The Hi-Tech Teacher

 Reflection      Reflection is one of the most valuable practices effective teachers can do. When I say reflect, I mean real and honest reflection about both negatives and positives. It is easy to identify negatives, but I think we all too often forget to celebrate the successes. No matter what you are reflecting on, when we can identify both areas of strength and areas for improvement, we can build on what went well and make adjustments to make it even better.  Crisis Schooling      What happened with education during the pandemic is no different. In fact, many school districts from across the country took time to systematically reflect and assess what happened in the spring of 2020 before developing a plan for the subsequent school year. ClassLink, a well known name in the education technology field, partnered with other big names such as the Consortium for School Network (CoSN),  and the State Educational Technology Directors Association (...

  Pandemic Learning vs Distance Learning: What’s the Difference?      I had no idea what we were in for when I got the phone call on the evening of Friday, March 13, 2020. Not only was it Friday the 13th, it was also a full moon, and we had a fun run at school that day. It had been a crazy day that was about to get even crazier! The first phone call I received said that we would have 3 days to prepare for the schools to close due to the rapidly spreading Covid virus. Shortly after that I received another call that said students could opt to stay home. Moments later, I received a third call that said schools were closed effective immediately. That escalated quickly!      As it became clear that “social distancing” and “sheltering in place” were not going anywhere, our school district quickly went to work to develop a plan to continue to educate our students and provide special education services to our students. Teachers had to move quickly to find ways...