Kaulbach's Modern World

Did you know that  it was Digital Learning Day nationwide?  PBS offered a fantastic opportunity to connect educators.  I stepped up my enthusiasm for digital learning by telling students to SMASH APPS! and tweeted class totals (#dlday).  Smashing immediately connotes images of destruction but according to my twitter community it simply means using more than one app to create something digital.  My students had opportunities to using sketching apps with text apps, work flow apps with platform apps and as an added incentive, would be allowed to use class time for gaming or bonus points on past assessment scores. Guess which incentive won out? Our school launched our Follow Your Dreams project during DLD week. Every week a senior or alumni of has the opportunity to present their work towards a dream, TED Talk style in our library media center.  During a 20 minute advisory time students voluntarily choose to attend a variety of club activities, conferences ...

Link to published article   At TER While it can't be said for all professions everyone I know remembers a teacher who changed their world in a positive way. It was a teacher who helped me love learning and who made me think I was going to fantastic when I grew up. For most people that teacher was someone they encountered in their youth but for me it happened to be my daughter's kindergarten teacher. She is organized, enthusiastic, creative and kind. She had a reputation of being a stable force in education because of her forty one years of experience yet was one of the first to embrace 21st century digital technologies.  I was questioning my own educational practices when I first met her and was struck by this thought:  while every child in kindergarten was excited to learn the same can't be said for every student in my high school classroom. Curiosity got the best of me so I studied my daughter's experiences. I took notes on how this teacher hooked students on math a...

Last night I was flipping through old photo albums, reminiscing about my first years in teaching which seem so sunny and bright. I know that I have gained efficiency, patience and organization since I first began yet forced changes in education have me questioning my assurances. Change insinuates that everything I have been doing was somehow wrong. Or in means that the vision I have promoted is suddenly coming to fruition. Those who institute change I regard warily since they are likely to move on in their careers without looking back. It makes sense to turn some attention to the veterans of education who still arrive to work with smiles, take on new challenges and converse without cynicism.  These veterans of education have also been coaches who  took me under wing when I was still a high school student. I adored them as individuals could not tell you where coaching began and where the teaching ended. They devoted endless time to us. Later, under their tutelage I began...