In this new year many of us have promised ourselves to try and find more balance in our lives. I personally vowed to spend more time connected with the earth and growing things through hiking, walking on the beach, and playing hard with my four 20-something kids. And yet with all of the meaningful w...

Someone in a community I belong to recently said, "Why should teachers change? We are asking them to work harder, do things in a new way, unlearn the old ways of doing things, and when they do all that we have asked we do what? Tell them thanks? I know we don't give them more money. Maybe if they ar...

Frustrated I turned to my PLN on Twitter and asked-- * What about kids talking to each other and learning socially is so hard to "get"? * Why is control such a huge part of school culture? Control of kids--control of teachers? * Why do we not trust students and think if we are talking - they are lea...

I have been spending some time recently responding to a listserv discussion that has many brilliant, award winning teachers on it who are not sold on the idea that we really are going to have to change education to remain relevant; that *they* are going to have to change.  I thought I would sha...

While I obviously haven't been blogging- I have been fast at it. I would say I have been busy, but Dean Shareski (our new convener for K12Online)  has taught me we are all busy and I am not suppose to talk about how busy I am, but rather just talk about what I have been up to lately.   I k...

A primary school has been accused of being alarmist for covering up the faces of pupils on its website – apparently to protect them from pedophiles.     Bizarrely, the images have been altered with the type of smiley faces popular during the Acid House dance craze of the 1980s. The decis...

Every blog, conversation, Ustream and conference session I engage in I always hear the same questions asked over and over-- How do we do this? It seems we know what and we know why- but PLEASE someone help us with the how! Some would argue that the tension and irritation between "why" and ...

My son and I finally built my new PC. My killer machine. Processor 2.40 gigahertz Intel Core2 Quad  Q6600  64 kilobyte primary memory cache 4096 kilobyte secondary memory cache Memory 4096 Megabytes Installed Memory Slot 'DIMM1' has 2048 MB Slot 'DIMM3' has 2048 MB Slot 'DIMM2' is Empty Sl...

Interesting discussion over on Student 2.0 by Sean (the bass player) a student in Scotland and a group of teachers. The post was inspired from some well meant questions from a caring American adult (teacher) who was chatting with Sean at 1:30am (Scotland). I think it was more the perceived inference...

I gain so much from my personal Community of Practice- the Teacher Leaders Network. After a couple weeks of venting in the community about the challenges and struggles each of us were dealing with in our professional settings-  this prompt, like a breath of fresh air, came through. So, what's G...