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?
“Has your district implemented any AI literacy materials for staff and/or students?” It’s a reasonable question. I was in a virtual meeting with about 60 other educators earlier this week. We were talking about artificial intelligence, and how schools are working to embrace it, manage it, leverage it, govern it. It’s a working group. We’re trying to figure things out. There are no right answers. … Continue reading AI Literacy
I took an online graduate level course last month. The course was called “AI and Society: Redefining Learning, Work, & Human Potential” and it was offered through an accreddited instution of higher learning. I earned three semester workshop hours, which means that I can use those hours to renew my professional license. If I were a teacher, I could also use those hours for salary … Continue reading Where Credit is Due
It’s been a tough year for education. There’s a tremendous amount of uncertainty. We’re seeing abrupt changes to practices and policies. Many of those appear to be rooted in fear or political priorities. Others seem to focus on discrediting educators and pushing the narrative that public schools are inept or ineffective. There are constant attacks on funding sources, and increased measures to funnel public dollars … Continue reading The Most Important Thing
If you read this post on the web, you’ll see an “Archives” section in the sidebar, where you can select any month and see the posts that I made that month. If you look closely, you’ll see that I’ve now posted at least once a month for 62 consecutive months. That’s been my goal for years, and I try really hard to have something worthwhile … Continue reading Streaking
They’re worried about our kids. They’re worried that we’re teaching them that some kids don’t have one Mommy and one Daddy. Some have two Mommies, or no Mommies. They’re worried that we’re teaching them that some people don’t feel safe at home, or don’t have enough to eat, or don’t have a warm place to sleep. And knowing that might make them ask questions about … Continue reading Worried
Technology makes us stupid. I’ve written about this before. The availability of amazing tools that provide knowlege and organization allows us to stay on the ball without remembering anything. My car knows where I’m going and how to get there. My calendar will tell me what I’m doing this weekend. My phone knows how to contact everyone I care about, so I don’t need to … Continue reading Artificial Words
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
We did some traveling this summer. Embracing the idea that life is an adventure, along with some questionable planning, we ended up in 10 airports on four continents over six weeks in June and July. Our travel spanned 17 time zones. We encountered five languages. I took about 6,000 photos. It was an embarrassingly fantastic summer. We talked to people in England and Indonesia and … Continue reading Common Goals
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?
Taste of Tech 