Guest Thinkers

I’ve had a lot of fun these past ten days posting quotes from Robert Fried’s The Game of School. I think Fried does a fabulous job of highlighting how schools as […]

The annual ASCD conference is in Orlando, Florida this year. ASCD is looking for some education bloggers who might be interested in live blogging the event. If you’re already attending […]

One of the students in my data-driven decision-making class (for discussion purposes, let’s call her ‘Jen’) posted this in our online discussion area: Most grading at the high school level […]

Robert Fried says… There is quite likely no substitute for the experience of feeling empowered . . . if we hope for children to pursue learning enthusiastically within the structure of […]

Robert Fried says… Like Jacob, the biblical youth who sold his patrimony to his brother Esau for the equivalent of a Big Mac, our youth are cajoled into giving up their […]

Robert Fried says… n n We [parents] become so confused, so conflicted, so fearful that unless we keep our children’s minds “on task,” aiming for the honor roll, the advanced […]

Robert Fried says… n n When student resistance to classroom learning is seen as typical and inevitable, and teachers console each other to “just hang on till June,” that . […]

Robert Fried says… [I]f what we seek is a learning partnership with students, we cannot remain aloof from them or be seen as demanding their respect as a matter of […]

Robert Fried says… The place we call school or college, which should be our society’s most vital promoter of learning, too often instead creates the field on which we learn to […]

I tweeted: Here are the responses I got. Thanks, Twitter network!

Robert Fried says… n n We have opted not to create schools as places where children’s curiosity, sensory awareness, power, and communication can flourish, but rather to erect temples of […]

Robert Fried says… [A]mid all the accounts … of kids complaining to each other about how bored they are with many of their classes, why do we accept this so […]

Are you (or your superintendent) going to be at the AASA conference next week? I’d love to get together Thursday night or Friday morning after my presentation. If so, drop […]

My new faculty colleague, Dr. John Nash, is one of the hosts for PresentationCamp at Stanford University on February 28. I can’t attend but it should be good fun. The event […]

Robert Fried says… [F]ar too much of the time our children spend in school is wasted. . . . [M]ost of what they experience during school hours passes over them like […]

Robert Fried says… There is a simple test we can perform to find out whether or not our children are truly learning. We can ask them, not the usual question, […]

The Washington Post recently published a really interesting article on the ability of well-connected parents to influence the decisions of their local school districts (hat tip to The Science Goddess). […]

Tonight’s the night! Including myself, we’ll have 19 people for our discussion of Tribes here in Ames. I’m really looking forward to the conversation. We’re going to do our best […]

That teaching can occur without learning That learning academic content is more important than caring about academic content

I think it is becoming increasingly clear that our current system of education is going to go away. There are simply too many societal pressures and alternative paradigms for it […]

Update: Our two leagues (yes, two!) are now full. Sorry… It’s time for another season of edublogger fantasy baseball (and, yes, you have to be an edublogger)! Last year’s champion, Jim […]

[cross-posted at the TechLearning blog] India’s quest to create a $10 laptop is getting a lot of press this week. Fast Company notes that the proposed design will have 2 […]

A fairly disturbing chain e-mail (it mentions rape, murder, and skin flaying) is making the rounds among a group of elementary school girls here. [click here to read it] A few […]

I’m excited to be in Norman, Oklahoma for the University of Oklahoma K20 Center’s annual Winter Institute. I really like the folks at the K20 Center and am looking forward […]

Is it possible to spend an entire day with Wes Fryer and not have fun? Nope! I updated the materials from my keynote at the K20 Center’s Winter Institute, including […]

n [Download this file: pngpptpptx] n Imagine that, day after day, all you have to eat and drink are bread and water. When that’s all that you’ve ever had, it tastes […]

I love winter. But I’ll admit it’s been a bit nippy here lately. Here was the temp when I got out of my class in Mason City Wednesday night: My […]

In case you didn’t notice, we inaugurated a President yesterday! Back in October, before we knew who he would be, I invited edubloggers to write a letter to the next President. […]

Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society just released a massive report, Enhancing Child Safety and Online Technologies. Here’s a quote from the study: Sexual solicitation and predation are […]

I just ran across this eSchoolNews video from my 2007 Leaders in Learning trip to Washington, DC. I had completely forgotten about it. For those of you who are interested, […]