I have a smartphone. I use it all the time. I get updates through social media, email, and text messages. I use Google to look up any question or topic that I’m curious about. I play music. I track personal statistics, like steps taken and food eaten. My phone is ubiquitous. It’s always there, and it seems like I’m always using it. My car has … Continue reading Ubiquitous
One of the frustrations with the current conversation in public education is that we’re not all talking about the same thing. We’re all experts in education, because we’ve all spent thousands of hours in school. But when it comes to some of the fundamental questions surrounding education, we’re not all on the same page. Here are five things we don’t agree on: What’s the purpose … Continue reading 5 Things We Don’t Agree On
We’ve been a little more proactive lately about suggesting that people change their passwords from time to time. Usually, passwords are the annoying step standing between us and our data. We use them so often, and they’re so familiar, that we can become careless about them. Here are five recommendations for better passwords. Email passwords are really important. In most cases, password resets can be … Continue reading 5 Password Recommendations
Now comes the hard part. Learning doesn’t mean anything unless we can put it into practice. Sure, we went to Educon. We were inspired. We saw some really neat models of how real teachers and real students are working in real schools to build a better world. Then we came home. And there was email to answer, and neglected tasks to be completed. There were … Continue reading 5 Things to Do Next
It’s a week after Educon 2.6, and I’m still wading through my notes and thoughts from the experience. That’s pretty much what I expect from that conference now, and it’s one of the reasons I didn’t follow up the Educon experience with the OETC double feature this year. In reflecting on the weekend, there are five resources that have surfaced that I want to investigate … Continue reading 5 Resources to Investigate
Education in this century is not so much about finding the right answers as in asking the right questions. As I reflect on the #educon experience this past weekend, I’m drawn to the volume of questions that show up in my notes, in my twitter stream, and in the conversations we had throughout the weekend. Here are five that have stuck with me: Are we … Continue reading 5 Questions from Educon
One of my goals for the year is to reboot my professional learning network, which has grown a little stale lately. Because there seemed to be a lot of new people at #educon this year, and because it’s a fantastic place to meet diverse educators with differing viewpoints, I was hoping to find some folks who were saying interesting things, but who weren’t previously on … Continue reading 5 New People to Listen To
One of the new things I’m doing this year is posting lists in a series I’m creatively calling “5 Things”. You don’t really know that yet, because I haven’t actually gotten around to posting any lists, but trust me. They’re in the notebook, and I’ll get around to writing them up soon eventually. In digging through my notes on #educon 2.6, I realized that my … Continue reading 5 Quotes that Changed My Thinking
These are NOT resolutions. I don’t do resolutions. But I was cleaning out my head the other night, and started making some lists. One of them was a list of things I want to do differently in the new year. So I might as well share them here. Stop printing so much. Last month, I was in a meeting with four school district employees and … Continue reading 5 Changes for 2014
About a year ago, I started carrying around an old-fashioned paper notebook. Whenever the mood strikes me, I jot down notes and ideas in it. They’re generally not very well reasoned. Sometimes, they’re little diagrams or lists or mind maps. Occasionally, they turn into blog posts or other work. This low-tech solution allows me to focus on the idea at hand without the distractions of … Continue reading Best Bits from the Notebook
Peace, peace, peace on Earth and good will to all That’s all all. That’s where we live together in a world where we’re not judging people. It’s an Earth where we wish good will to our friends and our enemies. It’s a world where we forgive those who have oppressed us. It’s a place where we try to set aside our differences and live in a … Continue reading Missing Mandela
“We’re an educational organization. Learning is the heart of everything we do.” I was talking to my staff, explaining the purpose behind the TPS reports they’re required to complete each week. “We need to take a few minutes at the end of the week to reflect on what we’ve accomplished, what has challenged us, and what we have learned. If we’re not learning, we’re not … Continue reading Supporting the Mission
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