What’s “Print?”
I’ve assigned many research projects in my time as a teacher. Perhaps you have, too. Research, the process of looking and re-looking at the way an issue or idea has been explored, is a vital part of learning. Perhaps you, like me, have assigned research projects that required that students cite their sources, and perhaps you, like me, wanted to make sure your students went deeper than a quick Google search and the top five hits for whatever search term or terms they happened to type in the first time they went looking. So maybe you, like me, made a requirement of the project that students had to include one or more “print sources,” materials that couldn

The Week in Tweets for 2009-11-22
Stunningly beautiful morning. Crisp and snowy. I literally drove into clouds and back out again. # Fog's lifting. Going to be a beautiful day. # RT @skrashen: I do not support the LEARN act. See why: http://bit.ly/45ZD1n # Sitting in and providing a little tech support for a WorkingShop sponsored by C21L. Should be useful. http://twitpic.com/pref6

Digital Is. Or Isn’t. Or Always (Never?) Was. Or Not.
I spent today engaged in some work with the National Writing Project and several of their thinking partners at the Digital Is . . . Convening event, a day of structured thinking and looking and conversation about what it means to write and teach writing at a time of such profound technological change in the world and, perhaps, our schools.  It was a classic NWP event, in the sense that there was a good collection of really smart folks present as well as thoughtful processes and protocols to help us have productive conversation and inquiry time. What

The Week in Tweets for 2009-11-15
@johrt Good idea. How's Friday look for lunch? I'm available most of the day. in reply to johrt # A nice surprise was waiting for me when I got to work this morning. Thanks, @hickstro. Looking forward to it. http://twitpic.com/ovuor # @brueckj23 Build the subgroups as calendars and attach/subscribe them to the master, perhaps?

Superheroes
Ani reminded me tonight, as we were driving to an event, that today was November 11th. She’s been working on her calendar at preschool. “Veterans Day,” I told her. “Do you know what that means?” “Yeah.” She answered without hesitation from the back seat of the dark car. “It’s the day for when superheroes save our city.” I let that sit for a moment. Not quite. But as I thought about it, and the fact that she’s four, I couldn’t bring myself to correct her. There will be time later for deeper conversations, for more understanding and a deeper sense of just what “saving” and “her