I was recently at a conference about the social and emotional needs of children today. While much of what I heard reinforced what we were already seeing as a campus, it was fascinating – the idea many children today are unaware of how to communicate effectively, show and understand empathy, understand their feelings regarding shame, or even the ability to read the emotions of others.
Over the day the needs/challenges of children today continued to grow….social/emotional needs, emotional disturbances, medical needs, hunger, clothing, communication needs, lack of parental support, counseling needs, and on and on the list grew…
In the past, I’ve written on ideas for gamification—using games in the classroom—but lately I’ve been reflecting on some of the bigger ideas that games open up in terms of pedagogy and the classroom experience. While we can use games as tools and perhaps build units that are gamified, we might also adopt some basic…
The mainstreaming of the popular roleplaying game Dungeons & Dragons has significantly changed how people address and understand the game. It’s become a spectator sport and a way for some gamers to earn their living. D&D gameplay and its symbolism have become a significant plot point in geek-oriented TV shows like Stranger Things and The Big Bang Theory. It’s the subject of copious scientific…
In a panel at last week’s SXSWedu, moderated by The Teacher’s Guild Director Molly McMahon, a trio of two Texas K-12 administrators and a district teacher of the year from Georgia discussed the benefits of letting teachers drive innovation. Spring Branch Independent School District Associate Superintendent Elliott Witney, El Paso Independent School District Superintendent Juan Cabrera,…
A writer for The Guardian warns that artificial intelligence will be taking over many jobs that we previously assumed were safe from automation. Like teaching. Source: Is That “Teaching”? We’re still in the dark ages of what artificial intelligence will be able to do. Sure, we have AlphaGo being able to make “beautiful” moves in the game of…
There’s no shortage of “nature soundtracks,” but how many of them are the actual sounds from a US National Park? To celebrate its 102nd birthday, the National Park Service is offering ParkTracks, a 12-minute mix of sounds from across various national parks. The sounds were captured by the NPS’s (wonderfully named) Natural Sounds and Night Skies Division,…
During the 2015-16 school year, I visited schools across the nation to see how technology can transform teaching and learning. The changes I’ve seen have been exciting, meaningful, and more often than not, challenging to get right. The “digital divide” is still very real. In places like Eminence, Kentucky, we’ve seen how creative school leaders have found…
