Category Archives: Uncategorized

Summer is here. Check out day has come and gone, but I haven’t checked out. I have been to school almost every day since school was out three weeks ago. Well except for the week I actually took a vacation. I don’t know how people walk away from campus for two months and not evenContinue reading “Summer Work”

As soon as the school year was over I started work on next year, because that is what good teachers do, and I hope to be a good teacher. On the last day with students I give them a survey to complete. It keeps them busy for the last period of the year doing somethingContinue reading “Back channel”

A week or so before winter break our Principal challenged the teachers at my school to come up with a new vision for our school. We have a very small school that has only been around for a few years, but because of budget cuts and serious staff turn over we are at a placeContinue reading “Restructure Me.”

Previously I wrote about some of the tech issues we have had this year. A new Internet filter for our district meant that many of the Web 2.0 tools my class is built on simply did not work. At the same time the new filter was adopted the district adopted a new Student Information SystemContinue reading “We can save again!”

We have been having a lot of technical issues at school this year, and it has been a real challenge for me to keep my students engaged  when things do not work like they are supposed to. I am not talking lesson plans and such, I am talking about network issues. Kids can’t save theirContinue reading “Platform Agnostic?”

I teach in an economically depressed area. There is a lot of poverty, and a lot of crime. Our community has been identified as one of the most miserable places to live in the United States. We are near the top in auto thefts too. Want to talk foreclosures? Stockton is near the top thereContinue reading “You have the right to fail.”

Again. I broke it up, again. Not alone, there was another teacher and our security person, our Principal, and even some students pitching in. It wasn’t a big deal as fights go, but I did rip my pants. It wasn’t the first fight I helped break up this year, but I do hope it isContinue reading “There was a fight at school today.”

It is that time of year again at our school where we are calculating grades. It is the end of the school year, and I am getting slammed with kids turning in their work from the last semester, most all of it is what most teachers would call “late”. We had a good conversation inContinue reading “Points”