School resources are always limited, whether they be time, money, attention, energy, or personnel. Before you hire an outside helper for your school(s), here are some questions you might ask… Are we bringing in this person to actually help us do something? Or do we just want...
Disclosure: Volley is an advertiser on FreeTech4Teachers.comAt the end of 2021 an old friend from the early days of Free Technology for Teachers introduced me to a new conversation platform called Volley. I liked it so much that I included Volley in my Best of...
I'm not a regular Microsoft Teams user (the schools and clients I work with all use Zoom or Meet) which is why I rely on Mike Tholfsen's great YouTube channel to keep me updated about the latest and greatest in Microsoft Teams. It's through Mike's...
One of the many things that I love about being a dad to two little girls is all of the questions they ask me. Many of their questions are about things that I haven't thought about in decades. For example, the other night my four-year-old...
This fall I started working with the Mattoon (Illinois) Community Schools. They are doing some really important transformational work for such a small district, including significant investments in students’ leadership capacity through The Leader in Me framework; competency-based education and student progressions; deeper learning modalities in their schools,...
I read some great (and not so great) books in 2021! Here are my top few (and why)… My top book for 2021 is Difference Making at the Heart of Learning, by Tom Vander Ark & Emily Liebtag. Tom and Emily describe how students can make positive...
This article is written by Truth for Teachers writer Dan Tricarico. I remember the day I was sitting at my desk in my classroom, my head in my hands. One of our vice principals was sitting opposite me in one of my student desks, and she...
This article is written by Truth for Teachers writer Dan Tricarico. I remember the day I was sitting at my desk in my classroom, my head in my hands. One of our vice principals was sitting opposite me in one of my student desks, and she...
The Library of Congress offers many interesting collections of digital archives including one called the National Jukebox. I first wrote about it more than a decade ago. Since then the size of the collection has expanded because more recordings have entered the public domain and...
When I need to focus and get a lot of writing done, I set a timer and tell myself that I can't stop writing until the timer goes off. Forest is a Chrome extension that basically does the same thing plus it blocks me from...
