Category: distributed-learning

  • The Council of Constance and Modern Web

    I’m re-reading for the 3rd or 4th time Toby Lester’s (@tobylester4) magnificent book, “The Fourth Part of the World: The Race to the Ends of the Earth, and the Epic Story of the Map That Gave America Its Name.” I just finished chapter 9 last night, which (among other things) discusses the very important “Council…

  • Lesson Cast: Sharing a Class Recording with Minimal Steps

    This past summer as we prepared for the challenges and uncertainies of the COVID-19 dominated 2020-21 academic school year, our head of school asked me to work on an educational technology challenge. How could our teachers best share face-to-face / in-person lesson recordings with students who either chose or were required to learn at home…

  • YouTube Tips and Tricks (September 2020)

    A group of teachers interested in Google Educator Certification has started meeting periodically at our school in “Genius Bar Sessions” to dive into different Google products which we use as teachers. This week’s session (yesterday) focused on YouTube. The recorded lesson portion of our meeting is available as a 45 minute video on (where else?!)…

  • Twitter Threads as Bear Traps

    Living as we do amidst an overwhelming quantity of digital information, each one of us needs to develop better skills for filtering our feeds. We also need to use tools and workflows which help us readily FIND STUFF LATER. We’ve all likely had this experience: Someone shares an interesting website with us, or we stumble…

  • Better Remote Learning: Focus on TIME boundaries, Expectations, and Simple Procedures

    One of the most straightforward ways we can improve learning experiences for our students and ourselves as teachers this next year (2020-21) is to focus more on TIME. This is true whether we are in “remote learning mode,” face-to-face teaching mode, or some hybrid blend. “Time” (CC BY 2.0) by John-Morgan How much time do you expect students…

  • Takeaways and Learning from the MSON Summer 2020 Annual Conference

    Last week I had the opportunity to attend the second edition of the MSON Summer 2020 Annual Conference, held virtually via Zoom. MSON is the “Malone Schools Online Network” (@MaloneSchools), and for the first time this year (I’m guessing because of COVID-19) their annual conference was open to educators everywhere. Our school (where my wife…

  • Thinking about Educational Technology Support for Fall 2020

    Today I attended a virtual webinar presented by Mike Gwaltney (@MikeGwaltney) for ISM (Independent School Management – @isminc) titled, “How to Create an Academic Technology Plan for the 2020–21 School Year.” Here are a few of my takeaways and reflections on the information and advice Mike shared. First of all, Mike’s recommendation that schools plan…

  • Virtual Minecraft Camps for Elementary and Middle School Students: June 2020

    Update June 2, 2020: mdtech.casady.org/minecraft has updated information about both these upcoming virtual Minecraft camps for students. Five years ago, our youngest daughter (then age 11) participated in a virtual, summer Minecraft camp through “Connected Camps,” an outstanding organization based in California. She had a great experience, and we recorded a 20 minute podcast reflection…

  • Using Jamboard in a Remote Learning Lesson

    Yesterday I used Jamboard, Google’s live, interactive whiteboard, with students for the first time. I prepared three Jamboard slides to use in a “See – Think – Wonder” thinking routine, after watching a video together, so we could use it to make our thinking together visible. In this post I’ll review and reflect on how…

  • Podcast472: Remote Learning in Oklahoma #OklaEd

    This podcast is a recording of a webinar panel discussion by Oklahoma educators Telannia Norfar, Delilah Rodriguez, Rhonda Schroeder and Wesley Fryer on Saturday, April 25, 2020. Our topic of conversation was “Remote Learning in Oklahoma,” as we are now about a month into “learning at home” because of the neo-coronavirus / COVID-19 global pandemic.…