Soft Technology

Stephanie Filardo: Photo credit Valerie Callan Photography Guest Blog Post by Stephanie Filardo, follow Stephanie's blog here and find her on Twitter here .  Stephanie is currently a teacher in St. Louis, Missouri I remember getting papers back with stickers and stamps as a kid.  While I may not remember the specific assignments and what I learned from them, but I remember how it made me  feel  when I saw a sticker or stamp on them.  While my teachers were just taking stickers from a page and adhering them to all of the student papers, it meant something because they took them time to do it.  They didn't have to do it, they  cared  enough to do it.  It meant something to read "Excellent!" "Great job!" "A+!" and even better when it was the coveted scratch-n-sniff sticker! This idea is brought to you by the wonderful integration of Google Docs and Google Keep.  Enjoy! Today, I'm excited to tell you about DocStickers! If you can give me 90...

I am inspired to write this vision by John Maxwell’s book Developing the Leader Within You , specifically the chapter entitled “The Indispensable Quality of Leadership: Vision.” I realized that what my WOW! Academy probably does best is to convey a vision, but I can’t offer that to every teacher right now, so I thought I would write a little story to try to convey some elements of what, in my mind, is our goal in this education shift we seek. I have to admit I borrowed heavily from a backward glance at my own classroom experiences, which have attained a rosy glow from years of time passing between me and them. If you are my former student, then know that while some details are accurate (yes, that’s you Jenni), others are brought in for a purpose. Justin really did drive the principal out of the room, but not quite as sweetly as in this story and not in this same class. It’s November in Mrs. Stein’s class, the week before Thanksgiving. The bell has just rung to go to the next class, ye...