Back in May, I had the honor of writing a guest post on Larry Ferlazzo’s excellent Education Week blog. My post centered on the current dialogue around phones and young people and Jonathan Haidt’s “Anxious Generation” book. Since that dialogue is still going strong, I wanted to share it here.
As the year comes to a close, some key questions arise: the purpose of education, finding joy, understanding humanity, and building community. In 2024, I aim to be present and appreciate life’s details, guiding myself and the young people I work with to discover their purpose and identity.
This summer I have spent countless hours outside planting, weeding, trimming, mowing, replanting, clearing, building and rebuilding areas of my yard. As I work the soil, tend to plants, harvest vegetables and care for the living things around my house, I am often struck by how many lessons we can learn from the soil and…
“A good education helps us make sense of the world and find our way in it.” – Mike Rose, Why School?: Reclaiming Education for All of Us I have been engaged in the educational technology landscape for over a decade. From the very beginning of the advent of “Web 2.0,” I was caught up in…
…when have I ever really accomplished anything? School work is not an accomplishment. I never get appreciated or anything for what I do. Either I miss out or I’m completely overlooked. But how can that be when I seem to have so much to offer?” Journal entry 10/07/1997 It was Spring of 1997, the end…
In a few days I’ll be getting on a plane to Orlando for the 2022 ATLIS conference–my first one. I have mixed feelings about attending due to the recent Parental Rights in Education Bill that just passed in Florida. Specifically, this language: “prohibits classroom discussion about sexual orientation or gender identity in certain grade levels;…
This post is an introduction to an information book club conversation on Twitter centered around Audrey Watter’s new book, Teaching Machines. Information on the logistics and how to purchase the book are below. Continue reading for some context around why we are excited to read this book.
In the Spring of 2020, only a few weeks after schools closed for the pandemic, I got the exciting call offering me the Director of Educational Technology at Friends Select School in Philadelphia. At the time, we all figured the pandemic would peak by July and school closures seemed temporary and short-lived. Slowly, though, school…
Last week I was lucky to have the opportunity to participate in a round table discussion with a handful of other technology leaders in independent schools and as we hashed out ideas and shared our experiences I began to realize that, without really realizing it, I have been working within the realm of cybersecurity for…
The combination of three different pandemics – the coronavirus, racial injustice & economic uncertainty – has opened a gaping anxious hole in my inner being ripe for the filling. Like many people I know, I began to fill that hole with “doomscrolling” and mindless swiping through social media. Over the last few weeks, as the…