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.
Here is an amazing list of clever, unique and simple set up STEM challenges and lesson plans from other teachers. Source: 28 Awesome STEM Challenges for the Elementary Classroom – Teach Junkie What a great list of activities and lesson plans! I really like how they minimize tech and maximize making.
Serious people sometimes make silly predictions. Source: The Future of Education Will Never Arrive History is littered with failed experiments, but these failures are what have brought us the world we have today. Cynicism aside, computers will get better at understanding people, and when that happens, who knows what will happen. To get an…
At Forest Grove Elementary School, along the Ohio River just northwest of Pittsburgh, the Rust Belt is giving way to educational innovation. In a windowless room in the library, first- and second-graders experiment with a strange teaching device that’s half computer and half wooden play table. A giant computer screen looms over the table, and…
As cloud computing has become an integral part of the lives of students at public schools, it has increased the importance of a place generations of students have turned to for much more analog learning needs—the library. Both public and school libraries have always been a source of information for students. And while the Internet has undoubtedly…
The think-tank examined the relation between social media use (including online time) and mental illness: While twelve percent of children who spend no time on social networking websites on a normal school day have symptoms of mental ill health, that figure rises to 27 percent for those who are on the sites for three or…
Asus released the Chromebook Flip C100 mid 2015, a 2-in-1 Chromebook. At the time I couldn’t see the use of a Chromebook in tablet form. But, in 2016, Google announced Android apps were coming to Chromebooks, and the 2-in-1 Chromebook model became a lot more interesting. So much so that I bought a Flip….