In college I had a writing teacher who stressed the point that Writing represents you when you’re not there. –Alberto Rios It was his way of impressing upon us young writers to make sure everything we mean to say actually makes it onto the page. A common pitfall among young …
This video shows you how you can quickly convert a Markdown formatted presentation outline into an HTML5 presentation using Reveal.js. I think this method is a great way to familiarize yourself with web technologies while producing attractive and powerful presentations that work great on desktop and mobile devices. You can …
A longtime friend, colleague, and collaborator of mine who works in new teacher education is starting a blog, and asked me for some help on getting started. Here’s my email response… Hi Friend, There’s some degree of “stage fright” that comes with blogging, so I’ve had to tell myself a …
As a teacher and frequent presenter, I always carry a MacBook Pro DVI to VGA adapter in my bag so I can connect to any overhead projector or flat screen wherever I’m speaking. This approach works well, but has several downsides that the amazing $35 Google ChromeCast can improve upon: …
I was recently quoted in Devon Haynie’s U.S. News and World Report article on the topic of Automated Essay Scoring, and when I saw the finished article I realized that there’s more to say. Ms. Haynie’s article was intended to briefly introduce students to the concept of AES, not to …
A friend reminded me of the site Spurious Correlations, which shows absurd “relationships” between data that couldn’t possibly be related– though it’s fun to think that it is. Number people who drowned by falling into a swimming-pool correlates with Number of films Nicolas Cage appeared in To me this illuminates …
One of the most frustrating things about Professional Development (for both teachers and trainers) is that it’s difficult to get teachers together, and then the training happens, ends, and there is often too little follow up (on both sides). I think part of the problem with this approach is the …
My previous post on using MOOC technology to Support Educators to Support Students generated quite a bit of interest, and I realized there was more to be said on the topic of using Community Managers in online education. That post analyzes what MOOC providers like Udacity and Coursera are doing well, …
In the previous post, Saving Universities in the Era of MOOCs, I discuss the value proposition of traditional universities, and how those values are changing as massive, free online courses gain traction in higher education. This post will examine our traditional assumption that classrooms are made up of one teacher …
In response to Anya Kamenetz‘ post, Let them Eat iPads? Thanks for posing the issue this way. I was a charter school teacher for years, teaching in different communities in California with vastly different socioeconomic realities. I’ve seen that poverty brings several issues that make it hard for students …
