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 are slumping. They ask if it’s their covers, or if the market is crashing, or if they aren’t doing the right kind of marketing.
But none of them ever ask if they self-pubbed too soon, before the book was Grade A. Writers are a pretty insecure bunch, but I’ve never met one who blames their sales on their bad writing.
I gotta say, it’s seductive to think I could self-pub these three books instantly, make some money, not worry about the anticipated three star average (I encourage writers to not look at their reviews, and I usually don’t), and immediately move on to something I know will sell better.
But I won’t do that. I’ll put in the time and make these books better. Money is nice. Having more time is nice. However, the nicest thing of all is having pride in my work.
Now, thanks to education technology, scavenger hunts have been given a whole new makeover – here are 5 updated ideas for how to implement them in the 21st century classroom! Source: 5 Brilliant Ideas for #EdTech Scavenger Hunts Some great links to ideas on running a scavenger hunt, two of which doesn’t require the teacher…
Young people who play video games, including violent titles, display more developed moral reasoning skills than their non-gaming peers, a study has found. Source: Young people who play video games have higher moral reasoning skills – inews.co.uk I really don’t mean to toot the video gaming horn, but video gaming and educational technology are very much…
For those of you using Chromebooks in their instruction, the chart below is a great resource to keep handy. The chart is based on insights collected from Chromebook Help. As is the case with Google Drive Guidelines chart, the purpose of this work is to provide teachers and educators (and students) with a quick and…
“All this time, I was doing it wrong.” Since Erin and I released Hacking Project Based Learning this past December, we have been happy to hear from teachers and students who are benefiting from what we wrote. At the same time, we have received several messages that look like the one above. These are messages…
In a world where accusations of “fake news” are thrown around essentially at random, critical thinking would seem to be a must. But this is also a world where the Moon landings are viewed as a conspiracy and people voice serious doubts about the Earth’s roundness. Critical thinking appears to be in short supply at…
Former New York Times technology reporter John Markoff used to think robots taking jobs was cause for alarm. Then, he found out that the working-age population in China, Japan, Korea and the U.S. was declining. Source: We need robots to take our jobs, according to John Markoff Some very surprising insight on where robots will be needed.