Millions of educators and others around the world have participated in…

This morning I had a somewhat disheartening conversation with a good friend.   We get together every week to talk about education, what we see, our point of view, and give push back on ideas. He commented that he doesn't read his Twitter stream because there is a lot of noise. Educators are repeatedly talking about the same things and the conversation isn't changed. Topics I see repeatedly are reform,  government oversight, 5-100 best ways to do something, the best apps, and more. The lack…

In my last post I reflected on a simple yet profound idea:  innovation hates silos.  Why?  Innovation wants to break out of the mold and disrupt, to do something new, and make what was once old relevant again.  There is a great deal to be learned from the past and the present for education's benefit.

We can look all we want at current education practices in the U.S. and determine something has to change.…

Silos.

Educators live in them largely because of the pedagogical walls built individually over the years to teach children narrowly focused content using textbooks.  Even within a school there is little communication between educators leading to closed practices.  Further complicating this is the unwillingness to reframe…

I am worried that educators miss the true meaning of assessment like missing the true meaning of Christmas.

Giving a "test" isn't about devising a 50 question multiple choice, fill-in the blank, short answer, and extended response on paper using a pencil. It isn't using a bank of test questions to deliver the test online and send results to students via email. Testing isn't about having student memorize facts to regurgitate and then say that they have learned. Testing, really…

Lecture ain’t learnership

A common problem among educators is the need to be the expert at everything. Perhaps this stems from the early days of U.S. education where the teacher had to know everything, yet the educators I work with – awesome dedicated people – still have the wit about them to be experts.  A person who has a focus in one area of study can be an expert.  I think of scientists or doctors for instance. Many have a single focus which drives…

In an age when there is a call for education transformation and heightened drive to assess students knowledge, students need more than just paper and pencil to demonstrate what they know. Paper and pencil are the technology of the past. Unfortunately teachers still require students to use this deprecated technology to take notes, write, and more. I do agree students need to…

In my last post I coined a term called learnership which I don't believe has been used before but came to me as a way of expressing educational leadership combined with educators needing to show learners how to learn, thus learnership.

"We cannot do things the same way." was said to me by a veteran teacher who is seeing how technology can change learning. Mind you, this has come after one foray into using the power of the Web to change student productivity and learning. She sees the…

Meatiness - the degree to which something deepens or accentuates an experience.  For example, the meatiness of discussion relies on the depth of knowledge each person(s) has about the topic.  Or, a class is meaty because it gives so much to think about. We need meaty learners, learners who can identify their passions and learn about them.  What is this kind of learning and what is it not? Let's start with what it is not.  It is not sitting in a lecture or presentation.  It…

Meatiness - the degree to which something deepens or accentuates an experience.  For example, the meatiness of discussion relies on the depth of knowledge each person(s) has about the topic.  Or, a class is meaty because it gives so much to think about. We need meaty learners, learners who can identify their passions and learn about them.  What is this kind of learning and what is it not? Let's start with what it is not.  It is not sitting in a lecture or presentation.  It…

As a result of teaching my students about fair use of web content, I have become enamored with mashups. For those who are not familiar with the term "mashup", it can be a conglomeration of video, audio, or pictures that are remixed or reused in a new way to create a new composition.

Mashups can be used in education as a creative means to communicate what students have learned.

<strong>On Bloom's Spectrum</strong>

Mashups are on the creation end of Bloom's…

I just had a conversation with a teacher in which the fundamental question that has to be asked and answered is: How do students engage in relevant learning experiences? We already know the answer.

Compulsory learning does nothing for the student. In fact, it demeans the entire goal of learning and the intrinsic motivation to do so. Going through my preservice teaching classes, much discussion revolved around intrinsic vs. extrinsic motivation to learn. Extrinsic, from my point of…

• Summer in Smallywood

  tags: gaming game gamebased gamification…

• Summer in Smallywood

  tags: gaming game gamebased gamification…

Digital literacy is knowing what technology to use for a specific purpose. This is one of the 21st century skills students and teachers should have in their tool belt. If a task is given to me I should be able to think of a numerous ways to complete it, but be able to choose the one web technology that allows me to complete the work.

As I said, the tool belt needs to expand for all learners. Expanding it takes a bit of perseverance and determination because trying to search for…

I have been thinking a great deal about the future of education:  how teachers will adapt, new pedagogies, brick and mortar vs. virtual, and new technologies.  It is a frustrating experience because I find myself on the verge of knowing what it should be but not being able to put it all together.  I also began a Google + community called InnovateEdu as a forum to get my thoughts…

What we do now to educate students will not be, cannot be, what we do five…

»Why grade

If grading is such a drudgery, why do teachers take so much time doing it?  In part, it is part of the job.  The greater need to grade is knowing how well students are…

Part [1] Recap In part 1 of this series, I shared my struggles with getting started creating my own personal PD and the difficulty I was having. In this post, I continue the expedition and share the tools I used to create my own PD experience.

Part [2] Boy was I excited when new people followed me after I tweeted some things out. I would watch my Twitter count go up and when it didn’t, I felt like a failure. Was I really failing? No. Did I know that? Yes. Why did I feel that way?…