This easy Google Earth activity will get you started

If you’ve been reading my blog, you might be aware of my love for Google Earth. Yes, I know it is a bit of an obsession but I have to tell you from a geography teacher’s perspective there are very few platforms out there that: are FREE are robust enough to create an immersive experience […]

Why taking grading home with you is part of a much bigger problem.

Yesterday I was writing about the amount of work that teachers bring home with them and how it is adversely affecting them to the point of causing, or at least contributing to, teacher burnout. I feel compelled today to expand on that conversation and provide some deeper inquiry and insight to my thoughts. You can […]

Why you should leave your work at school at least twice a week.

Teachers have this nasty habit of not being able to stop thinking about their work. Even during the holidays you might see a teacher at a Thanksgiving dinner steering the conversation to what they are currently doing in class to ask for input from those around the table. You might even see that same teacher […]

Should you have lunch in the faculty lounge?

Short answer. Yes. Long answer. It’s complicated. There are pros and cons to eating in your schools faculty lunch room. Lets look at them Pros: You get to debrief with colleagues about your day and be surrounded by people who have roughly the same intellect and thirst for conversation that is NOT about One Direction. […]

Have at least one meeting a week with NO notes

Have at least one meeting with no notes per week…just a conversation of ideas. Education has entered the world of big data and data driven education. Overall this is a very good thing for getting quantitative information about the performance of students (and in some cases teachers) in a wide variety of situation. The idea […]

Core Value statements need to change.

Core Value statements need to change. Every time I visit a school, I make a point to look up what their ‘Core Values’ are. For those of you that might not know what core values are they are usually three to five words, or phrases, that encompass the ideals, aspirations and culture that a school […]

Why saying “I don’t know” is the most powerful tool a teacher has.

As educators, we tend to think that our students look at us as always have the answers to their questions. We often go to great lengths to research a unit so that we make sure we have the answers to all sorts of ridiculous and banal question that could possibly come up in class. I started my career […]

Why you need to teach students metacognitive skills in middle school

In my class of 6th grade students I would always start the school year with a conversation and a rationale as to why I taught in a certain way. Then, over the course of the school year, I would revisit this rationale as I would walk them through what my thinking about a particular lesson or activity […]

Nuts and Bolts of building content in Google Earth

Get faster at building content: Nuts and Bolts edition My last post was all about the basic of creating your first bit of content in Google Earth. Today I’m going to show you a few hacks to make the process a little easier. If you remember from my last post, the three forms of content […]

Creating your first Google Earth content is harder than it looks.

The first time your create content in Google Earth it will be awful. I mean dreadfully awful. Sorry to break it to you but just like learning calculus or Roman History, it takes a little bit of time immersed in a thing to ‘get it’. Just like we tell our students, this about learning the […]