Today I checked out the blog thxthxthx: a thank you note a day which features a series of thank you notes written to “everything and everyone”. What a simple, easy way to generate shared writing opportunities in your classroom!

Here is my first “thx” writing piece:

Last week I sent out an email to a colleague from Shanghai I hadn’t spoken to in nearly 2 years. Not only did I get helpful information back within hours, I also received a healthy dose of something I’ve been missing lately- excitement. Jeff Utecht, the appropriately named TECH “teacher of teachers”, now working at the International School of Bangkok is easily one of the most knowledgeable and yet down-to-earth tech integrators out there. Following our emails back and forth I’ve once again added his blogs to my RSS feed.

Check them out:
The Thinking Stick
U Tech Tips

In the past few months I have worked with others here at my school to create some frameworks for reading and writing units of study. I have shared this work with people around the world and with teachers at international school schools like mine.

I have mainly done this for the following personal, selfish reasons:

1. When I leave this school (someday…) I will go to another international school and I want that school to at least be where we are now. Sharing these frameworks might help to make that happen.
2. When new students come to my international school from your international school and they are already ready to function in a workshop setting it makes my job easier. Sharing these frameworks might help to make that happen.
3. You might begin to use these frameworks at your  school and then realize how to improve them. When you do, you can share that information with me and I can learn from you. Collaboration between international schools! Sharing these frameworks might help to make that happen.

So imagine my surprise when I recently read this NYT article about teachers not sharing, but instead asking other teachers to buy their lessons, frameworks, and ideas. While I understand the rationale and believe these teachers are doing what is right for them, it is not the philosophy I want to live by.

I am happy to share if you are happy to share back.

Together we can finally get a wheel built, attached and used instead of recreating it over and over. Join me!

Today I’ve been working on some new lessons for upcoming units of study. Even though we’ve gotten a lot of new books, finding the exact right one is hard. Today as I’m trying to locate poetry about sharks and examples of essays, I ran across these two helpful online sites for possible mentor texts.

Of course all texts will need to be thoroughly reviewed for appropriate content for your students, but it is nice to know sites like this exist. Click on the picture to go directly to the site.

I was recently part of the final meeting of the first cohort for International School Literacy Coaches at NESA. This group has been working together for the past two years. For me personally, highlights from this work have included:

1. Two multi-day seminars with expert literacy coach Katherine Casey.
2. The opportunities to work collaboratively, face to face with other coaches working internationally.
3. A chance to create a network of international coaches connected and collaborating via the internet.
4. Time to work with school administrators as they learn more about the benefits of having a literacy coach.

This meeting at the NESA Spring Educators Conference in Cairo, Egypt was led by Carrie Ekey and attended by over 20 literacy coaches and teacher leaders from around the world. Our goal is find ways to stay connected and to meet again in the future to share and learn together once again.