Good Morning. I am Mr. Viva, the Associate Head of School here at Worcester Academy. And I know for a fact that many of you recognize me more from my voice than anything else. Does this sound familiar? “Good Morning, This is Mr. Viva, due to dangerous weather conditions, Worcester Academy will be closed today.” [...]
For those of you follow me regularly on Twitter or Facebook, you know that for me, yoga is the “zen” part in zen daddio. I was first introduced to yoga 6 years ago at the UMass Center for Mindfullness training I participated in. Specifically the stress reduction course they offer which is fantastic. It wasn’t [...]
If you own either an iPhone or iPod touch, you can now download the mobile application for FirstClass from the iTunes store.
http://bit.ly/tnlWL(note this link will open your iTunes Application)
A colleague recently posted a discussion on the ISENET Ning urging others to push Apple to release the FirstClass iPhone app. While I share the frustration of [...]
Last week I attended the “Meaningful Faculty Evaluation” workshop given by ISM in Philadelphia. For those of you who are not familiar with MFE, it is a process of engaging faculty through conversations and personal growth that is intended to strip away the focus and obsession with weaknesses and focus on what teachers are good [...]
When I started teaching in 1995 the faculty room was the epicenter of conversation among colleagues. You would walk in, there would be a half pot of 3 hour old bitter coffee, folks grading papers, a water cooler and the drone of a photocopier working diligently in the background. Meetings took place in the library [...]
At the beginning of this summer I picked up a copy of “The Adventures of Johnny Bunko: The Last Career Guide You’ll Ever Need” by one of my favorite authors Dan Pink. I had the opportunity to see Dan speak at the 2008 NAIS Annual Conference in New York in February and during his keynote, [...]
A colleague recently asked me how I set up the WA Mash Twitter account so that it allowed for students to be able to post to that account. While I feel strongly that Twitter needs to find a way to set up groups, waiting for that to happen may have you waiting a long time. [...]
Lately, most of my time has been spent working with my creative writing students on the development of a new online magazine called “WA Mash” (Worcester Academy Mashup) and in short, it has re-energized my teaching practice. In 1996 I began my first year of teaching and was given as part of my teaching load, [...]
If you are anything like me, the end of the school year is marked by key moments and regular rituals intended to assist in the ushering in of summer. So my box of summer books arrived from Amazon today. Most of these books I have not read yet. I hope to write thoughts and reflections [...]