Biography

My name is Rob Kovi and I am the Information Technology Resource Teacher at Mark T. Sheehan High School in Wallingford, CT. Before taking this position in 2007 I taught English for twelve years, five in Manchester, CT and seven seven at Sheehan.

I grew up in Wallingford, CT and attended the University of Rhode Island and Southern Connecticut State Univeristy for my bachelor's degree. I was an all-state swimmer in high school and planned to swim in college until a back injury ended my swimming career. I began coaching swimming in 1992. I have never had a holiday or February vacation while teaching. After marrying my wife Louise in 2006, I thought it might be a nice time to take a vacation and spend some time together, a retired from coaching after the 2008 season.

In 2005 I completed a masters degree in Educational Leadership at Central Connecticut State University. I am currently working to complete a second masters degree at CCSU in Educational Technology. Much of my grad work is what has inspired me to create this web page to further the development of my technology skills. This page is very much a work in progress as I continue to develop my skills.

In my free time I pursue an interest in digital photography and continue to develop my Photoshop skills as I explore digital art. I support my hobby by taking high school sports photographs for a local photographer.

Philosophy

I'm often amazed by the pace at which technology evolves and I am especially interested in how it shapes the way we communicate with one another. Maintaining good relationships with one another within the world we live is crucial and understanding and appreciating technology is essential to developing and maintaining our relationships with one another.

I consider myself a constructivist and I believe that technology is an excellent way to promote the use of a students' prior knowledge and create opportunities for authentic hands-on problem solving opportunities. The purposeful use of technology fosters new understanding in students by encouraging them to analyze, interpret, and predict information. Technology can promote extensive dialog among students and teachers and allows classroom experiences to evolve from student responses. It also create opportunities for students to engage in self-evaluation and meta cognition through examining and judging their own progress.

Eight years ago I was collaborating with a team of teachers in a trial school-within-a-school program. We recognized the importance of a student's authentic application of knowledge and made efforts to be certain we stressed application of knowledge. I still remember my colleague, a Spanish teacher, stating "If my students are walking down the streets of Spain no one will ask them to pull a copy of their Spanish test from their back pocket." I believe today that what we knew then is most important.

We often hear statements regarding our students education in reference to other countries. We are falling behind they say, yet we continue to teach students as we did in the past. Our continued emphasis on test scores only pulls us further from our goals and steals the soul of education. As John Dewey said "If we teach as we taught yesterday, we rob our children of tomorrow."