October 2010
1 post
Watchyour life is hard, until you wear a t-shirt.
April 2010
7 posts
“The policy argument that pay for performance is anathema to teachers’...”
– Charles Barone, director of federal policy at Democrats for Education Reform
Statement from EEP on Washington, DC Teacher...
STATEMENT BY THE EDUCATION EQUALITY PROJECT ON NEW WASH, D.C. TEACHER EMPLOYMENT CONTRACT NEW YORK, April 7, 2010 – The Education Equality Project (EEP) strongly supports Chancellor Michelle Rhee’s efforts to transform Washington, D.C.’s public schools. We commend her determined insistence that nothing is more important than students and their results. Rhee, a signatory of our project,...
The 21 Most Important Ever Edurati Twitterati
So, there are things like Yale’s crew team, or the White House, or things of legend like the World Series. They have been around forever, they are icons of power and stability and the focus of the ambitions of millions. People hold these things up as models of the status quo. This is not a list about those kinds of icons. This is a list about transforming education.
These are the people...
“When you’re looking at truth versus gossip, truth doesn’t stand a chance.”
– Barbara Mikkelson , which works all day long, through rain, snow hail and dark of night to debunk popular myths that just don’t seem to die.
Entrepreneur Thinking: What It Is, What It Ain't
My superintendent in the East Village apartment I rent would like me to believe that his solution for the cracks around the somewhat faulty plumbing in my bathroom ceiling and wall is entrepreneurial in its deployment and conceptualization. It most certainly is not. It is not Entrepreneur Thinking to “patch” water permeable cracks with duct tape and then paint over them with a...
March 2010
19 posts
The Book is an Artifact
Those of you in the education innovation space will know what I am talking about when I say that the era of the book has come and gone.
The book is an artifact. It’s a holdover from an era where knowledge was plentiful (relatively) but access to knowledge was limited. Therefore, it was easy for those with access to call themselves scholars and gatekeepers, and those who did not have access...
“The only way online education companies can respond to concerns about quality...”
– Taking a look at successful virtual schools like like Connections Academy based in Baltimore and dealing with the tensions created by fights over budget and union positions on traditional school — from an excellent article in the Washington Post about online education, by Katherine Mangu-Ward
WatchIt would be great to see what students around the United States are working on projects like this. Does anyone know of any? I kind of want to do this myself.
Building a Wiki Model for Citizen Lobbying →
“By then there will be a million of these on the streets and about 10x that...”
– @zoolook on Gawker talking about the iPad impact on the digital publishing industry
The first run of iPads have already sold out, pundits predict this means well over half a million iPads sold. I’m really looking forward to the results from the ordering of books on iPads.
Yesterday: The Social
Yesterday had me thinking about transformation, transition and taking chances. This will likely be a several part series, but let’s start first with Yesterday and the Yale Education Leadership Conference.
The students in the School of Management there did a fantastic job. I was impressed not only by what must have been lots of late nights putting together really nice material and hundreds...
“As students here grow up, is it sufficient for them to learn that they are above...”
– Martha Nussbaum in a thoughtful essay on what American students should learn besides Being American. Nationalism is the simplest detour from learning how to be in the world.
“I get it. I’m a slow white guy and I’m overweight. So maybe you don’t respect me...”
– Omar Samhan, big man for St. Mary’s University of California, who scored 32 points (13-16) as his team beat Villanova in the second round of the NCAA Finals. Samhan criticized Villanova Coach Jay Wright for not getting a clue about how to guard him.
“In short, we’re making the teaching profession ever less compelling, which...”
– Comment from Core Knolwedge blog about the the toll all this panic about education reform will have on the teaching profession’s image. For what it’s worth, people are blowing things out of proportion.
“The blueprint says that schools that aren’t in the lowest 10 percent of...”
– This comes from a list of questions at EdWeek meant to prepare Secretary of Education Arne Duncan for his stint in front of Congress and the Senate.
Go West (to China), Canada, and Take Your Teachers...
Two great stories surfaced in my Twitter feed today and they speak to the strange and illuminating practices in Chinese education industry. Some if it could be instructional for those of us in the Americas trying to make a business out of teaching.
One was a story about Canada pulling out the stops to attract mainland Chinese students and talent to its schools. They’ve even taken up the...
Overlooked: Rural Schools Could Win Big with...
A majority of progressive thinkers in education technology have recently ramped up their public relations machines to highlight the Obama administration’s increased focus on education and technology.
Many of them are talking about the role of edtech. So are we. We are pretty sure that technologists will see doors open for them in the next decade, and they will open rapidly.
In the past two...
“President Obama has outlined a bold vision for reform that puts our efforts to...”
– Chairman of the Education & Labor Committee Congressman George Miller (D) California on the Obama Reauthorization of ESEA proposal floated before media and education constituents this weekend. His comments come a day or so before a House hearing on ESEA.
How May I Help You
Got an early morning wake-up call from a teacher in Ohio whose daughter is studying Chinese in Beijing. She said her daughter has to whisper to her in English because she’s not allowed to speak anything other than putonghua (Mandarin). Got me to thinking.
Education sure is about going out there and taking risks, conquering life and taking on new responsibilities in order to achieve what is...
“McKinsey & Company found, for example, that if the gap between low-income...”
– Alliance for Excellent Education and Commission on No Child Left Behind: The Aspen Institute report on ESEA Reauthorization
CEOShare: My Idea Kicks Off at Dept of Ed Portal →
I was surprised this morning to have received a number of invitations to connect and emails about my project idea, which I had listed at the Department of Education’s Innovation Portal.
At this stage, it is just an idea, but I would like to get some friends behind me to collaborate on ways to expand this into a good volunteer project. It’s something that is important to me. I think...
Four Ways I Need (A Way to Find Ways)
I thought about tonight listing a list of things I needed, but they are not really things, because when I think about the origin of the needs for things, it appears that it is really a list of ways. And in some cases, they are a lack of things I need.
Phoenix turned out to be incredible in many ways.
I found myself on the other side of an education business, where before I had stood at a...
New York State Makes it to First Round →
New York State is one of 16 first-round finalist for federal funds from Race to the Top, the national competition to re-invigorate American education with US$4.3 bln.
School's High Tech "Knowledge Center" Stores Rocks →
I’m not kidding.
Donations, including a US$10 mln private donation from Charles Mathewson and International Game Technologies, helped pay for a US$75 mln learning facility that used to be a standard bricks and mortar library at the University of Nevada Reno. And the reality of the situation is that it appears that the bulk of the money laid into this building went into adding space that...
February 2010
5 posts
“The earliest memories I have are jumping up onstage before concerts in downtown...”
– From the Cal Fussman interview with Leonardo DiCaprio in Esquire. I used to hate Leonardo DiCaprio, because he was a pretty boy actor in a stupid movie, Titanic. But underneath that kid was a man who grew up, and underneath that face was a wise person.
5 tags
Technology is Missing From Nation's Education...
Tom Vander Ark of Revolution Learning and I were speaking recently around corporate interests in education.
One bright spot to this corporate interest in social movements is the Pepsi Refresh Project, which presents a broad list of categories to urge consumers / social media savvy constituents to choose where PepsiCo should donate its millions of philanthropic dollars each month.
I click on the...
4 tags
A Young Writer Gets Melodramatic about NYC →
The youthful (I won’t say young, because if reality has not bludgeoned you with maturity-making irrationality, you are still youthful) have this tendency of spilling their guts out in a mindblowing array of procedures.
My favorite it the list, prompted by some rejection, or months of frustrating busywork and no impact. The result is a reflection back on the how, why and for what of living...
Merryl Tisch: More Innovation, Less Political...
I will post a longer article based on my interview with Merryl Tisch, Chancellor, New York State Education Board, Board of Regents in a few days.
Here are some of her quotes:
Q: What is your vision for online education and technology innovation within mainstream education in the next decade?
Tisch: I truly believe that right now we are woefully behind in terms of our ability to engage students...
Chat Roulette -- The Next Live TV Phenomenon?
You can’t control it. You don’t always get reception. And there is a lot of inappropriate behavior.
But talk about intimate TV viewing and making.
I would like to see Chat Roulette become a new source for interactive TV production. If you could combine the aspects of Twitter with Chat Roulette, and then create committed channels for people who produce quality content, like in a talk...