I wrote recently about how many of my otherwise sharp students were “Google fundamentalists” who argued, to simplify a bit, that “if it’s in Google, it’s valid.” These are often the same students who insist they should be able to use Wikipedia as a source for research. I’ve been skimming Wikipedia’s own policies for writing [...]

I think this question would make either a good meme or a good open thread: What new routines have worked their way into your teaching-and-learning life as a result of the digital revolution? I’ll share a couple of mine. I think history teachers will find the first one valuable, but teachers of any discipline can [...]

I expect to be soundly whipped for this post, but in this age of “failure being free,” I don’t mind. I hope to learn from teachers who can offer specific examples, or research, that give evidence that digital learning is superior to traditional. (Or who can contest my framing of the issue, and improve on [...]

Watch the two videos below — I even took notes of highlights to prod the attention-deficient — and then show them to your students. 1. Randy Nelson, Dean of Pixar University, on Collaboration and what I’ve been calling Social Intelligence in the Workplace. Key concepts: Making co-workers look good, not bad; “plussing” your partners; wanting [...]

This editorial from our high school student newspaper is a must-read for its criticism of the school-wide technology integration initiative. It’s a must-read for other reasons too — and other readers — but read it first, and we’ll get to that very different party afterward. The first thing I did when I read this was [...]

I’m a 21st Century Education Rip Van Winkle with a twist: I only went to sleep for a single year’s sabbatical, but the changes over that year make 2008 seem like 1808. This post is long, but I hope some of you will plod through it and advise me on what helpful solutions I’ve slept [...]

Picture this: enterprising students in cities in Texas, particularly, and other cities nationwide – along with counterparts in Romania, which just mandated a Creationism-only science curriculum (I kid you not), and maybe Turkey, for good measure – organize Smart Mobs to strike, peacefully and simultaneously, out of the blue to demand only 21st century science [...]

After watching the following video on Dean Shareski’s blog (thanks to Kate Tabor for the alert): Carrotmob Makes It Rain from carrotmob on Vimeo. –and then watching this immensely disturbing clip from the Uncounted documentary about election theft in the 2004 USA elections: –and in the 2006 elections: –it should be no wonder that I [...]

Yes, I’ve been following Clay and know exactly what he means. I too want to do away with all of the fluff and wasting of time in a public classroom. Trouble is, I have this pesky student loan to pay off. And I absolutely love to share the joy of learning with kids, so I [...]

That Networked Learning elective “English Seminar” class I taught last semester ended two weeks ago. (Sift through the archives for related posts.) For new readers or simply people not tuned in here during the last six months, here’s a recap: Ten students of mixed grades (9-12, ages 15-18), each with a MacBook laptop (the school [...]