Building Learning Communities

This morning’s #satchat initially focused on the faculty meeting, but quickly turned into a powerful discussion about learning communities. I want to capture the essential points I gained so…

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IFTTT: A Recipe For Organization

If This, Then That (IFTTT) is a service that allows you to make connections between different sites, apps, and other technology. It allows you to create recipes that when…

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Genius Hour Reviewed

For several weeks the topic of conversation in our classroom surrounded our trial of Genius Hour.  Students were excited about being given the time and opportunity to pursue topics…

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Making Connections

A month or so ago, I attended a Common Core conference at UMass Boston, and if you remember correctly, I said there was so much…

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PARCC Will Replace MCAS For Most BPS Students

In case you missed it in the news last week, the Massachusetts Board of Education voted to accept a two-year transition plan to the PARCC assessment. The original plan…

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App Inventor Boot Camp in Western Mass

  App Inventor Boot Camp was a summer professional development experience for teachers to learn MIT App Inventor, a free visual blocks-based programming system for Android mobile devices that can…

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Simplifying the Hunt

Our students need to see themselves as readers. Reading needs to be part of who they are and, fortunately, our ever-changing digital world makes this endeavor both possible and…

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Trying Something New

We summer staff watch the annual building renovations with excitement and apprehension. Will all of these new “improvements” work like we hope they will? Will they be finished in…

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We Are All Self-Directed Learners Now

We are experiencing a renaissance of information and ideas with our country’s leading educational institutions like Harvard, MIT, and Stanford offering Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs).  The introduction…

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Authentic Digital Assessments: Web2.0 tools to prepare students for the real world

As a technology teacher, I often focus on tool instruction. As an integration specialist there is less emphasis on tool instruction but more emphasis on choosing tools to accomplish…

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Solid State of Mind

Solid-state storage technologies have greatly elevated our computing devices in the past few years. From flash memory storage found in iPads and other tablets to solid-state drives (SSD) found…

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