“No unread messages in conversations or conferences” It was the message, all those years ago, in the world of dialup and text conferencing, that told you it was time to log off and go do something else. “There’s nothing to see here. You’ve already read everything.” There’s no email to read. There are no new posts in the online communities. You’re at the end. No … Continue reading No Unread Messages
Where is the school? The school that empowers our children to create the better world that we have decided to eschew?The school that fosters curious, lifelong learners?The school that invites skepticism and expects students to point out inconsistencies between the things we say and the things we do?The school that embraces Christian values, and Muslim values, and Hindu values, and Jewish values: that taking care … Continue reading Where is the School?
Last week, this image showed up as a memory online. I tweeted it at the beginning of 2012 with the caption “This might be our nextgen learning / tech planning process.” I remember drawing this. I recall a long conversation with my superintendent about it. Just the two of us, sitting at the table in his office. I wanted to redefine public education. He was … Continue reading The Grand Plan
I was playing with Notebook LM a few weeks ago. This is an AI tool, developed by Google, that is supposed to help people interact with documents and resources. You can give it a bunch of content, and then summarize that content and ask questions about it. It has a cool feature that creates AI-generated audio overviews in a conversational, podcast-like format. So I fed … Continue reading What’s Next?
For the last decade or so, I’ve carried around a little notebook that I refer to as my “think book.” It’s a place to put notes and ideas and observations and connections that I may want to come back to later. This week, I transitioned from volume 9 of the book to volume 10. Whenever I do that, I read through the old book one … Continue reading Odds and Ends
Yesterday, 206 students walked across the stage, accepted their diplomas, shook hands with a bunch of people they didn’t know, and walked off into their futures. They’re an impressive group. Eight of them are National Merit finalists, putting them among the top 1% of American students. An additional 11 are commended scholars (top 4% nationally). Collectively, they took 136 advanced placement courses and 255 college … Continue reading Are They Ready?
It’s a casual throwaway line. You can listen to us anywhere that you get your podcasts… It is a radical statement. It is a political statement. It is a technical architectural statement. Because what it represents is a system that was designed to let anybody run their own podcast, and to be able to consume it without regard to one company controlling it… I have … Continue reading Anywhere You Get Your Podcasts
I kind of fell into the world of personal learning networks. I didn’t know, back in 2005, that I was curating a group of professionals with whom I would exchange ideas, or that it would become the most valuable professional learning experience of my career. I just knew that there were interesting people talking about challenging ideas, and that the things they were struggling with … Continue reading Asynchronous Learning Networks
It was eight years ago now that I heard Richard Culatta speak at EduCon. At the time, he was the director of the Office of Educational Technology at the US Department of Education. Now, he’s the CEO of the International Society for Technology in Education. In his little talk in the cafeteria of the Science Leadership Academy all those years ago, Culatta talked about pencils. … Continue reading Pencil Sharpeners
I carry my work life in my backpack. I try to make sure it has everything I need, everywhere I go. If I’m in a school or at a meeting or in a coffee shop, my backpack has all the stuff. If I’m at home and something comes up that needs my attention, I can grab whatever I need from my bag. It works well … Continue reading Cleaning Out the Backpack
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. These characteristics — we call them “core competencies” — usually transcend any specific content standards. Ours is called the Vision of a Minuteman. We want … Continue reading Living the Vision
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, so their pricing was reasonable. They had a fantastic database of products that allowed me to easily compare products and prices and options. Ordering was … Continue reading Friction
Taste of Tech 