Saturday evening after the Jewish Sabbath, I turned on my smartphone to a flurry of notifications. While the volume was a bit more than usual, it was the nature of the conversation that really caught me off guard. You see, for the past 5 years I have been heavily engaged in an online education community that might not always agree, but tends to trend on being positive, supportive, and constructive when engaging with other educators in the space. This weekend, however, was a sobering moment where I said to myself, “well, the honeymoon is over”, as I read educators publicly trashing other educators in the name of [insert noble cause here]. So what is the big deal with brand influence’s infiltration into the education world? Are brands and influencers of limits in education? Read More on Medium.com...
Read MoreWe leave almost zero time for reflection in education today. Outside of a student sitting and wondering why they didn't get at least a 90% on the big test, how much time is allotted for reflection? The challenge we face is that reflection is not a “measurable” data set when you compare to data hungry areas of growth like reading and math literacy. So how can you measure reflection? While a student summary on the experience might be a good method to assess understanding, it will do little to evaluate their ability to take this failed experience and do something more significant because of it.
Read MoreThere is a movement in education that promotes, and even glorifies failure. Graphics proclaiming that we should fail forward, fail ofen, and of course view F.A.I.L as a First Attempt In Learning. I too am I proponent of failure, and believe that is has been a key ingredient not just in my own success, but for so many successful people I look to for inspiration and guidance. Recently Tim Ferris, a famous entreprenuer and author of "The 4 hour work week", reflected on 200 episodes of his podcast.
Read MoreSo if we are open to shifting our thinking, what is the next step? It lies in a famous quote from Steve Jobs who said “creativity is connecting things”. The ability to connect things lies in how we look at the relationship between people, places, and ideas. It's in how we overcome one of the greatest obstacles to creativity - Functional Fixedness.
Read MoreWhen I was eight years old living in Southern California, my parents bought a video conferencing system to talk with my grandparents in Philadelphia. To this day I could never figure out how my grandfather, set it up on his end. The mammoth devices used a combination of wires to connect to our house phone and television delivering a blurry 200x100 image of my grandparents whose movement was delayed by 45 seconds as they their voices echoed through the telephone. It was at that moment through a mixture of “Hi Michael” , long pause, and a 45 second delayed handwave,
Read MoreWhen I was eight years old living in Southern California, my parents bought a video conferencing system to talk with my grandparents in Philadelphia. To this day I could never figure out how my grandfather, set it up on his end. The mammoth devices used a combination of wires to connect to our phone line and television, delivering a blurry 200x100 image of my grandparents. It was quite a scene. With a mixture of movement delayed by 45 seconds and their voices echoing through the telephone, I felt as if I was in a 14.4K internet induction program.
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