Of all the Web 2.0 tools, VoiceThread is probably my favorite, so powerful, yet easy to learn. So when I saw Paul Allison‘s email invitation to join last night’s Teachers Teaching Teachers session with VT developers Ben Pappert and Steve Muth, I grabbed my headset and logged in, ready to learn about VT’s new Groups [...]

Of all the EB enhancements James Farmer has added over the past year, The Edublogger is my absolute favorite.  Such great tips, so well explained, and so easy to turn around and apply to my own blog and blogging practices.  Thank you, James, and Happy Birthday to The Edublogger (Sue Waters)! Seems like with every [...]

Looking for resources for Black History Month? Thanks to the wonderful Sacramento Educational Cable Consortium (SECC), you can read about my recent videoconference with Tuskegee Airman Alexander Jefferson, and then watch the clips: Still in awe of how videoconferencing can enrich teaching and learning – way beyond the walls of the classroom.

Pictures reach audiences more directly than the alone. They communicate the author’s tone and approach to the subject, and enhance our understanding and enjoyment of the text. Illustrations explain complicated ideas at a glance and even teach those who cannot read.” The next few weeks I’ll be helping teachers and their students (mostly 4th graders) [...]

Emily Davis, production assistant for the Teacher Salary Project emailed me this weekend with the following message: “Dear Gail Desler, I am writing on behalf of Academy Award-winning filmmaker Vanessa Roth, co-founder of 826 National Nínive Calegari, and writer Dave Eggers. They are the Director and Co-Producers of the feature-length documentary The Teacher Salary Project. [...]

If you’re looking for filmmaking venues for you and your students, here are some sites I think you’ll want to checkout: 2009 World Math Day Video Contest – For grades 3 -8, Teacher Tube and Voyager Expanded Learning are partnering for this event. Includes prizes! BrainyFlix SAT Vocab Video Contest – I’ve already blogged about [...]

I first learned of the Bay Area Writing Project when my daughter was in 2nd grade at Rooftop Elementary School in San Francisco. At a PTA meeting, teachers enthusiastically shared how a summer institute across the bay had completely changed the way they would be delivering writing curriculum to their students. And I remember my [...]