Google Slowly taking over my life

Google Slowly taking over my life

    This morning I woke up at 4:30am to call my bank back in America to do a wire transfer for our Winter Trip to Tanzania (Hiking Kilimanjaro, a Safari, and Zanzabar…yeah….we’re stoked!). I decided to use Google Talk via my Gmail account as I have become increasingly frustrated with the quality of Skype calls and I notice the […]

Shifting Our Schools Podcast Season 3

Shifting Our Schools Podcast Season 3

Last week David Carpenter and I kicked off season 3 of the Shifting Our Schools podcast. It’s taken us a while to get this season going and I’m not short on the excuses why, so I won’t even bother getting started. Needless to say we are started and we’re excited to be back for a third season. As usual I […]

My Podcast Set-up

My Podcast Set-up

I like it when other podcasters share their set up. A thanks to Leo Leporte, one of my favorite tech podcasters….or is that netcaster. I’ve learned a lot about podcasting just listening to the different shows he produces. I wrote this page for the Shifting Our Schools site to share with others the set up I use to stream, record, […]

Chatting with 4th graders

Chatting with 4th graders

ISB just launched PantherNet. Our Moodle system that syncs (or is trying to) with PowerSchool. It’s still in Beta but early feedback from teachers: “Where has this been?” That’s a good sign! Yesterday I met with a fourth grade teacher eager to see if PantherNet could fit into her classroom. I haven’t used Moodle much in the elementary but there […]

New City, New School, New Computer

New City, New School, New Computer

Well we made it to Bangkok without much of a fuss. Cats traveled well and we’re slowly settling into our new house in our new city. ISB is about 30 minutes outside of the city center making our view a little different from Shanghai. Shanghai Bangkok The view is not the only thing different. Last night’s low of 81F and […]

Nothing like Sunday night fun

Nothing like Sunday night fun

I had a great time last night. I’ve loaded Skype on my wife’s new laptop, we sat on the couch together and I showed her how it works. We work at the same school, but our offices are on the complete opposite sides of the campus, so I thought this could be a great way for us stay in touch […]

Creating moments of learning

Creating moments of learning

Yesterday Mr. Hossack’s class of 5th graders got to take part in something new and cool. They had a video Skype call with a 7th grade class in Los Angles, California. Barbara Barreda contacted me a couple weeks ago and we started planning. Of course planning didn’t go to smoothly on our end. We are two days from ending school […]

Building Learning Communities

Building Learning Communities

I have been privileged this past week to spend three days with Frances Hensley from the National School Reform Faculty. A group of 20 of us from my school were able to spend 3 days with Ms. Hensley in October and she was back for three more days of Critical Friends Training. Critical Friends Groups are: A CFG is a […]

Skype now with SMS support

Skype now with SMS support

So Skype just updated itself on my computer and I can now SMS straight from Skype. It even works in China! I sent myself an SMS for $0.0055 at that rate, I can afford to send SMS messages. To the States just $0.112. That’s not bad! Now we just have to keep China from blocking it…keep your fingers crossed. I […]