Like clockwork, every year I started to dream about school a few weeks before it began in August. Guess it was my brain’s way of getting ready for the beginning of school. Did you ever have this particular dream? In the dream you are trying to teach a class but the kids are being TOTALLY unresponsive. It’s the educational counterpart to that well known dream about trying to run but discovering your legs are moving awfully slowly, as if you are held back by some unseen force. Your frustration with what’s going on in the classroom builds and builds, but your students also seem to be being held back by something. The things you are trying with your students just don’t work. Small off-task things students begin doing because they are mentally lost, bored, or uninvolved add up to an educational anarchy. Deep in your soul you know there has to a better way to do it.

   Waking up, it’s a reprieve to realize it was a dream. But this dream has had at times a basis in reality. It’s uncomfortable to recognize that we’ve all been there at one time or another - the realization that the kids we teach just aren't getting it and that there just has to be a better way.

   The purpose of the web pages in coollessons.org, the graduate courses, workshops, presentations, etc.  is permit me to help you explore other, more effective ways (according to research) your students can learn. The way they learn  dictates not only how well they learn but also what they learn.

   The learning experiences I endorse through inclusion in my coollessons.org web pages are effective not only because of technology,  but because they also involve students in activities that challenge them to solve problems by doing quality research, analyzing and rearranging information, synthesizing possibilities, making judgments and then creating interesting products in order to communicate their results. Technology can be used as tools in making these exciting learning experiences even deeper, richer and more motivating. It can also be used to transform the way your students learn.

   As to vitae, I am most proud of being a teacher in public and private schools, here and abroad, for thirty-four years. I am presently a full time educational consultant (Cool Lessons Consulting) working with many schools to help teachers ensure all children have access to quality engaged learning activities.

   As David Thornburg said "If someone brings a lot of new technology into your school district, and doesn't provide staff development, the only thing that will change is your electric bill."  This quotation spotlights my role: I am a teacher, not a techie. We all admire techies for the wonderful tools they create and keep running. I help focus these tools on helping teachers to help student to learn better.