Assessment is a Bad Word?
Many teachers in many districts have the same reaction to the word assessment. Mention it, and you could very well elicit a visual cringe. That’s interesting. The most oft cited criticism of assessment is that we don’t have time for it. I don’t really get that. I can’t say it any better than Grant Wiggins […]
Can Standardized Test Data be Formative?
Very often we refer to state standardized testing data as summative. It is used to determine if a student, and an institution, meet AYP. We apply the data, much as the somewhat tired analogy goes, as a learning autopsy. We identify problems and areas of health, and perhaps even the cause of learning death, but […]
Airplanes and Education
A couple things ran through my mind today as I flew into San Antonio for the 2010 ASCD conference. Both related to education. On the trip, I started reading 21st Century Skills: Learning for Life in our Times by Bernie Trilling and Charles Fadel. Admittedly, I’m not the biggest fan of the name. I don’t […]
What is Curriculum?
I have been in education for ten years, and I haven’t thought enough about that question. I’m now in the second week of the course, “Curriculum Theory” in my JHU-ISTE program, and we’ve started wrestling with some tough questions about curriculum. The first being the title for this post. What is curriculum? It seems the […]
The Best About Me Page You’ll Ever See
I simply don’t believe you will find a better About Me page than the one found here. The page belongs to Aaron Iba, the now former CEO of AppJet, the company who created EtherPad. Iba’s product was acquired by Google for a reported $10 million, and I would imagine he is quite happy with the […]