Higher Education
Early decision and early action are not interchangeable, and the admit-rate gap between ED and regular decision is misleading. A practical guide for seniors weighing both.
The test-optional moment in American college admissions has had three phases. The first was the pre-pandemic era, when a small number of colleges (Bowdoin,…
Homeschooling has had a strange decade. The pandemic pulled hundreds of thousands of families into it who had never considered it, and a meaningful…
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.
“10 Years of Blogging: Time for a Change and a Book”
24 posts
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.
“AI in the classroom three years in: what’s working, and what isn’t”
22 posts
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
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 lesson plan structure that survives most edtech fads”
17 posts
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
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.
“MOOCs at fifteen: what worked, what didn’t, and what’s quietly replacing them”
6 posts
From the “Shameless Self-Promotion Dept” comes this new book 21st Century Skills: Rethinking How Students Learn, featuring our chapter “Navigating Social Networks as Learning Tools,” and some interesting thinking about how networked learning is reshaping literacies, pedagogy, and the future of classrooms.
So, let me say at the outset that I love books. All my life, I’ve been a reader of books. I have at least…
It was our great honor to serve on the 2010 K-12 Horizon Project Advisory Board this year, and our report was released a couple of days ago. If you want another piece to add to your “compelling case for change” argument, it’s worthy of your consideration.
Reflecting on the National Educational Technology Plan’s call for “connected teaching,” this post explores how technology can transform teaching into a team activity, reshape professional learning, and reposition teachers as learners within connected online communities.
A 5:30 am reflection on TEDxNYED: powerful ideas, passionate speakers, and the lingering question of what actually changes in education after all the inspiring talk.
We argue that what matters most today is not teachers as master knowers of content, but as master learners who model and apprentice students into the processes of learning—especially within social and technological networks that extend far beyond classroom walls.
As of today, 220 of you were kind enough to vote on what you thought were the 10 most important questions from the list that we generated at Educon. Here are the “winners” at the moment, along with a plan to collaboratively tackle each question and turn the results into something more actionable for schools.
We reflect on a conversation from Educon about the “big” questions schools should be asking in light of tectonic shifts in social learning online, and invite readers to help narrow a substantial list of essential questions down to a top ten for deeper exploration.