Greenhaus Education and Other "Effects"

I cannot believe how long it's been since I last posted. A clear sign that my life has been in a little bit of  turmoil these last few months.  But, hopefully, as the dust is settling, things will get back on a regular routine and I will not feel so completely overwhelmed. Why am I overwhelmed you ask? Change. Change in so many aspects of my life - my family, my career, my dissertation. All of it happening at once, which is probably why there is this sense of overload. Which brings me to my inspiration today. I have written about change before related to education - how teachers need support, time, etc. for change, such as Implementation Dip: It's Not Just Test Scores, It's Any Change and Instructional Change and Integration: It Takes A Village . What I wanted to focus on today is perhaps more of a justification for the time, support, understanding required of leaders as teachers (or anyone) are faced with so many challenges and changes to what, why, and how they are e...

I just spent last week with the teachers I have been working with for the last three months on my hybrid/blended PD (my most recent post in the series was Feedback (Part 3) on Hybrid PD ).  I also spent the last part of the week at the Texas Computer Education Association 2012 conference in Austin, TX, where I met with myriad of teachers from all different disciplines and talked about technology and mathematics. In both experiences, I was surrounded by teachers excited about technology, excited about using technology, and teachers who were so excited to engage and provide opportunities for their students to get their hands on learning, whether it be mathematics, science, social studies or English. But...what I also heard was frustration about their ability and access to provide those experiences to their students due to such mundane things as the software not being downloaded on the computers, or the sites they want to go to being blocked by the school firewalls. This had me thin...

I read to interesting postings this morning - one discussing the possible limiting of students 'freedom of speech rights' when using social media and the other giving 20 tips on how to modeling appropriate technology usage in the classroom for students.  The first article by Neil UngerLeider entitled Teens and Their Teachers at Odds Over Social Media, First Amendment Rights talks about the possibility of government control of students social media postings.  The second, a blog posting by Heather Wolport-Gawron entitled Twenty Ways to Model Technology Use for Students suggests different ways teachers can model appropriate use of technology in their every day classroom practice. At first glance, seemingly unrelated yet, perhaps Wolport-Gawron is on to something here.  If we, as parents and instructional leaders model appropriate use of technology, INCLUDING social media, then perhaps the seemingly inappropriate comments and use of social media by students might become...