21st Century Collaborative

This was posted on the NSDC Website- felt you might find it s interesting as I do. The Department of Education has outlined initial guidelines for three components of American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) funding: the State Fiscal Stabilization Fund, Title I, and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). You can find detailed [...]

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 [...]

My life has been a whirlwind of activity since NECC and I have found it hard to keep up with blogging. I don’t know why, but I feel guilty blogging when I have other deadlines looming. Do any of you experience that? Is it illogical? Should I blog anyway, much like we still get the [...]

Man, I love this work! Connecting and collaborating is something that really comes natural for me. I am the social cognitive learning theory poster child and I am finding that others also relate well to learning while observing and collaborating with others. Working with others online on common goals in an effort to improve education [...]

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 share my [...]

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 [...]

This post may be premature as I have only seen 2/3s of the PLP Independent Schools’ team presentations of their impact journey through PLP and team projects- but I must say, Will and I were more than impressed. It was more on the level of WOW. From extensive summer institutes with a Web 2.0 registration [...]

There is a price to be paid for community driven learning- TIME. There are only so many hours in a day to invest in reading, learning, writing, and all that goes with being part of a community of learners. The benefits far outweigh the cost, so I am not complaining, however, it is beginning to [...]

Had a cool experience yesterday, I was invited to participate in a live chat hosted by Education Week on curriculum issues. Two of my friends and colleagues were also guests.  Marsha Ratzel, a 6th grade math and science teacher at Leawood Middle School in Leawood, Kansas who has been part of countless online projects I [...]