Blogging in a busy 21st Century World

I love blogging, although my concept of it has changed over time. I've always been a fan of writing properly. My humble experience tells me that if the text is not interesting enough in the first 3 lines, then your post will most likely be browsed...so my 4th line will mention the new assignment I gave to my 9th grade students. It is about Geologic Eras, Origin of Species and Evolution.
How impressive it is to analyze time from the geologic point of view, it just makes us remember that our lifetime is nothing more than a tiny speck in a huge field.
I'm also a fan of scientific literature, so I've given them the good news, they'll read 4 books with me this year: The Microbe Hunters (Paul De Kruif), The Naked Ape (Desmond Morris), The Selfish Gene (Richard Dawkins), and I'm still debating for a 4th one, suggestions are appreciated.
In the meantime, I'll leave you with the video: "Eleanor Morgan says we evolved from Aquatic Apes"

Interactive Classrooms

I finished my lecture about Interactive Classrooms and that made me think a lot. How much has my teaching style changed in the last 12 months?
A year ago, I recall using the SMART Board only. But that took me to the Web 2.0 world. From there on it was all a snowball reaction: bloglines, gmail, delicious, reader, blogger, wikispaces, twitter, tweetdeck, etc, etc.
My students are far more technologically driven and demanding than 12 months ago. However, there is something that Sir Ken Robinson said in a 2006 TED conference, "Are schools killing creativity?". Believe me, I fight with that thought everytime I start a class. My hope is to engage students in dialogue, interactive and collaborative work, with somebody next to them, or a continent away. Distances are no longer an impediment. Is our personal creativity and effort as educators our sword against the killing of creativity?

ICT in St. George's College - October 29th

This is the presentation and video used to inform the PTA from St. George's College about our Technological Innovation Project. Please review and make your comments.

Learning for the future, or the present? - August 2nd

The methodologies in Education have been changing along time. Lecture-based, skills-based, curriculum-based, etc.

It appears that new times bring new methodologies, or tendencies. Nowadays though, the tendency tends to be a giant snow ball coming to us. So we can choose to ride with it or we surrender to it, regardless if we are students, parents or teachers.

The change to a more technological working position brings some resistance, usually. but that resistance is evaporated once the virtues of the "new" technology are discovered and incorporated into the personal way of working.

Our current technology, demands that as teachers we should be at the forefront of guidance. yes, only guidance. Our capabilities will soon be surpassed by the most skillful and/or dedicated savvy students.

So we better go with the roll and guide the tour of teaching through technology or we will be considered eternal students of something that we reject, technology.

I found a great video that shows in a very simple but clear way what students want, think, and need. Check ot out.