I’m packing my overnight bag for a weekend excursion to the Owens Valley, to visit Manzanar, a former WWII  internment camp for citizens of Japanese heritage. I’ll be traveling with California State University, Sacramento, professor Wayne Mayeda, a group of former internees, students from CSUS,  and a team of teachers from my district. Our journey [...]

If you’re not following Edublogs’ Teacher Challenge: 30 days to using the best of the web’s free tools for educators, I think it’s a discussion you’ll want to join! The Challenge format is a great way to organize, archive, and share the many ways teachers are using web tools to engage students and extend learning. [...]

April can be a tension-filled month at many schools sites, especially those sites that are in PI (Program Improvement). Thank goodness for Rudy Alfonso and his 5th grade filmmakers, who  have some suggestions for helping students get through the mandated week(s) of high stakes testing. If you’ve already seen Rudy’s 2010 The Secret to the [...]

It’s April. Time to update last year’s Igniting National Poetry Month post with some wonderful new resources: Updates: Update #1 -A year ago the New York Times Learning Network titled its poetry page as 11  Ways to Celebrate National Poetry Month. They too have done some updating! This year you’ll find double the number of [...]