LTMS600

Dabbleboard is an online collaboration application that’s centered around the whiteboard.

And then I heard, “Mr. McCourt, the principal is at the door.” My heart sank as the principal entered, along with the superintendent of schools. Neither acknowledged me. They walked up and down, peering at papers. The superintendent picked one up, showed it to the principal. The superintendent frowned. The principal pursed his lips. On their way out, the principal said the superintendent would like to see me. Here it comes, I thought. The reckoning. The principal was sitting at his desk; the superintendent was standing. “Come in,” said the superintendent. “I just want to tell you that that lesson, that project, whatever the hell you were doing, was topnotch. Those kids were writing on the college level.” He turned to the principal and said, “That kid writing an excuse note for Judas. Brilliant. I just want to shake your hand,” he said, turning back to me. “There might be a letter in your file attesting to your energetic and imaginative teaching. Thank you.” God in heaven. High praise from an important person. Should I dance down the hallway, or lift and fly? Next day in class, I just started singing. The kids laughed. They said, “Man, school should be like this every day, us writing excuse notes and teachers singing all of a sudden.” Sooner or later, I figured, everyone needed an excuse. Also, if we sang today we could sing tomorrow, and why not? You don’t need an excuse for singing.

The new image of Jupiter was taken with Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3, which was installed by the astronauts aboard space shuttle Atlantis in May. Because it is still being calibrated, the camera's full power has yet to be seen, NASA said.

So, what took you so long? I was teaching, that's what took me so long. Not in college or university, where you have all the time in the world for writing and other diversions, but in four different New York City public high schools. (I have read novels about the lives of university professors where they seemed to be so busy with adultery and academic in-fighting you wonder where they found time to squeeze in a little teaching.) When you teach five high school classes a day, five days a week, you're not inclined to go home to clear your head and fashion deathless prose. After a day of five classes your head is filled with the clamor of the classroom.

Welcome to the Gates Ideas website. Look around to find information about my workshops, resources, and other services that I provide. I bring a lifetime of experience in education and a passion for all things technology to the table to help you find and use the right tool for the job. It’s all about getting the kids actively engaged in their learning. I demand a world class education for all children. Say it with me - "I demand a world class education for all children!"

James Gates, Consultant

One of our goals is to encourage and provide training so that teachers see technology as an enhancement and not a replacement for their current technique.

Summer Professional Development Programs for Teachers Teachers: The following FREE opportunities for earning ACT 48 credit hours are available from EconomicsPennsylvania: 

120 or so teachers from Victoria who are part of a pilot where all of their students will have netbooks in hand in the next few months. There seems to be a growing commitment here to put technology in the hands of kids (instead of spending huge sums on stuff that students can’t use outside of the classroom) and to thinking about how practice and pedagogy changes when that happens. T

E5 (pdf) that I’ll be giving some more attention to on the plane ride home but that at first blush has some interesting language that focuses more on learning than teaching.

It’s not just about if every student had a computer; it’s about if every teacher had a computer as well. (As opposed to if every teacher had a whiteboard.) Imagine if our students were being taught in systems where technology was just a natural part of the way we created and constructed and connected and learned, that it was how we do our business. S

As I said before, blogging forces me to come up with stuff to write about. As I do that, I am forced to analyze some of the situations in my life and try to find out why the work or why they don’t work.

. Reading other blogs also helps me to gain new perspectives. These are perspectives that I wouldn’t have without blogging.