From the Jets to the Eagles

I haven't posted in a very long time! I wasn't getting very many views, so I decided to wait to write a post until I had a really good reason to do one. I do now!

I have a whole new audience!

Over the summer, I moved from Indiana to Kansas. I am no longer a Thompkins Jet, but am now an Andover eCademy Eagle! For more information on the eCademy, click here. I am thrilled to be part of their teaching staff, working with 6th-8th graders in math. (I hear I may be getting a pre-calculus class to teach too!)

I am finding that many of the students and parents here have some of the same questions that students and parents at Thompkins had. There is one big difference though. At Thompkins, a student could easily walk from their classroom down to my office with his/her netbook to show me what was happening. ECademy students must email me or call me or come in to the building to get help. The issues that students have though seem to be the same or very similar. Therefore, I decided that it might be a good idea to get this blog back up and running.

That said...welcome Andover eCademy students and parents!!! You will find that this blog will provide you with links to help teach about digital responsibility, common problems, and just a little bit of my philosophy about using technology in education. Feel free to post comments and ask questions.

Are Smartphones Actually Helping Study Habits?

Wow!  I found this infographic via a tweet from Miss Noor about this blog post.  As I read through it, I thought about our students.  I see them on their phones or their iPods a lot! What are they doing?  Many times, we, adults, think they are playing games or listening to music.  And, sometimes, we are right.  This infographic shows that they are actually doing a lot of other things too.
As I walked through recess today, I asked a student what game he was playing.  Guess what!  He wasn't playing a game! He was looking up how to do something on his smartphone.  See, they do look up information.  They do study using their phone.  I wonder, as Miss Noor wrote, how many of our TMS Jets use flashcards on their devices.  In college, I used notecards to study for almost every test, especially in social studies.
If you are a student, please share how you use your phone or iPod to help you study for classes.  I would LOVE to share the educational world that you have found through your use of a smartphone.

Via: STUDYBLUE.com