Shep's World

Photo courtesy of: http://dailygenius.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/twitter-in-the-classroom-770x770.png Education today is really undergoing some revolutionary changes. I heard someone once say that the problem is that we are often so close to what is changing that we don't actually see whats taking place. When I think about the classroom today and the tools that my students have available to them it is dramatically different to what students had when I firststarted teaching. Compared to what I had available to me when I was a student it almost seems like I was learning in the dark ages of edtech (I can't imagine what the schoolhouse teacher of the 1800's would have thought). Students today are connected and engaged globally through social networking on a scale that would have been impossible only a decade ago and what  really is upsetting is that my educational practices had not really changed since I first begun teaching despite the options available. At times I fe

Photo courtesy of:  https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BXgqEd7CIAAerju.jpg Welcome back my friends today I've been reflecting on a topic that we all have experienced and that is professional development.  As educators we all are expected to participate in PD and we have all been a part of PD days that were poorly planned, over planned, boring, or the subject of any number of other complaints (to be fair to the individuals responsible for planning PD days teachers are a notoriously difficult audience who'd all rather be in their classroom "getting work done"). It's not that I was opposed to participating in professional development days just that I wanted to know that there was going to be something noteworthy that I could take away from the experience. In short I did not want to see my time wasted. This brings me to the subject of today's blog and that is meaningful professional development. Over the past week I have been talking with a friend of mine @STLinOK

Photo courtesy of:  http://elearningwiki.com/images/thumb/7/70/PersonalLearningNetwork.jpg/842px-PersonalLearningNetwork.jpg Welcome back my friends and let me be the first to say that many of my blogs reflect my thoughts as an educator but I think in a way also reflect many of our shared experiences in this field.  I am hardly the first educator to have my eyes opened to new possibilities by something I experienced and begin sharing my new revelation to others who undoubtedly attempt to avoid rolling their eyes as they think to themselves that "this is nothing new" or "I've been doing this for years" both sentiments I am also very guilty of having from time to time.  Recently however I have been reflecting over my career as an educator and have taken notice about how my practices have changed in the brief thirteen years since I started back in 2005. When I first began teaching like so many of you I remember struggling the first few years to accumulate