It didn’t dawn on me that there might be a few holes in my education until I was about 35. I’d just bought a house, the pipes needed fixing, and the plumber was standing in my kitchen. There he was, a short, beefy guy with a goatee and a Red Sox cap and a thick Boston accent, and I suddenly learned that I didn’t have the slightest idea what to say to someone like him. So alien was his experience to me, so unguessable his values, so mysterious his very language, that I couldn’t succeed in engaging him in a few minutes of small talk before he got down to work. Fourteen years of higher education and a handful of Ivy League degrees, and there I was, stiff and stupid, struck dumb by my own dumbness.
There is so much mediocrity in the world, and mediocre things can, and are, popular. Why try harder? Every author secretly thinks their books are uniquely special, but the vast majority of books don’t sell. I haven’t been blogging regularly for eight months, and I still get urgent emails from authors, wondering why their sales…
On a bright July morning in a windowless conference room in a Manhattan bookstore, several dozen elementary school teachers were learning how to create worksheets that would help children learn to write. Judith C. Hochman, founder of an organization called the Writing Revolution, displayed examples of student work. A first grader had produced the following…
The OneNote team continues to listen to teachers to learn about how we can help them be more productive with our software. Today, we are announcing a set of improvements across OneNote Class Notebook, Learning Tools and Office Lens. Source: Updates for OneNote Class Notebook, Learning Tools and Office Lens—plus stickers! – Office Blogs The…
Back in the days, most people did not need to actively and continuously build their personal network. Communities were small enough people knew everyone they needed to know in their own circle, and their social status did not change over time. … Trust and relationship are built over a meaningful shared activity and passion. Source: How…
It’s high time for students to move beyond an hour of coding exercises and learn computational thinking. That’s the message of a new report from Digital Promisethat examines what’s important to know and be able to do in a “computational world.” Source: It’s Time to Weave Computational Thinking into K-12 — THE Journal The researchers us of…
The technology industry is now trying to figure out a way to attack its cultural and demographic homogeneity issues. One simple initiative is to begin to recruit talent from people outside of its preferred networks. One way is to extend their recruiting efforts to people who don’t have four-year degrees. Source: Why More Tech Companies Are…
