When Digital Tools Disappear

We are entering a period of turbulence in the educational technology world. Of course, perhaps this environment has always been turbulent, but events past couple weeks have caught my attention more completely. Two services that I have used to support learning and professional development are disappearing this summer. TodaysMeet, a tool for backchannel conversations, is …

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Lights Academy Ranks the Presidents

My Lights Academy students, as part of their Government standards, collaboratively studied, analyzed, and ranked the presidents of the United States in order of effectiveness. Their work may be viewed on this site they created. Please note that they have created a response mechanism on the site for feedback for their choices. They would love …

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Favorite Primer for Student Questions

I have participated in a number of Twitter education chats over the past few days where the skill of student questioning has been discussed. Those of you who have read my posts in the past know that I am an advocate for getting student to ask really good questions and then giving them permission to …

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IEP Thought Conversation

As I was reading a professional book today, the following conversation took place in my mind: Why are IEPs for only a subset of students? Because they are a legal requirement for providing proper support for those students that qualify for and receive special education services. IEP stands for "Individualized Education Program", right? Yup So …

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Discussions About Screens Need to Address These Three Things

The discussions about screens (primarily phones, but tablets, computers, television, etc.) and their impact in our lives are ramping up. The number of articles and research projects related to this topic is increasing. And nearly all of these sources share news that is not good. We are becoming addicted to screens. They are hurting child …

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This Tech Bashing Is Misguided — Here’s Why

This is likely to be a controversial post, and in a sense, the title is a bit of click bait. But don't think of it as click bait. Think of it as an invitation to a conversation with which we all need to be involved. In revolutionary times such as this (and the digital revolution …

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