As an educator, one of the big “lightbulb” moments while reading, “Here Comes Everybody” by Clay Shirky, was the idea about scribes and the printing press. Shirky notes:

“Professional self-conception and self-defense, so valuable in ordinary times, become a disadvantage in revolutionary times, because professionals are always concerned with threats to the profession.”

In my experiences, educators often feel like they are being attacked by outsiders and the push for educational change related to technology makes many teachers uncomfortable. But in our digital revolution I’m not sure sure that teachers are the scribes, and I think it is wise to look at other possibilities. Read the rest of this entry »

I think it must just be the standardized assessment blues (our big state assessments are right around the corner), but I’m really feeling like we are squandering students’ time in the classroom. We spend so much time trying to “meet or exceed standards” by drilling information into students heads, that we are blind to more important issue of why are we learning? Information without context makes for a great “Trivial Pursuit” player but a poor worker/employee. Read the rest of this entry »

Smashing Magazine Logo

Smashing Magazine has recently made into a permanent spot in my RSS reader.

It has regular ideas on Wordpress, CSS, design, wallpapers, and much more. I’ve particularly enjoyed recent articles on securing the admin section of Wordpress and several articles about UI development.

It is definitely one to add to the feeds.