Welcome
Hello to all. I am really happy to be sharing my work. I feel obligated to note that the hat I am wearing in the picture above—the Red Sox fans already know this—is not a Red Sox hat but a Brooklyn Dodgers hat. My dad was a huge Dodgers fan until they broke his heart and moved to Los Angeles. Although I follow the New York Yankees—and a Yankee fan would just as soon wear a Red Sox hat as a Brooklyn Dodgers hat—I wear it in memory of my dad.
Personal Information
I grew up on Long Island in New York, attending St. Anthony’s High School in Smithtown. I attended Providence College in Rhode Island, where I majored in English and ran cross country and track. I met my wife in college, and after getting married, we moved to West Chester, Pennsylvania to start a business. After five years in business, I sold out and went into teaching. I have been teaching for twenty-one years at Harriton High School in Rosemont, Pennsylvania. I earned my masters degree in Technology in Education from Rosemont College, and am working on a second masters degree in Online Teaching and Leraning from Plymouth State University. I love to hike, read and write, and I am the proud father of a son (an teacher English in Korea) and daughter (a college student).
My Job
I teach all of trhe community-based learning programs at Harriton (internships, work programs, community service) and am coordinator of a number of programs (job shadowing, and senior project) and am site coordinator of our participation in Virtual High School.
My Work
My work right now is focused on three specific areas. Experiential education, online learning, and interactive videoconferencing/Internet2
Experiential Education
John Dewey said it about 100 years ago. David Kolb started talking about it 30 years ago. Experience is at the center of learning. If one thinks about it, problem-based learning, project-based learning, constructivism are all about experience. Backward design and habits of mind all speak to this idea of experience. I have some interesting ideas about this, some are mainstream and some are kind of, well, they are kind of just me. You will find my thinking throughout my pages here.
Online Teaching and Learning
Online learning environments will change education, like it or not. Now the question is this: how will this happen? I fear resistance to change; I also fear the misuse of online learning (saving money, reducing staff, etc.); yet there is much excellent thinking going on out there that could guide us through these choppy waters into a new environment that can transform education, without reducing experiential learning.
Videoconferencing
I am part f the MAGPI Fellows Program, a group of teachers studying and creating interactive videoconferences in the Philadelhia region. You will see some of this pop up in my work.