jwmartinez

Veteran Teachers in MO and KS Receive Low Pay, Take Second Jobs, Qualify for Public Benefits

Annual salaries for veteran Missouri teachers are below the median state income. Teachers in Missouri and Kansas who head households of four or more qualify for multiple state aid programs designed to assist low-income residents. In Missouri, more than 16 percent of teachers take second jobs to make ends meet (that isn’t counting summer jobs), … Continue reading →

New Report: District-by-District Return on Educational Investment

Every year when my husband and I pay our property tax, I stop to pause over the amount of money we earn that is going to support our Missouri district and wonder how well they’re using it. According to one new report, we’re getting moderate results for moderate spending. And you may be surprised that … Continue reading →

VIDEO: Participatory Culture

VIDEO: Enabling Students in a Digital Age

I discovered this TED talk through the Connected Learning MOOC I am participating in this week. Thanks, Daniel Bassill, for sharing it. This Pennsylvania teacher is talking about how his school trusted high school students to install and write open source software on laptops for every student at school, to train their classmates about how … Continue reading →

The Global One-Room Schoolhouse

I discovered this video through the Connected Learning MOOC being sponsored this summer by the National Writing Project and wanted to share it with you: The Global One-Room Schoolhouse: John Seely Brown (Highlights from his “Entrepreneurial Learner” Keynote at DML2012) from Connected Learning Alliance on Vimeo.

My Meme

Click HERE to learn more about immersive education.

VIDEO: Of Memes & Education

Quote from the video: “If it is a thing that is compelling for some reason, it will spread. I was thinking that business has figured this out, but education not so much.” More about Peter Kittle, an English professor whose research focus is technology and literacy: http://www.csuchico.edu/engl/faculty-staff/kittle-peter.shtml

VIDEO: How to Go Dancing When You’re Lesson Planning Late at Night

Best viewed full-screen in YouTube, so you can read the text:

Making Learning Connected

Teachers and students may not necessarily agree about what they regard as fun. One of my colleagues, for example, has a story about one time when she told her class, “Today we’re going to have some fun!” Suspiciously, the students eyed her until one finally asked the question: “Your kind of fun or our kind … Continue reading →

2013 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2013 annual report for this blog. Here’s an excerpt: The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 19,000 times in 2013. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 7 sold-out performances for that many … Continue reading →