Carol Engelmann, in a video interview for the Imagine It! Project, correctly observes our politically-inspired educational culture of high stakes accountability (NCLB) has severely hurt the cause of creative teaching, driven passionate teachers away from the profession, and DISCOURAGED rather than encouraged excitement in many K-12 science classrooms. video platformvideo managementvideo solutionsfree video player Carol
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Kent Brooks, the director of technology at Western Oklahoma State College (WOSC) out in Altus, wrote a great post on his Ning last week following an Adobe connect brainstorming session called, “Open Content, Peer Production and Creativity, STEM and School Culture Transformation in Oklahoma.” This built on the ideas in my post, “Let’s build openly
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The following photographs could likely be taken at almost any College of Education today in the United States. I’m not sharing this to be harshly critical of the current institution for which I am teaching as an adjunct instructor: Rather I’m sharing these images because they reflect the assessment status quo for many professors / instructors
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This weekend I had an opportunity to read the first half of Diane Ravitch’s excellent new book, “The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education.” I will be writing at much greater length in upcoming weeks about the book, the research it presents, and the implications
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This evening my wife and I have been finalizing the “application packages” for our 6 and 9 year old daughters to transfer into another public elementary school next year, which is an arts integration school. In searching for my oldest daughter’s last standardized test score report, we ran across the following letter from last year
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James Daly’s 2007 interview with Alvin Toffler, “Reshaping Learning from the Ground Up,” should be considered mandatory reading for anyone seeking to reform and/or transform formal education in the 21st century. Toffler is clear on our need for charter schools. We MUST diversify our educational landscape. Charter schools offer one way forward when it comes
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Hypothetically, if you had an opportunity to meet over coffee with the person who was going to be your state’s highest ranking education official for the next four years, what would you say? photo credit: powerbooktrance Would you talk about laptops for students and teachers, the importance of having access to digital curriculum which facilitates
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Open education, open educational resources, and open source software should be household names. I just finished watching David Wiley‘s TEDxNYED talk on YouTube via my iPad, and I am inspired as a result. I loved his image of the 2 year old having a tantrum, and comparing that to our tendency as educators and citizens
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This podcast is an excerpt of the April 1, 2010 Seedlings webcast on EdTechTalk, featuring commentary by Wesley Fryer focusing on Race to the Top and current “educational reform” efforts in the United States spearheaded by the Obama administration. Wesley discussed the apparent goals of Race to the Top, which appear to be public funding
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Podcast343: Reflections on Race to the Top, State Charter School Laws, and Linking Teacher Performance to Student Test Scores [ 0:01 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (1741)
A week ago Thursday (on April Fool’s Day) I was honored to be the guest on the Seedlings webcast. Among other much more lighthearted topics, Bob Sprankle asked me to share some of my thoughts and perspectives on Race to the Top. I plan to share just that portion of the archived webcast here soon
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These are my notes from Jen Sigrist‘s presentation, “Results in learning: What are ways we can assess the impact to teaching and learning?” at the Iowa 1 to 1 Institute on April 7, 2010. MY THOUGHTS AND REFLECTIONS ARE IN ALL CAPS. Jen is with Van Community Schools in Iowa. Results in learning: What are
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Yesterday I had an opportunity to share a presentation with the faculty at Wells Junior High School, in Wells, Maine. Cheryl Oakes webcasted the presentation on UStream. I shared a modified version of my presentation, “Tales of Digital Magic.” The Ustream recording is 1 hour, 18 minutes long. The most amazing thing about this day
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This are my presentation slides and resources for my opening keynote Friday at the Palm Beach County Schools’ annual technology conference. My session was initially titled “CCC in the 21C,” but I tweaked the name to be, “Tales of Digital Magic: gallant heroines, evil villains, and words of power.” Resources: Moving at the Speed of
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These are my notes from Dr. Kate Kemker’s presentation, “Charting a Course for Information & Communication Technology in Florida’s Schools” at the 12th annual Palm Beach County Schools Technology Conference. MY THOUGHTS ARE IN ALL CAPS. Information and communication technology (ICT) has become a ubiquitous and indispensable part of the way we work and the
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These are my notes from David Jakes’ presentation “Creating Immersive Learning Environments with Mixed Media” at the 12th annual Palm Beach County Schools Technology Conference. MY THOUGHTS AND COMMENTS ARE IN ALL CAPS. Official session description is: This session provides participants with an understanding of how to design interactive and immersive learning environments by blending
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Congratulations to the following nineteen Oklahoma public school districts, who were awarded ARRA grant funds by the Oklahoma State Department of Education on Thursday, March 26, 2010. Anadarko Public Schools Briggs Public School Catoosa Public Schools Cordell Public Schools Crescent Public Schools Depew Public Schools Drumright Public Schools Gage Public Schools Grand View Public School
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The April 2010 issue of Wired Magazine includes an outstanding article by Stephen Levy titled, “Rise of the Machines: How Tablets Will Change The World.” I highly commend it to you. The release of the iPad in a few short weeks is going to be a BIG deal for literacy, communication, and digitally powered learning–
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Thanks to Matt Montagne, I learned about the recently released documentary film, “The Race to Nowhere, The Darkside of America’s Achievement Culture.” This three minute trailer on YouTube gives an overview of the film’s primary themes. We need to stop pressuring our kids to achieve at everything simultaneously, focus on students as individuals with unique
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These are my notes from Berlin Fang and Luke Hartman’s presentation “Putting Learning In Student Pockets: Mobile Learning at Oklahoma Christian University” at the 2010 Heartland eLearning Conference hosted by the University of Central Oklahoma in Edmond. MY THOUGHTS AND REFLECTIONS ARE IN ALL CAPS. The Heartland eLearning conference is on Twitter, has a conference
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Walter Bender, former president of software and content for the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) Foundation and founder of Sugar Labs, granted an interview in December 2009 to Wade Roush. Wade’s article is titled, “Sugar Gets Sweeter: Former OLPC Exec Walter Bender on Netbooks, E-books, Blueberry, and Cloudberry.” Bender gave the opening keynote address in
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