Eileen Lennon's Blog (43)

I like June, but not for the usual reasons. Yes, the school year is winding down, and the kids are getting "antsy," but I see it as an opportunity to think outside the box.

I can try all the things I wanted to during the year with a little less pressure on them to succeed.

Keeping them engaged is the main focus in these last few weeks, so the resource I try has to get their attention, and get it fast. We can have a little more fun, and celebrate all…

Tali Horowitz invited a bunch of DOE nerds as her guests to the Common Sense Media Awards Dinner. The awards were for everyone who works hard to provide a safe environment for children to use technology. It was a lovely evening; we hobnobbed with big donors, caught up with friends, and had a nice evening out. What really inspired me was the message of the evening. We are playing defense for the small people who are…

My book club has been together since 1998. We were all moms with little kids at home, and once a month on a Monday night was a big deal to get out and talk to adults for a few hours. The challenge was to stay awake for the meeting. Now we discuss how those same kids are doing in college, but we still have a hard time staying awake.

Late last year, Harper Collins had a contest to become a sponsored book club for a year and I entered our book club. I had completely forgotten about it…

I graduated from the School of Visual Arts a long time ago with a degree in Fine Arts. It sounds impressive, but my brothers tell everyone I went to Crayon College. I loved the experience, and it has enriched my life. It set me on a path that took many turns for me to wind up where I am now; a computer teacher. It took a lot of turns.

One assignment I remember from school was to go the the Metropolitan Museum of Art and study a specific statue called Marble statue of a…

Where were you last year? Where are you now? Where do you want to be in a year?

Three questions that can stop you in your tracks.

In September, I present to the students my goals for the year. I look at them periodically throughout the year to see if I'm on track. More times than not, I'm nowhere near them. The rosy glow of September is deceiving; so my original plans don't take into consideration the set backs along the way. While it's a humbling exercise, it's…

On the one year anniversary of joining the gym, I wanted to celebrate my accomplishment and take a look back at the journey so far. I realize my phone has been the most important tool to my success.

Full disclosure: it wasn't just the apps that helped me lose weight, there was some sweat involved. (Actually lots of sweat. There's no pill to make this happen; if there was Oprah would have invented it. She had to lose weight the hard way and so do…

I  go to lots of PD days and learn new stuff all the time, but there are only so many bandwagons I can jump on.

When I'm sitting in a presentation, I'm all in. I buy whatever they're selling. It's only when I walk out and start thinking about the real world scenarios where I will use this. I often come up short somehow. I don't have the time, the support, the resources. I quit before I even begin.

What I've changed about my attitude is I've taken Sheryl Sandberg's approach and…

A PLN is a Personal Learning Network. It sounds very cool and it's an idea that is gaining ground. Because of all the social media sites that are available to teachers, you can find anyone that is a mentor or inspiration for you and what you do.

Since I'm the only technology teacher in my building, I don't get to talk to other tech teachers about the challenges I face in my school. It helps to talk to other teachers who face the same challenges.

So how…

EdCampNYC was a great event this past weekend. I woke up on Saturday wondering why I signed up for this, but after the day was over, I was very glad I did. I feel like a phone that's been fully recharged.

I catch up with friends and colleagues, I meet new friends and colleagues, and I learn from both. EdCamps attendees are the type of people that want to be the best at what they do so they therefore inspire each other along the way. They are good as some aspect of the job, and want to…

As if I needed an excuse to curl up with a good book.

I've been reading voraciously since a young age. On my first trip to the library I came home with 21 books. I couldn't believe they were letting me take home books to read and all I had to do was promise to bring them back when I was done. I knew then that I lived in a great country. I average a trip to the library once a month to this day.

The first chapter book that I fell in love with was The…

If I was a student of mine, I would drive me crazy.

I took a PD class last week and I was the one being taught something on the computer. I tried to stay on task, but I sometimes got distracted, or bored and went off to look at something else, and I got lost. I needed to ask for help from the person sitting next to me, I even needed help from one of the facilitators of the program at one point. I was a nightmare.

It made me think long and hard about my…

The NYC Board of Education is lifting it's cell phone ban for all students, which is great news if it happened ten years ago. Students have had their phones with them everyday, unless there's a metal detector at the door. In that case there's a van parked across the street from the school that stores the students phones for them everyday for a fee.

My children have carried their cell phones with them. After some natural and unnatural disasters that affected my family…

I never really thought of myself as a writer. I've written in diaries all my life, but for no one else but me. I've written papers for all sorts of classes, but just to complete an assignment. What writing for a blog has changed for me is that I now write just for the enjoyment of getting my thoughts down and hopefully find an audience for my musings.

What I'm worried about is while I was a good student, I was never taught how to be a good writer. I know nouns and…

There's a new website everyday that will change your life, and that's great, but I think we're forgetting about the basics.

If you don't know how to use the tab key correctly to line up data in a table, you're always going to struggle. 

I teach my students how to create their heading using flush left alignment and a flush right tab. If you don't know what I'm talking about, keep moving. This is not for you.

I'm a firm believer in…

Sometimes it's hard to be a technology teacher.

Students don't know more about math than the math teacher. They certainly don't know more about science or history. That's not the case with technology. In some cases, they know more than us and we are assigned to teach them something.

What we mostly do is find out where they are, and try to keep up. We think we're so groovy because we're on Facebook. Well guess what? If you haven't noticed, they're not…

I graduated from art school a long time ago, so at one point I did know how to paint. I hadn't painted in quite a while though, so when I went to Paintnite and picked up a brush after such a long time, it stirred something in me. I want to paint again, but how do I go about it?

I bought a few supplies and got a bunch of books out of the library, but what really helped me was watching a few YouTube videos of painting techniques. It made me think about learning methods.…

Just this week I found the file where I have all the addresses for my Christmas cards. I pull up this file every year and print it out on labels to remove yet another human element from my holiday wishes.

What makes me stop and think as I go over the names and addresses is all that has changed in one year. Who I sent a card to last year who's no longer with us. The address of a Mr. & Mrs. who no longer are married. It makes me sad to think of all that is different this year. These…