The Teacher Geek

PreK-2 Teachers: Get Ahead Of Yourself With This Site

The Teacher Geek — Sun, 06 May 2012 21:06:07 +0000

Holy Pageview! If you are or will be teaching Early Childhood (meaning Pre-K to Grade 2) next school year, go grab some coffee and a muffin and make yourself comfortable. Then, click on The Virtual Vine’s Back To School page and prepare to have your mind blown by the sheer volume of great ideas. Where [...]

Give Your K-W-L Charts a Double-Take

The Teacher Geek — Sat, 03 Mar 2012 23:16:58 +0000

Best practices encompass the old, the new, and the tried-and-true. One of the tried-and-true best practice for scaffolding when introducing new content, is to utilize a K-W-L graphic organizer. K: What do you know? W: What do you want to know? L: What have you learned? K-W-L charts don’t have to be boring. Next time, try [...]

Come Hear Me Talk About Twitter For Teachers!

The Teacher Geek — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 02:24:23 +0000

I have the antidote for burnout: Attend a great conference. This weekend I will be presenting at NYSCATE’s Hudson Valley Conference in Wappingers Falls, NY. NYSCATE is the New York affiliate of ISTE. It’s where tech meets teaching. My presentation is called “Twitter For Teachers: A Super-Powered PLN Tool.” It’s about using Twitter as a [...]

Behold The Conference Crown

The Teacher Geek — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 03:31:44 +0000

What do you wear when you conference with students and don’t want to be disturbed? A crown…a Conference Crown, to be exact. As I wrote in a past post, I had used a sign to deter students from interrupting small-group conferences. But now, thanks to a discarded Halloween costume, I have a tiara! A [...]

Word(s) Up!

The Teacher Geek — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 02:48:17 +0000

I just got some string hung up from the ceiling in my classroom. I’m so excited, because now I can HANG STUFF. The facilities guy that installed it did a cross-cross design, corner to corner, for maximum coverage. Then, channeling MacGyver, he rigged two of the corners into a little pulley system, so that I [...]

Be a Ninja Hallway Walker

The Teacher Geek — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 20:33:07 +0000

A couple of months ago, I solicited hallway walking tips on Facebook. Finally, here’s that blogpost! Thanks for being so patient, Teacher Geeks. A few years ago, I ran into a parent in the hallway while my class was on its way to a special. My class was (mostly) walking in quiet, straight line. That [...]

I’m Leaving Networked Blogs, Please Re-subscribe

The Teacher Geek — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 02:59:52 +0000

Hello Teacher Geeks, If you subscribe to my blog via the NetworkedBlogs syndication service for Facebook, I’m kindly asking you to resubscribe through a different route. I’ve not been happy with the feeds they’ve pulled for me onto Facebook. Many of the issues cannot be resolved without endless hours of troubleshooting, which I just don’t [...]

The Wish Penny: Saying Goodbye To a Student

The Teacher Geek — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 00:54:53 +0000

I’m bummed this week for two reasons. One is that I have to do report cards. I want to do them thoughtfully and correctly, but I don’t care what anyone says, (you could be the Mary Poppins of teachers), report cards are not fun. Especially when they are a series of a ho-jillion pull-down menus. I [...]

Sunday Night Dose Of Joy: Aung San Suu Kyi as Guest Professor

The Teacher Geek — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 03:01:59 +0000

When you think of a college lecture hall, excitement and goosebumps are the not first things that come to mind. I think that’s because I haven’t had the privilege of sitting in a lecture from Professor John Boyer at Virginia Tech. On December 5, 2011, Professor Boyle and his 3000 World Regions class students SKYPED [...]

Sunday Night Dose Of Joy: Alan November’s “Purpose”

The Teacher Geek — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 00:15:10 +0000

It’s Sunday night…do you know where your teacher bag is? If you’re like me, you’re probably doing the split-personality dance of revving down from the weekend and revving up for the week. While this blog is mostly about Best Practices in the Classroom, every Sunday I’m going to try and bring you a Sunday Night [...]