Tag Archives: internet

Turn Your Essay In With Google Docs

It is my sincere hope that the details of this post will be useless in the near future. Until that time, this is one way I’ve cooked up to facilitate my students writing digital. The reason that I hope that … Continue reading

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Digital Learning Every Day: Necessity, Not Luxury

Tomorrow, February 1, is the first national “Digital Learning Day,” an event designed to expand recognition of technology in education and promote innovation. The concept is as sprawling as digital learning itself, but the idea is to set aside one day … Continue reading

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How I Crashed Two School Networks in Two Days: A Cautionary Tale

Back in September, I was sitting in a collaborative planning session with my principal and my department chair when an assistant principal stuck her head in the room and asked to speak to me outside. With her stood our technology … Continue reading

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Start Me Up: Dispatch from Startup Weekend Washington DC EDU

Over the weekend, I had the privilege to attend a portion of the second Startup Weekend event focused on education. Startup Weekend is itself a startup organization that organizes gatherings of developers, designers, business and marketing experts, and investors to … Continue reading

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Textlab: Literacy is a technology. Technology is a literacy.

Music: “These Legs” by Thanks,Again This is my pitch, created along with my colleague Jordyn Sims, for the TFA Social Innovation Award competition. Textlab.org Literacy is a technology. Technology is a literacy. Andrew Plemmons Pratt (TFA DC Region ’10, 7th … Continue reading

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Writing for Your Peers Makes Your Writing Better Than Writing for Your Professors

A fascinating tidbit of research from Cathy N. Davidson’s recent column in The Chronicle: Research indicates that, at every age level, people take their writing more seriously when it will be evaluated by peers than when it is to be judged … Continue reading

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Andreessen, Slavin, and Stephenson on How Software Eats, Re-writes, and Reshapes the World

Algorithms are natural forces. Software is an evolutionary powerhouse. Code, in its genetic form, has long shaped the planet, and now, on a vast scale, code, in its binary form, is also shaping the planet. Marc Andreessen’s Saturday column in … Continue reading

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Classroom Vision: Language is a Toolkit of Power

So one of the pieces of TFA pre-school work that I find really exciting is the “vision” we’re expected to lay out for the year. This is your classroom manifesto, your big call-to-arms for what you want your students to … Continue reading

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Industrial Archeology, Hacker Tourism, and How Building the Internet Worked Circa 1996

Let’s say you’re reading this in Egypt, or Hong Kong, or London. How exactly do bits and bytes get from this web server (somewhere in California) to your far-flung screen? It’s not satellites or magic, but it is crazy. There’s … Continue reading

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