Uncategorized Life Cycle 23 Feb 202119 Feb 2021 Technology is disposable. One of the challenges of managing technology in schools is the fact that you have to keep buying the same thing over and over again. Every time…
Uncategorized Teach Less 15 Feb 2021 I taught "Computers 8." I think that's what it actually said on the students' schedules. The precision in the course name betrayed the hand-waving that was happening behind the scenes.…
Uncategorized Common Language 7 Feb 2021 We want our students to be problem solvers. We want them to use their critical thinking and innovation skills to combine knowledge across disparate domains to find creative solutions to…
Uncategorized Cheating 30 Jan 2021 "You are permitted to bring one 5x7 inch note card to the exam, with any notes on it that you want." My eleventh grade American History teacher was explaining the…
Uncategorized Online Watering Holes 17 Jan 2021 I've been thinking about learning spaces recently. The environments in which our students learn are directly related to the kind of learning that happens. Looking at a classroom, you can…
Uncategorized The Race to Normal 10 Jan 2021 As we work through the tenth month of the pandemic, we're starting to talk about schools returning to normal. I have to be careful here. The school that I work…
Uncategorized Reflecting on Reflecting 31 Dec 2020 I started this blog experiment 15 years ago. I was looking for a way for my teachers to quickly and easily share information with students. They wanted web sites. We…
Uncategorized Impossible 27 Dec 202027 Dec 2020 I can't believe how far we've come. To say that 2020 has been challenging is certainly an understatement. We've seen our world upended to an extent that was unfathomable a…
Uncategorized Introverting the classroom 16 Dec 2020 I'm struggling with the idea that the best place for kids is in school. Maybe it's because my most robust, most meaningful, most memorable learning experiences didn't happen in school.…
Uncategorized A Merry Little Christmas 6 Dec 2020 I sat on the couch with a glass of wine to watch a Christmas movie. "What are you doing? You don't drink wine," the younger daughter observed. "It's December. I…
Uncategorized Our Kodak Moment 29 Nov 2020 Steve Sasson had a brilliant idea. He started with a movie camera lens. He added an array of capacitors, a basic processor, and a cassette tape recorder. After hooking up…
Uncategorized Attendentes Potentia Est 18 Nov 2020 Francis Bacon is said to have coined the phrase "knowledge is power," though it doesn't appear in any of his writings. Thomas Hobbes used the phrase in the mid-1600s, and…