Blogs on Curriculum

If I had thirty iPads in my class, what would I do with them? How would I use them to help my students learn better and help me teach better? Perhaps a better question is what would I do with them that I could not do with other tools that are available and cheaper? Certainly iPads are cheaper than computers, desktop or laptop, and they are more mobile.

"The soldier, above all other people, prays for peace, for he must suffer and bear the deepest wounds and scars of war."
-- Douglas MacArthur

Why Teach Classical Greek Literature?

Near the end of the 2008-2009 school year, I had started reading The Iliad with my students and was struggling to connect them with the text. The language of the poem, the extended metaphors, the repetitious patterns of phrases and names bogged my students down, and they constantly questioned to the value of reading the text. I spent weeks answering questions about Greek culture and the Trojan War, showing short videos and PowerPoint presentations and rereading passages with them -- but the buy-in still wasn't there.

There's nothing funny about bullying, but appealing to students' comic sensibilities might help open discussions about this serious subject. That's the idea behind the Stop Bullying: Speak Up Comic Challenge. During October, students and teachers can join a nationwide dialogue about bullying prevention that will play out through the engaging medium of comic strips.

Twenty Everyday Ways to Model Technology Use

I wanted to post a list that talked about how to "use" technology in the classroom, but I found myself revising that word "use" to the more general word, "model." The reason I did this is because so many teachers believe that if students aren't actively sitting in front of the computer screen themselves, then clearly technology is not being used in the classroom.