Note: As of 1 Oct 2026, this is a FULL STATIC COPY of all 6,390 posts shared on this blog since 2003. Updated content and ideas from Wes Fryer are still available!

Moving at the Speed of Creativity by Wes Fryer

Category: schoolreform

  • Common Core Implementation Guidelines for Leaders: The Good & The Bad

    Different organizations continue to publish guidelines for state, district, and school leaders working to implement the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). While some of these instructional ideas are excellent and deserve widespread adoption, the high stakes testing focus of CCSS (which continues the unabated trend established with NCLB) constitutes educational malpractice and must be abandoned.…

  • Oklahomans Against High Stakes Testing Worship

    Tonight I created a new “cause” page on Facebook: Oklahomans Against High Stakes Testing Worship. In the initial wall post I wrote: This is a group page I’ve wanted to create on Facebook for a long time. We need a movement in Oklahoma to change the direction of educational policy in our state. We need…

  • John Dewey on Playing with Ideas

    I’m not only a fan of playing with media, I also love to “play with ideas” and encourage others to do the same. In finalizing corrections for my dissertation today, I ran across this quotation from John Dewey in his 1910 book, “How We Think.” On pages 218-219 of the original text (pages 232-233 of…

  • Visualizing #beyondthetextbook

    I’ve shared photos from yesterday and today’s forum, “Beyond the Textbook,” in this Flickr set. I posted two collections of notes from the day, “Morning discussions on digital content, textbooks, & learning” and “Synthesizing #beyondthetextbook dialog in groups.” Interesting conversations and links continue to be shared via Twitter with the hashtag, #beyondthetextbook. Here are a…

  • Synthesizing #beyondthetextbook dialog in groups

    These are my notes from the second phase of our morning discussions on March 19, 2012, at the “Beyond the Textbook” forum in Washington D.C. Participants are included on this Twitter list. Follow these continuing discussions with the Twitter hashtag #beyondthetextbook. See my post from earlier today, “Required Reading for #beyondthetextbook” and initial morning post,…

  • Morning discussions on digital content, textbooks, & learning

    These are my notes from our initial morning discussions on March 19, 2012, at the “Beyond the Textbook” forum in Washington D.C. Participants are included on this Twitter list. Follow these continuing discussions with the Twitter hashtag #beyondthetextbook. See my post from earlier today, “Required Reading for #beyondthetextbook” for more background. what should digital textbooks…

  • Serving or Delivering does not equal Teaching or Learning

    It’s interesting to compare the public metrics of Khan Academy and McDonalds. Last week’s 60 Minutes episode about Khan Academy opened many people’s eyes for the first time to the power and utility of free idea sharing via YouTube. If you haven’t seen it, take 13 minutes and watch it. I think many of the…

  • The Emerging & the Extreme by Lee Crockett

    These are my notes from Lee Crockett‘s keynote, “The Emerging & the Extreme,” on March 6, 2012, at the Heartland eLearning Conference at the University of Central Oklahoma. Lee’s website is “21st Century Fluency Project.” MY THOUGHTS AND COMMENTS ARE IN ALL CAPS. The official conference description of Lee’s keynote was: The world is no…

  • Podcast389: Improving Literacy with Media in Higher Education

    This podcast is a recording of Wesley Fryer’s keynote address on March 3, 2012, at the Enhancing Teaching & Learning Conference hosted by the Kansas City Professional Development Council in Kansas City, Missouri. The session description was: Interested in helping students become better readers, writers, and critical thinkers? We need to “play with media” to…

  • Let’s Stop Encouraging Teachers to “Teach Technology”

    I posted this today in an online forum our district technology director facilitates for teachers in MyBigCampus. It’s a closed community / walled garden so I’m posting my response here instead of linking to it. I’m not sure we need to “teach technology.” Do we “teach pencil?” Technology is a term we most often use…