February 9th was the one year anniversary of this blog. So many things have changed within the last year. I find myself with a new job, new house, and most importantly new friends in education. I wanted to take a few minutes to thank all of YOU! I started with no followers on Twitter, no readers on the blog, and just beginning to understand what this whole #edtech thing even was. Thank you for believing in me [...]

So I can finally talk about my new App as it is now live on iTunes! This summer after attending some technology education conferences I quickly learned that a lot of information is shared via the backchannel such as Twitter. I also noticed that presenters had to minimize their presentations to bring up the back channel so people could answer questions this seemed like a very cumbersome experience. Thats where Soapbox comes into play!

So every Monday I meet with my elementary teachers and I share 5-10 resources with them that I have found or we talk about possible ideas they want to implement. I figured I would do a quick blog post recording these so they can go back and see what we went over in case they miss it.

With more and more “stumbling” sites like Pinterest and Stumbleupon  gaining popularity I figured I would create a quick post with my thoughts and some ideas for use in the classroom. Please let me know how you use them in your classroom or if you have ideas on how they could be used.

It has been super busy with fall sports coming to an end, end of the quarter for my staff and students as well the 4 classes that I am taking also coming to an end. (Note to self, dont take 16 credit hours with a full time job and a part time job (sports photography) ). Its been a stressful but rewarding start to our year and my first year as a technology coordinator. I have [...]

Many people have talked about using Google Forms in your classroom as a way of assessment. This is especially helpful if you are going for a paperless classroom or you have a 1:1 deployment with i-Pads or mobile computers. The best part of creating your assessments in Google Forms is the ability to have the spreadsheet do all of the work for you. Lets take a look at how to have Flubaroo a script for [...]

There are several people out there that are talking about using QR codes in the classroom. I do not see QR codes being a fad that is going away. QR codes are everywhere. I think you will find QR codes to be a great way to share information with others, as well as a cool way to change up your lessons. Below, you will find the tools necessary to create QR codes, as well as some [...]

This summer has been like no other summer. Usually summers are filled with cleaning computers, fixing long standing issues, and deploying projects. This summer however was jam packed with learning. As some of you may know I recently took a job as the director of technology for Huron City Schools (May 19th 2011) right out of the gate I was able to experience Iste and all of its awesomeness and great people. Part of the experience is reflecting on [...]

Tonight’s Edchat topic as well as @llacrosse’s article got me thinking about how we look at professional development. I have noticed that PD is mostly offered as a whole group session on certain topics. The problem with this is that a lot of time you have a mixed audience of different skill levels. Some are bored, some are content, some are overwhelmed. Why do we continue to offer PD in this way? Is the whole staff [...]

Last week I was fortunate enough to attend the Apple Leadership Symposium in Columbus Ohio. The days events included what I would call a Keynote from Jon Corippo (@jcorippo). Jon is an Apple Distinguished Educator and he shared a lot of insight about reforming the way we think about education and he also showed some amazing work from Minarets High School students. Jon recommended some very good thoughts and ideas. I really like his way of [...]