Monthly Archives March 2008

Reach Out and Touch Someone


Up until about a month ago, my primary use for Skype was for facilitating video chat between my parents and my 3-year-old son. While that’s a great use, it wasn’t until very recently that I’ve begun using Skype for more educational purposes. Students in my Honors British Lit class just completed one very successful Skype [...]

Full of Sound & Fury


All-teacher email messages can be a funny thing. Sometimes they’re very positive and encouraging in nature (“Hey, did anyone catch the play this weekend? Good job everyone involved!”), and other times, like today, they take on sharper tones. I’d be lying if I said I never got sucked into it, but today I sat on [...]

Crisis of Conscience


It’s Saturday afternoon, my wife and kids are napping, and I’m filling out an application with PAREAP, Pennsylvania’s statewide educational job bank. I’m doing this in anticipation of my graduation from the School Psychologist graduate program I started back in the summer of 2003. At the time, I was a little disillusioned with my job, [...]

Passion Quilt Meme


Both Suzanne and Pat bonked me with this one, so now I feel doubly guilty for having neglected it for over a month (sorry, Suzanne). At any rate, here are the rules, blatantly plagiarized from Pat’s post: Passion Quilt Meme Rules: 1. Think about what you are passionate about teaching your students. 2. Post a [...]

When It Rains… An Addendum


I happened upon this Facebook discussion thread this evening and thought it germane to the issue of student-teacher Internet contact as covered in yesterday’s post. Check out the whole thread for yourself, but here are some choice quotes for your contemplation (cut & pasted; only minor editing for clarity and some emphasis added): It took [...]