What is literature for?
Source: What is literature for? It saves you times, it speeds up time. What can’t literature do?
“Imprisoned by our own need for amusement”
It wasn’t Nineteen Eighty-Four that had the most to say about the America of the 1980s, but rather Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. “In Huxley’s vision,” Postman noted, “no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity, and history.” Instead: “People will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that…
Why integrated education is a win for every student
Like most things that don’t favor the richest and most privileged in the world, the future of public education for disabled students in America is currently under threat. With an attorney general who has been vehemently opposed to the concept of putting disabled students in general classrooms, and an education secretary who is, at best,…
Edutopia’s Open Educational Resources (OER)
Explore this educator’s guide to open educational resources for information about online repositories, curriculum-sharing websites, sources for lesson plans and activities, and open alternatives to textbooks. Source: Open Educational Resources (OER): Resource Roundup | Edutopia Open Educational Resources (OER) are resources that can be used in the classroom for free. They are published under licenses…
Students can practice integrity with these four tools
Digital tools can help give students a platform to demonstrate their honesty, courage, and integrity in the classroom on a regular basis. Source: 4 Digital Tools That Help Students Practice Integrity | MindShift | KQED News I like three out of four of these tools. I’m not a fan of Turnitin. This past year I…
Tips for teachers using OneNote
Teachers need feedback for growth just like our students. Yet, any administrator will tell you there’s simply not enough time to visit classrooms and provide teachers with meaningful and effective feedback in a timely manner. As a professional development liaison, I travel to K-12 schools in Hillsborough County and see what support systems are in…
Viewing school as an opportunity
Walking into her office in early December in her tiny very very “high poverty” rural elementary school, sinking into her chair, principal Alison Dwier-Selden sighed and said, “I have learned that looking forward to Christmas is middle class privilege.” Truth. There are undeniable facts about poverty in America, and Alison’s quote is one. Hunger is…
The problem of being “busy”
As educators, the reality is our work is never done. There is no finish line. We add more to the “to do” list than we cross off. We will always have more on our plates than we can tackle each day, so the real challenge is this: How do we take control of our time?…
Four and five years old see things that adults miss
Although adults can beat children at most cognitive tasks, new research shows that children’s limitations can sometimes be their strength. In two studies, researchers found that adults were very good at remembering information they were told to focus on, and ignoring the rest. In contrast, 4- to 5-year-olds tended to pay attention to all the…
Xerox Parc created amazing technologies. How did this happen?
There was a vision: “The destiny of computers is to become interactive intellectual amplifiers for everyone in the world pervasively networked worldwide”. A few principles: Source: Alan Kay’s answer to What made Xerox PARC special? Who else today is like them? – Quora In the 70s, Xerox Parc was THE research facility in the United States. Technology…