Putting things into perspective

Last week there was an interesting article in the Wall Street Journal that caught my attention. It was a brief write-up about Dr. Randy Pausch moving last lecture given at Carniege Mellon University. Dr. Pausch has been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and this moving last lecture was packed with lots of inspiration. It is a nice reminder of the really important things in life. The video of this lecture entitled "How to Live Your Childhood Dreams" is at mms://wms.andrew.cmu.edu/001/pausch.wmv -- while nearly 2 hours in length it is worth the time -- especially given Dr. Pausch's distinguished career in virtual reality. Lois

Professional Development Best Practices

Tonight I listened to one of the EdTechTalk podcasts on professional development -- one that focused on best practices for helping teachers learn to integrate technology into their classroom. While to focus of this podcast was on technology, the best practices highlighted could easily be transferred to other disciplines such as economics. You can listen to the podcast at http://www.edtechtalk.com/21st_Century_Learning_25

Here are three highlights that I came away with: (1) the importance of chunking professional development into small managable pieces from which the teacher can easily implement into their classroom soon after the training event' (2) the importance of providing differentiated instruction in working with groups of teachers so that each teacher is able to come away from the training with addtional KSAs (knowledge, skills, and abilities); and (3) understanding the culture of professional development within each school. The digital immigrant...Lois