Higher Education
The senior-year admissions timeline: a month-by-month playbook
Senior year compresses the college admissions process into one academic year. A working month-by-month plan, from late summer through May 1 decision day.
Higher Education
Differentiation that doesn’t double your prep time
Most differentiation advice fails the prep-time test. The teachers who do it sustainably differentiate at narrow points and accept the middle of the lesson is the same for everyone.
Building a homeschool day for a kid with ADHD
Homeschooling a kid with ADHD requires a different daily structure than typical homeschool. The shorter blocks, movement breaks, and outsourced co-op time that actually work.
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.
“The case against more screens in elementary classrooms”
26 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.
“Chronic absenteeism, three years on: what the data actually shows”
21 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.
“Differentiation that doesn’t double your prep time”
19 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.
“Cohort-based courses (Maven and others): are they worth the price?”
10 posts
Recent writing
Teaching & Pedagogy
Learning from our Kids…Doll Web Sites
Reflecting on our daughter’s fascination with doll web sites, we think about “social networking with training wheels,” the commercial aspects of kids’ virtual worlds, and how much time children should spend navigating online spaces alongside their offline play.
EdTech & Classroom Tools
Fun With Google Naming…Oy
From the “Sometimes This All Scares Us” Department comes this item about parents Google-testing baby names to make sure their child wouldn’t be born unsearchable. Our kids are going to be so, so unclickable…
Schools & Policy
One Laptop Per Child Begins…$14 Billion on Easter
Chris points to pictures of Nigerian students at the first school to receive laptops in the One Laptop Per Child program, sparking thoughts about global access, inequity in US schools, and what it will take for society to prioritize meaningful opportunities for all children.
Digital Literacy & Media
“A Call for Manners in the World of Nasty Blogs”–NY Times
The front page of today’s New York Times features a story about the attempts of Tim O’Reilly and Jimmy Wales to create a set…
EdTech & Classroom Tools
Make Your Own Google Maps…Too Cool!
Ok, so check it out, dawg… here’s an example of what you can do with the new “My Maps” feature from Google. Go on…go look.
Digital Literacy & Media
Over 2 Million Views
Karl’s “Did You Know?” video has gone viral with over two million views, sparking powerful reactions in schools and helping set the stage for a much bigger conversation about education and learning.
Teaching & Pedagogy
Stuck
We’re blog stuck, wrestling with whether “school” itself limits how we think about learning, especially as education increasingly moves beyond physical classrooms.
Teaching & Pedagogy
Sunday Caption Contest
Since we’ve decided to blow out our aggregator and start over because there’s too much information swirling around and this blog is doing a horrible job of capturing it, it’s time to play: Sunday Caption Contest.