Leveraging your ignorance to benefit students

Guest Post By Charles Cooper Our world is surrounded by mystery. We seek out limits to our knowledge when watching movies, reading dystopian books, and even as we converse with friends. The mysterious, framed the right way, compels us to … Continue reading →

Screen-casting from iPad or iPhone

My 3rd grade son, Charlie, found a way to screen-cast on iOS devices.  This is what he showed me.  Follow instructions at your own risk.  Not advocating these actions.  Just impressed that he figured this out on his own.  He … Continue reading →

Humor In The Classroom: amygdala > hippocampus

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I was blessed with a demeanor that helped me quickly create fairly strong bonds with my high school seniors.  Despite my dry sense of humor, students could always tell that I cared about them whether I intended on communicating that … Continue reading →

Clearly + Google Docs = Subtle Awesomeness

Google continues to amaze me.  Their stuff isn’t usually flashy, but it IS always useful. Dallas Google Leadership Symposium I was shown a cool new (for me) combination of Chrome Add-Ons that are super simple on the surface, but, because … Continue reading →

Making it legit: Videonot.es

Videonot.es is an underutilized online resource that saves projects automatically to your Google Drive.  Using this resources is easy as pie. First, connect your Google Drive account and import a useful YouTube video.  Then, start taking notes on the right … Continue reading →

Disconnecting Student’s Work From Their Dreams

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Those who share power, weaken themselves, but those who share wisdom strengthen each other – Niccolo Machiavelli I came across a great article this morning and, later, a tweet from Mr. Voyles, a teacher on my ex-wife’s elementary campus, that … Continue reading →

Traffic blog number two: Presidents of the United States of America

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We constantly see polls concerning the popularity of presidents…Who was the greatest president? Who is the smartest president?  Who was the most popular?…so on and so forth… The question that came up today as I was driving into work (and … Continue reading →

Trafficblog – Emotional Intelligence

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I talk to myself…a lot…in my car. I know it’s ok to admit this because I see others either doing the same or worse (ie. picking nose, reading papers, yelling on phone at someone). At least we car talkers have … Continue reading →

Gamification: Scattergories For Math & Other Disciplines

MATH Give kids a number & task them with coming up with as many different equations or ways to get to that number. Then, in whole class group, have students mark through any equation they write that others did too. … Continue reading →

Separation of Powers Activity Using The Cranium Board Game

I’m pretty sure that, like many of you, I was gamifying stuff before it was a “thing”.  If I got bored teaching the same thing in the same way year after year, I couldn’t imagine what my poor students were … Continue reading →