Hack Education

RIP Walter Dean Myers (His op-ed earlier this year on the lack of diversity in children's books) Law and Politics The US Supreme Court ruled in Harris v Quinn that a group of home health workers do not have to pay union dues if they don’t want to. Teachers’ collective bargaining...

Over the last few weeks, there’s been a flurry of blog posts debating “personalized learning.” Benjamin Riley, “Don’t Personalize Learning” Dan Meyer, “Don’t Personalize Learning”  Michael Feldstein, “‘Personalized Learning’ is Redundant” Mike Caulfield, “Why Personalized Learning Fails” Alex Hernandez, “Personalize Learning, Please” Dan Meyer, “Personalized Learning Software: Fun Like Choosing...

Education Politics The US Department of Education announced changes to the oversight of special education programs. TL;DR: more testing. The Department of Education had a little social media faux pas this week as it tried to promote students filling out their FAFSA forms. According to Education Week, “Public charter schools are...

Mike Caulfield tweeted this picture this morning, with a wry chuckle alluding to MOOCs' pretension that they've invented this whole ed-tech thing: a 1966 patent for an “audio visual teaching system.” The tweet fits nicely with a project we're working on: trying to uncover and document some of the “hidden...

Education Politics Louisiana governor (and perhaps presidential candidate?) Bobby Jindal issued orders to withdraw his state from the Common Core. But it wasn’t a smooth move, as the state Superintendent insists that Jindal doesn’t have the authority to do so. Former Florida governor (and perhaps presidential candidate?) Jeb Bush is...

Here are the notes and the slides from my keynote today at CETIS 2014 (which was just an amazingly great event).  A couple of years ago, a friend sent me an exasperated email on the heels of an exclusive technology event he’d attended in Northern California — not in Silicon Valley,...

Education Law and Politics What You Should Know This Week: a California judge handed down a ruling in Vergara v California, delivering a blow to teachers’ unions in the state by overturning 5 laws that deal with tenure and seniority. I think every edu pundit and politician has weighed in...

A forum discussion comment that was so verbose it became a blog post. As one does... I'm quite flattered to see my "Audrey Test" show up as part of the #TeachtheWeb discussion. I’m also a little mortified – perhaps it’s always weird to see something you wrote several years ago back...

Education Politics Connecticut governor Dannel Malloy (D) signed a bill “to create and maintain a state platform for the distribution of electronic books (e-books) to public library patrons.” South Carolina governor Nikki Haley (R) signed a bill requiring the state to develop new non-Common Core standards. Oklahoma governor Mary Fallin...

Update 6/11/2014: ISTE has added a Code of Conduct to the website for its 2014 conference #YesAllWomen in ed-tech Earlier this week, Ariel Norling published an incredibly brave article — an incredibly difficult to read article — chronicling predatory behavior and sexual assault at last year’s ISTE conference. I don’t...