connecting to others in this class and beyond. With the limited number of characters, I found myself carefully considering the most prominent take-aways with each new section and being selective with my words. I also found that I had time to read a wide range of responses from others, which was great for inspiring deeper thinking about specific ideas and technologies. To be more specific, I actively engaged in a professional learning network o...

Several years ago I started teaching first grade at Cambridge Elementary School. December break came and went and January marked the start of our interdisciplinary unit on penguins. To kick off the unit our math program recommended that we “take a trip to Antarctica”. The authors suggested that teachers should describe the environment and maybe even show a short video to reinforce concepts covered in the text about the topography and climate of the continent. I followed along with the program, even taking it a step further and simulating a plane ride - which I thought first graders might enjoy. I was wrong. The experience felt lame and inauthentic and to be quite frank, I wondered how this experience would pique students’ excitement enough to maintain motivation and excitement around future learning opportunities.  Flash forward a year and I wanted to communicate to students why the experience had to be somewhat inauthentic to avoid later disappointment. We looked up the cost ...