I’m in the hallway of our high school doing what has become a routine for us–Hallway TLC. It’s amazing how much both of us are able to get done as we connect with students and teachers throughout the day. We set up a rolling desk and locate it in a high-traffic area of the school. It’s amazing how much you can learn from the casual conversations that students will strike up with you just because they know you’re available to them. So far this morning I learned about one student’s first job interview (intimidating), a weekend birthday celebration (lots of fun) and the academic struggles of a freshman and two juniors. None of this is earth-shattering stuff, and what I like most about it is that it is so ordinary. We’re beginning state tests tomorrow and so our TLC plan will shift slightly. But I have to wonder–how does the experience of having people available to them show up on a test? Will there ever be a way to test the TLC so many educators offer every day?

We haven’t written about the school where we draw much of our inspiration, and where we conduct much of our research. We were on the design team for Health Sciences High and Middle College, a public charter school in San Diego, CA that opened in 2007.  A unique feature of the school is its partnership with Sharp Healthcare, the largest non-profit employer in the county. Students at the school begin hospital internships starting in ninth grade. We could go on about the wonderful students, staff, and families at HSHMC, but we thought we would let them tell you themselves. We hope you enjoy this 5-minute student video. Click here to view it on YouTube.

We’ve long been big fans of Visual Thesaurus (www.visualthesaurus.com) because it provides writers and readers with a graphic representation of the relationship between words. This is a great tool (and one we use frequently in our own writing) when you are looking for that “just right” word. The ability to discern the subtle difference between words is the mark of a person with a great vocabulary. One of our favorite methods for teaching this to students is called Shades of Meaning. We use paint chips to represent a gradient of words. Check out this VT link to find out more about the Shades of Meaning activity, featured in Word Wise and Content Rich Grades 7-12, published by Heinemann,  at http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/booknook/1765/

A business card isn’t enough anymore. It’s becoming increasingly common when we meet people to be asked if we have a social networking account. Among adults, it’s usually Facebook or LinkedIn (yes, we do.) Our students often ask if we have a MySpace account (uh, no.) But as we spend more time connecting with people through these sites, we have started thinking about classroom applications. We know most schools block their use on district servers, but is anyone using social networking in an interesting way in their classrooms? We’ll share two good ideas. A teacher in Hawaii told us that he asks his 10th grade Humanities students to create a MySpace-style profile of a fictious character in a medieval town. They don’t actually post them on the site, but instead create a PowerPoint presentation. Another colleague recently introduced us to Voicethread (http:voicethread.com). While not strictly a social networking site, it is a way for students meet and create collaboratively online. What are you doing? Contact us and we’ll share it with all of you.

We spend most of our days surrounded by adolescents who use a host of technology tools to rapidly communicate with each other. They IM, Tweet, text…  and a bit of that has rubbed off on us. Each time we present, we hear great ideas and wish there was a way to do what our students do — pass information quickly and efficiently to others. We hope that this web page will serve as a means to broker ideas and innovations.

For the time being, we know that this will be a bit one-sided — it can take some time to get a conversation going, and for that we really need you. We promise we’ll do our best to share ideas, time-saving tips, and tell you about those moments when we say to ourselves, “Why didn’t I think of that?” We hope you’ll do the same. There’s a wealth of knowledge out there, and lots of teachers doing quietly amazing things every day. We’d be honored if you would consider engaging in an ongoing conversation about your professional practices.