Some Reflections on the Summer 2012

Look at the Beach, Not the Water, Brah!

Aloha - This summer I did two things I always wanted to do - I went to Hawai'i and I surfed!  Surfing was an amazing experience.  Like most great experiences there is a life lesson you can take away from it - for me it was the advice that Kevin, my surf instructor, gave me - he said look at the beach, brah, not the water!

What I took away from that comment was focus on where you want to go (aka the beach) and you'll go there - conversely focus on where you don't want to go (the water - aka wipeout) and you'll end up there

Another cool thing I did this summer was attend a conference in Whistler where I had an opportunity to listen to Will Richardson speak about the internet and education - check out his site: http://willrichardson.com/

Just a few sites he mentioned that I thought were great:

Edmodo - http://www.edmodo.com/  provides teachers and students a secure place to connect and collaborate, share content and educational applications, and access homework, grades, class discussions and notifications. Its goal is to help educators harness the power of social media to customize the classroom for each and every learner.  Here's a youtube video to help you get started:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tTU1iUfExk

Khan Academy -http://www.khanacademy.org/

Is a  free site that has literally millions of tutorials on a plethora of subjects.  To understand the site better see a TED talk by it's founder - Salman Kahn -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gM95HHI4gLk

Twitter - most people are now familiar with twitter - check out this edublog - it explains the how and why of twitter for educators - http://markmarshall.edublogs.org/2009/03/09/twitter-what-is-it-and-why-would-i-use-it/

100 best sites for educators - http://edudemic.com/2012/08/best-video-sites-for-teachers/

Looking forward to a great year at MRSS and wishing everyone the best for the academic year of 2012 - 2013 - Mahalo Nui Loa