the more important thing, which is trying to make my own teaching more worth my students’ time.

Yeah, I can get with that one. Missed it first period, though.

What makes me chuckle occasionally is seeing myself described as “an edtech guy.” It’s always only incidental to the more important thing, which is trying to make my own teaching more worth my students’ time.

Please, please hear the main point though: Line those sacred cows up, blindfold them, give them a cigarette – and I’ll join you in the firing squad. That’s an important function to serve, and I’m glad you’re critical enough to do it.

What I prefer is listening to folks who have run successful (public) school programs discussing the steps (and there are usually a lot of them) that their school went through to plan, bring on stakeholders, etc.

In general, I prefer people breaking it down and showing how things work to grand arguments for change/engagment/technology, etc.

Not sure how magnet schools work in your neck of California but in L.A. magnet schools are regular public schools, scraping together money for our one computer classrooms like almost everyone else. The difference is only that we take low-income students from across Los Angeles rather than just neighborhood students and parents do have to fill out an application to attend.

Charter schools, in my experience often get private funding for some of their endeavors. They do have standards but they’re usually able to choose their own curriculum and not follow the district’s if they don’t want to.

discovered your blog through clay’s. i love it. it’s refreshing to read.

much of what you criticize deserves criticism. i will continue to follow you.

I especially love your comment from fenruary 9:
“I have never understood the lumbering Godzilla-like argument that because our kids are “digital natives,” we should de facto use tech in school. Why? If using tech is as natural to them as breathing, isn’t this like asking us to teach kids to breathe?”

and this is brilliant:
“Animoto belongs in the classroom as much as Transformers does in an arthouse.”

keep keeping me curious and in-line. your thoughts are much needed.