EdTech & Classroom Tools
Three K-12 LMSes dominate, and they optimize for different things. A practical comparison for districts and departments choosing or rethinking their stack.
Bootcamps have matured. The hype is gone, the field is smaller, and the picture is honest enough now to compare schools and outcomes seriously.
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.
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.
“Canvas, Schoology, and Google Classroom: an honest LMS comparison”
23 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.
“Coding bootcamps in 2026: outcomes, costs, and which ones still work”
7 posts
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.
{ "title": "No Choice", "content_html": "<p>(Cross posted to the PLP Network blog)</p>\n\n<p>One of our favorite things that Sheryl says when she talks about the…
Ten years from now, the next decade will be drawing to a close. Our daughter will be 22, our son 20. We’ll be…older. It’s setting up to be a pretty important 10 years on a lot of fronts, especially for how we live and learn.
We always get in this reflective mood at the end of the year, trying to put some form to what’s changed, both in our own practice and in the larger conversation about schools. Despite more traveling, more PLP work, and deeper on-the-ground conversations, it still feels as if traditional practice remains deeply ingrained and truly transformative change is rare.
We’ve been thinking a lot about how phones are disrupting schools and what it means when every student carries an Internet-connected device. The real issue isn’t just networks or hardware; it’s how curriculum must transform for anytime, anywhere learning with anyone in the world.
In a couple of weeks, both Tess and Tucker will be starting their first day at brand new schools, and we’re hoping their stories about school will change—from grades and homework to creating, learning, and sharing every day.
A look at how restrictive technology policies and low professional regard undermine teachers as learners and leaders, and a question about whether social web tools can help raise the perception of the teaching profession.