Homeschooling
Homeschooling on one income: the practical economics
The math of homeschooling on one income is more workable than people assume and harder than the social-media version suggests. The honest line items, in order.
Homeschooling
Chromebooks vs. iPads in K-12: where each one actually wins
The K-12 device wars settled into a partial truce. Chromebooks dominate by unit count; iPads still win in specific contexts. A guide to mixed deployments.
Udemy vs. Skillshare vs. LinkedIn Learning: where each one wins
Three online course marketplaces serve different audiences and use cases. A practical comparison for picking the right platform for what you actually want to learn.
Topics
EdTech & Classroom Tools
Honest reviews of the apps, platforms, AI tools, and devices teachers are asked to adopt. We assess what genuinely helps students think, what just keeps them busy, and what's heavily marketed without earning its place.
“Chromebooks vs. iPads in K-12: where each one actually wins”
25 posts
Digital Literacy & Media
Reading, writing, and thinking in a media environment that wasn't built in students' interest. We cover information literacy, source evaluation, attention, and what it means to be a careful reader and a credible writer online.
“Teaching media literacy in an algorithm-shaped attention environment”
25 posts
Schools & Policy
What happens to teaching when policy meets practice. We write about school systems, assessment regimes, district decisions, and the quiet politics that shape what's possible inside the classroom.
“The UnCommon Core”
20 posts
Teaching & Pedagogy
How real classrooms work, lesson by lesson. We write about instructional design, classroom practice, and the small craft decisions that shape what students actually learn, separating durable pedagogy from passing fashion.
“The first ten days: what new teachers should actually focus on”
18 posts
Professional Development
Notes on how teachers actually grow. We cover conferences worth attending, PD that doesn't waste a Saturday, and the case for treating educators as career-long learners rather than topped-off skill sets.
“ISTE 2010: Easy…Not Free”
16 posts
Online Learning
MOOCs, course platforms, bootcamps, and the rest of the open-web learning economy. We cover where online courses deliver, where they don't, and how adults are actually picking up new skills outside traditional classrooms.
“Udemy vs. Skillshare vs. LinkedIn Learning: where each one wins”
9 posts
Recent writing
Professional Development
Thinking Disruptively About Conference Presentations
We reflected on experimenting with unconference-style sessions at Learning 2.0 in Shanghai, why traditional conference formats feel increasingly out of step, and how we might bring more participatory, networked learning into events like NECC.
Teaching & Pedagogy
The Future of Teaching
We spent a day in a workshop on the future of teaching, exploring how “learning agents” might work in schools that look very different from today’s. The discussion focused on new roles centered on facilitation, connection, and collaboration rather than traditional classroom teaching, and on the pressures that might drive long-term change in education.
EdTech & Classroom Tools
Mind Mapping Love
We’re big mind map people, and MindMeister has our minds a fluttering. It’s a web-based collaborative mind mapping app that makes it easy to import FreeMind and MindJet MindManager maps, collaborate with others, track history, publish and embed maps, and even get Twitter update alerts—all while smoothing out that “publishing hump” much like Skitch and Jing.
EdTech & Classroom Tools
What the Tweet?
A conversation with ourselves about why we use Twitter, what “tweeting” is, and how following and followers create a strange sense of presence and connection we can’t quite explain.
Digital Literacy & Media
Micro Comment Away
Bud Hunt was nice enough to throw up a test of the CommentPress theme that allows paragraph by paragraph commenting, and we posted some session descriptions we were thinking about for the Learning 2.0 Conference we’ll be at in Shanghai in September.
Professional Development
Why is it so Hard for Educators to Focus on Their Own Learning?
We’ve been pushing teachers to examine how new technologies challenge their own personal learning, yet most questions still focus on safety, tools, and delivery rather than on educators’ own learning practice. Why is it so hard for us, as educators, to put our own learning first?
EdTech & Classroom Tools
It’s Not Just the “Read/Write” Web
There are more educators using blogs, wikis, and Read/Write Web tools than ever, but the real shift isn’t just about publishing student work—it’s about networks, connection, and ongoing learning beyond individual projects and classrooms.
Schools & Policy
The Problem in a Nutshell…The UnProblem in a Nutshell
Yesterday at NECC was one of those yin/yang experiences, with one of our worst conference moments ever, which, as these things go, preceded probably the best conference feel good ever. The contrast between a disappointing Web 2.0 panel and the vibrant, collaborative energy of the Blogger Cafe captured both the problem and the promise of how these tools can truly transform learning.