Welcome to the Digital Palette!

I have been thinking about and planning to start a blog for some time, but this past week’s ICE Conference tipped me over from ‘thinking about’ to ‘doing’. The highlight for me was William Rankin and his thought-provoking keynote address, but also being around so many passionate educators in my content area is incredibly motivating when they share their knowledge, resources, and strategies. My impression is that the most effective educators not only instruct and share with their students, but also with their colleagues.

Besides the conference, I also attribute my blogging motivation to two extraordinary colleagues at my school and their wonderful blog. I find myself discovering incredible things happening in classrooms a few doors down from mine, from the comfort of my home on the Internet. And these are people that I speak to daily in person!

Before starting a blog, obviously you have to ask yourself if you have anything unique to offer the blogging world. There does seem to be an endless supply of educational technology bloggers actively writing (see above). But I believe that I teach in a fairly unique position with an extraordinary array of technological tools and I would like to share all of the incredible things K-8 students are capable of creating when using technology. So my overall angle with the Digital Palette is to share mostly instructional ideas for technology integration into the K-8 school day.

Almost all of my teaching is done in a media center where students come to see me for technology class, forty minutes per session. In the media center, there are enough (fairly recent) desktop computers that every student is able to work on their own computer. The media center also hosts a cart of digital still cameras, HD digital video cameras, and tripods for teacher and student use. Beyond the media center, my school has been the recipient of grants that have provided us with multiple carts of iPads for students.

Given all of those resources, you would think my students are using technology in many dazzling ways - - and they are! So keep reading to find out how and thanks for joining me on this journey!