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 I put a computer into service, or a flat panel display, or a piece of network equipment, I have to remember that at some point, I’m going to have to throw that equipment away and … Continue reading Life Cycle
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. “We know this techy computer stuff is important, and we should tech kids more of that.” I was starting my third year in the classroom, and this was a new job in a new school. … Continue reading Teach Less
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 complex problems. We want them to be collaborative and articulate in varied environments, both online and offline. They have to understand society’s evolving relationship with information, and learn to successfully navigate an information-abundant world. And … Continue reading Common Language
“You are permitted to bring one 5×7 inch note card to the exam, with any notes on it that you want.” My eleventh grade American History teacher was explaining the rules for the semester exam. “The exam will consist of two essay questions selected from these five.” He gave us the questions. I went to work. This was going to be easy. I wrote the … Continue reading Cheating
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 in hasn’t been remote (or even hybrid) since the start of the school year. Procedures have changed. Schedules are different. We spend a LOT of time dealing with the pandemic. But we’re much closer to … Continue reading The Race to Normal
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. I’ve written in the past about my experience with personal learning networks, and how the concept of meaningful professional growth seems to contradict the credentialing process. You can learn valuable things, or you can get … Continue reading Introverting the classroom
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 some batteries, he had the first “portable” digital camera. Sure, by today’s standards, it wasn’t even usable. It’s resolution was 100×100 pixels, it was black and white, it weighed eight pounds, and it took 23 … Continue reading Our Kodak Moment
My wife and I have been doing jigsaw puzzles lately. In April, we finished a puzzle that had been languishing in its barely-started state for years. Then, we moved on to others, and have just completed our third puzzle. We have a lot of strategies that we use to fit the pieces together. We group pieces by color or texture. I’ll take a group of … Continue reading Puzzle Pieces
Schools are trying to figure out what fall looks like. Are we going to be back in the classroom like we were last fall? That seems very unlikely. Will we still be completely online like we’ve been for the last two months? That’s possible, but it’s more likely that we’re going to try to get teachers and students back in our buildings this fall. Most … Continue reading Designing Hybrid Learning
As I was writing the first part of this, I got to the section on keeping instruction brief and realized I wasn’t doing a very good job of that. So we took a little break. We were talking about how all schools are probably going to be blended to some extent. We need to easily be able to move back and forth between online learning … Continue reading How to Teach Online, Part 2
Years ago, I asked one of my high school teachers if he would consider teaching a course online. “Why would I want to do that?” he asked. “I come to work because I love being around kids. Online classes would keep all of the annoying parts of the job and get rid of the fun part.” Point taken. Educators are not really drawn to the … Continue reading How to Teach Online, Part 1
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what fall looks like. When we started this adventure six weeks ago, we told ourselves that it was temporary. We’re going to stay home for a couple weeks. That might drag into a month or so, but we’ll definitely be back. We needed to tell ourselves that. On a difficult journey, you have to focus on one step … Continue reading Next Steps
Taste of Tech 