Schools & Policy
Chronic absenteeism doubled during the pandemic and has not fully recovered. What the current numbers show, why they persist, and which interventions are working.
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.
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.
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
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
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
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
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.
“Udemy vs. Skillshare vs. LinkedIn Learning: where each one wins”
9 posts
Many of us are calling for big changes in schools—new literacies, connected classrooms, and modern learning—but the conversations on front porches and in small-town coffee shops rarely touch any of that. Leading in education today means doing the work almost no one is asking for yet, while still meeting traditional expectations, and helping communities see why both matter for our kids’ futures.
We explore Erica McWilliam's vision of teaching as co-creating value in learning networks and Charles Leadbeater's idea of "useful ignorance," asking what it means for us, our students, and our children to unlearn traditional notions of teaching in a script-less, fluid world.
Reflections on attending ISTE 2010 primarily as a vendor, the allure and limitations of the exhibit floor, and why we value conferences that focus on authentic learning over shiny tools.
It has gotten to the point where we shudder every time we hear plans to “increase student achievement” or “improve schools,” because those phrases almost always mean one thing: raising standardized test scores. Far too little of what those assessments measure is what we care about as parents, and we need new ways to assess learning that value passion, problem solving, collaboration, and real-world impact.
Reflections on how digital tools like the iPad, Instapaper, Kindle, and interactive magazine apps are transforming reading from passive consumption into a more participatory, connected, and collaborative experience.
We keep blocking Facebook instead of teaching it, even though most of our students use it and few understand privacy, reputation, and public exposure in that space.
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…