Jeff Herb is the founder of LightUpEDU and serves as the Principal of Dundee Middle School in West Dundee, Illinois. Dundee Middle is a 6th-8th grade facility that serves approximately 900 students and has over 100 staff members. Prior to his principalship, Jeff was the Associate Principal at Dundee-Crown High School where he had also served as the Director of Academic Support, and and English Teacher.
Jeff went to the University of Illinois and completed undergraduate work in both English and Business Administration. He holds two Masters Degree – one in Teaching and the other in Educational Administration. He is currently a Doctoral student studying Educational Leadership at Aurora University.
As the founder of the popular instructional technology website, Instructional Tech Talk, Jeff participates in regular professional development and does presentations across the country at local and national conferences. He has received several awards for his work with instructional technology, podcasting, and social media. He has a passion for student learning and works to find innovative ways to redefine what learning can be in the classroom.
His podcasts Instructional Tech Talk and EdTech You Should Know are regularly featured on the K-12 section of iTunes and he is a co-host of the popular live streaming Tech Educator Podcast on Sunday nights.
Jeff is an Apple in Education Expert, a Google Certified Educator, and regularly works with educational vendors to review and provide consultation for upcoming products.
Recent posts by Jeff:
What Does Your Assessment Assess?
I tweeted something the other day after having a conversation about testing via devices. There was concern by a few teachers that there wasn't anything stopping students from simply Googling answers to the test questions. This was my thought regarding that concern:...
Stop Teaching Today’s Students with Yesterday’s Strategies
It's lunch time and you're sitting in the lounge observing a casual discussion among a few veteran teachers. As it does every so often, the conversation comes up about how much kids have changed since they started teaching and how students "aren't like they used to...
Are Accelerated Classes Full of Just The Good Kids?
We have had a lot of discussion lately about accelerated courses (we offer accelerated math and English courses in our middle school). In our district we have established a litany of data points that help us make the decision of whether or not to enroll students into...
Failure’s Not Only An Option, It’s Preferred
I was having a conversation with a teacher today regarding quiz/test retakes; a topic on which many people have varying opinions. In our discussion, she referenced a video that another colleague had shared with her on the subject, which I asked her to forward to me as...
Making Positive Contact With 900 Kids
There are two types of kids that educators will generally communicate home about. The most common: those exhibiting behavioral problems. The runner up: those demonstrating exemplary skill in the classroom or extra-curricular activities. The former is almost always...
The Perception of Being Told What To Do
The second day of school I came across a student that was shuffling down the hallway at a seemingly glacial pace. His demeanor suggested that he wasn't super thrilled to be doing whatever he was about to do. So, naturally, I asked him what was up. He said, "Ah,...
How are you planning to celebrate learning?
One of the reasons I love Twitter is that it is entirely on your own terms. Sometimes I have more time than others - and that determines how much time gets dedicated to perusing the latest tweets of those I follow and posting tweets of my own. After work tonight was...
Are We Better and Faster With Practice?
I typically set aside about 10 minutes to peruse Twitter each morning. Yes, I need a time limit - otherwise, I would fall down the rabbit hole and surface again at lunch...not entirely productive. Today, I came across this tweet from Oliver Lovell referencing research...
Expect Awesome Instead of Dreading Disaster
Think about the lessons you teach, the events you plan, or the meetings you facilitate. No matter the topic, a lot of time and effort goes into making sure they are productive and engaging. It's not easy. With the hope of walking away having completed something...
It is all about choices.
Over the course of the last couple weeks, Nikki and I have referenced the radical change in PD we are trying this year: Passion Projects (more detail about this coming in a future post). I was browsing Twitter today and came across this tweet from Daniel Pink:...
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