Years ago, my elementary schools were very fond of Accelerated Reader. Students would read a book from the Accelerated Reader list, and then take an online quiz that measured reading comprehension. If they passed the quiz, they were awarded points … Continue reading What Do Grades Mean?
As we work through plans to replace SMART Boards in our classrooms, I was reflecting today on the classroom environment that they were installed to support. In my schools, we had dabbled with interactive whiteboards for a few years, but … Continue reading Smarter Boards
Apparently, today is “National Shoot Up Your School Day.” News outlets are reporting that schools are stepping up security following a rash of viral threats circulating on the TikTok platform. The ones who have spent more than 15 seconds researching … Continue reading How Do You Know?
I received a letter in the mail from my car’s manufacturer. They’re issuing a safety recall to repair a condition involving the Smart Junction Box: The Smart Junction Box software logic may not properly interpret the signals received from the … Continue reading Software Update
“Why does the wifi go down every day?” I was caught off-guard. The wifi doesn’t go down every day. The wifi doesn’t really ever go down. Occasionally, we’ll have a problem with an access point, but one of the other … Continue reading Wicked Problems
I’ve always tried to be balanced. While my work generally focuses on technology, my personal life is centered around the arts. I was trained as a math teacher, but I originally enrolled in college as an English education major. If … Continue reading Day and Night
Last year, we spent a great deal of time crafting our portrait of a graduate. The trend in public education over the last several years has been to identify the characteristics that we would like our graduates to leave with. … Continue reading Living the Vision
In the job interview, they asked if I knew Linux. Sure. I’d played around with it a little. I used it as the operating system for a “server” that I set up in my classroom. I was running a MUD … Continue reading Problem Solving
When we got word that we weren’t going back to school, I made a pot of coffee. I went to the basement with my laptop and notebook, and I jumped on the first of many Zoom calls with my instructional … Continue reading Stress Less
I’m pretty old. I was thinking about my first job interview. It was 1993. I was asked what I thought about Microsoft Windows. I told them it wasn’t a real operating system. It was just a shell that sat on … Continue reading Nostalgic Optimism
For years, I used the same company to buy most of my technology supplies. If I needed printers or cables or memory or consumables, I would always go there. The company had pre-negotiated contracts with several different agencies and consortia, … Continue reading Friction
John Hattie wanted to answer a very simple question. We’ve been studying school improvement for decades. We’ve tried all kinds of new initiatives, programs, philosophies, and approaches to improve student learning. We’ve spent millions of dollars on research, and thousands … Continue reading Effect Size
Taste of Tech 