About
I am a teacher and instructional technologist in sunny California. Before you get too jealous, I also live in the part of the state known for horrendous wintertime fog and summer afternoons which can convince anyone that air-conditioning is a divine gift.
In 2005 I walked into a new school district and on my way through the door 15 student laptops, a new teacher computer, a LCD projector, a document camera, and an Interwrite Pad fell into my lap. Suddenly, words like “dongle,” “Gaggle,” and “Moodle” became part of my vocabulary. Considering that “state-of-the-art” at my previous school meant a shiny new white board and a fresh set of makers, I was pretty overwhelmed. Needless to say the way I teach has dramatically changed. Last year I started on an even more amazing adventure – teaching at a 1:1 Apple school and working at the district office on technology integration projects. Yep, I think I’ve pretty much died and gone to Heaven….that is as long as some server or unknown switch doesn’t crash.
Somehow during the past four years I also became the go-to “tech expert” for my community of teachers. Originally, I thought maybe I just drew the shortest straw and no one told me what that meant. 
 Now, however I realize how fortunate my position is and I am grateful for every opportunity to share my new found knowledge.
Every day I spend part of my time helping teachers learn how to use technology in their classroom to engage their 21st century students. Its a great adventure and in many ways I have learned more from them than I have probably taught. This blog is one of my attempts to share the latest and greatest with some of the hardest working educators I know. From time to time you might also find my thoughts on an issue or track one of my adventures across the state.
Read something and please post a comment. Comments keep me going!
Joe
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
You are the best!!! The kids at Salk are so lucky to have you!!!!
Hi Joe,
It’s good to rediscover your news feed. Thanks for all of the cool articles and posts. I’ll try to stay tuned in and current.
I’m now in Newman, at Orestimba High School. I’m Dean of Students, which is slightly different than being the dean at Somerset. At OHS, I handle discipline, attendance and safety for 800+ students. It’s great, and I really enjoy it.
Drop me a line from time to time. I assume that you and Kelly landed on your feet in Sacramento. We’re still in Riverbank.
All the best,
Randy Heinrichs
Joe, your reflections about the impact 1:1 laptops in the classroom was having is very powerful. I have shared it on Twitter here in Australia as the current government has just established an initiative whereby ALL students in 9th grade will be given a netbook! Twitter: #DERNSW
Of interest was how you have come to observe a change in the students from ‘borrowing’ technology to ‘owning’ technology and the attitudes that go with that.
Could you follow up on those observations? Has your staff come up with a way of dealing with the issues?
A very powerful blog. Many thanks Joe.
Sincerely,
Vincent Albanese
Sydney, Australia
Joe,
I am interested in learning more about your cell phone project, but am unable to contact you in the “Contact Me” section. Apparently a plug-in is not installed and so I do not see numbers/letters to type in. If you could please contact me at the email I provided, I would appreciate it!
**I apologize for using this section to ask. I wasn’t sure where else to go.
Joe,
I am contacting you as part of a course requirement, and am doing so here becasue I was not able to install the plug-in. I am currently in the Discovery Education Instructional Media Program at Wilkes University. As part of a unit on cell phone usage, I am to contact an educator who has utilized cell phones as part of an instructional lesson. I was drawn to your posting about brainstorming on wiffiti because I also teach middle school science. Please know that I will be sharing your responses to my interview questions with the rest of my classmates.
My school currently has a no cell phone policy- the students are not allowed to carry them at all. What type of policy does your school/district have?
If you do have a policy that limits or forbids cell phone use in school, is the policy reinforced by faculty?
Did you need to obtain parental permission prior to your lesson, if so, how?
Did this project require any parental involvement either inside or outside of school?
Did you receive any feedback from your students, their parents or your peers and if so, what was it?
What technical hurdles, if any, did you encounter in the planning or implementing of this lesson?
Did you encounter any policy related challenges that you needed to address during this lesson?
Did you have the support of your administration for this lesson?
Thank you in advance for your time. I look forward to hearing from you.
Colleen Duffy
colleen.duffy@wilkes.edu