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 Thanks for stopping by! You've found my 'home' on the web, a site I developed using Joomla as a personal & professional "digital repository," and as a sandbox in which to learn and explore Joomla and other innovative web technologies.
I am an educator in my fifth year of teaching (as of September 2007) in the K-4 Computer Lab at Northfield Community School in Northfield, NJ. I left the business world in the summer of 2002, a year after 9/11, because I wanted to pursue my dream of teaching as a second career. Today, I have that dream job, and am surrounded every day by the two things I love most: children and technology.
In addition to my classroom teaching duties, I help my fellow educators teach more effectively using technology in their lessons and lead in-district professional development workshops. To find out more about what we do in my class, visit my eBoard. I also have a K-8 edtech focused blog, http://www.ncs-tech.org, where I write about the coolest and most useful tools available on the web today.
Outside of school, I teach online, part-time for Walden University in their Graduate School of Education Master's Program, specaiizing in Integrating Technology into the Classroom. I enjoy it tremendously. It has helped me experience what I believe is the future of education. Teaching online helps keeps me sharp and connected to like-minded educators focused on improving their professional practice.
Earlier this year Walden awarded me a $10,000 Faculty Excellence Grant to study the multi-user virtual environment called Second Life. I'm documenting everything I experience on my project blog, http://www.storyofmysecondlife.com.
Also outside of school, I run an after-school club involving a collaboration with the Schome Project, a research project utilizing Teen Second Life run by a U.K. based group of scholar-researchers at the Open University in Milton Keynes, England.
In addition to teaching at Walden, I speak at local, state, regional and national conferences, lead workshops for the Southern Regional ETTC, do consulting for K-12 districts, and also have a thriving home computer repair business (though I do less and less of that work and limit my practice to people living in my home town, as a way to stay connected to the community.)
You can find my personal blog here. I try to write something every day, but I don't always get to. Chances are there will be entries on either of my other two blogs, though, which I maintain as both vocation and avocation.
Anyway, thanks for stopping by. If you want to get in touch, drop me a line.
Best, kj |