Dangerously Irrelevant | @mcleod

I am talking with schools to see how they’re responding in the wake of this global pandemic. I invite you to join me for the Coronavirus Chronicles, a series of 10-minute check-ins with educators all over.

Episode 005 is below. Thank you, Tim Lauer, for sharing how Mabel Rush Elementary School in Newberg, Oregon is adapting to our new challenges and opportunities.

If you and your school(s) would like to be featured in the Coronavirus Chronicles series, get in touch!

See also the complete list of episodes.

I am talking with schools to see how they’re responding in the wake of this global pandemic. I invite you to join me for the Coronavirus Chronicles, a series of 10-minute check-ins with educators all over.

Episode 004 is below. Thank you, Art Fessler, for sharing how Community Consolidated School District 59 in Illinois is adapting to our new challenges and opportunities.

If you and your school(s) would like to be featured in the Coronavirus Chronicles series, get in touch!

See also the complete list of episodes.

I am talking with schools to see how they’re responding in the wake of this global pandemic. I invite you to join me for the Coronavirus Chronicles, a series of 10-minute check-ins with educators all over.

Episode 003 is below. Thank you, Ben Johnson and Tanna Kincaid, for sharing how the Bismarck Public Schools in North Dakota have been adapting to our new reality.

If you and your school(s) would like to be featured in the Coronavirus Chronicles series, get in touch!

See also the complete list of episodes.

I am talking with schools to see how they’re responding in the wake of this global pandemic. I invite you to join me for the Coronavirus Chronicles, a series of 10-minute check-ins with educators all over.

Episode 002 is below. Thank you, Ruth Herrin, for sharing how the American International School of Guangzhou in China has been adapting for the past 8 weeks!

If you and your school(s) would like to be featured in the Coronavirus Chronicles series, get in touch!

See also the complete list of episodes.

Episode 01 of Silver Lining for Learning is now available for viewing. Please visit our website to learn more about this initiative and our chief instigators. We also are looking for guest bloggers.

Next week our guest will be Sugata Mitra!

I thought it would be good to check in with schools and see how they’re responding in the wake of this global pandemic. I invite you to join me for the Coronavirus Chronicles, a series of 10-minute check-ins with educators all over. Episode 001 is below. Thank you, Dr. Andrea Whitmarsh, for sharing how the Greene County Public Schools in Virginia are mobilizing during these early days!

If you and your school(s) would like to be featured in the Coronavirus Chronicles series, get in touch!

See also the complete list of episodes.

Today we start a new adventure!

Dr. Yong Zhao gathered a few of us professor types together last week to brainstorm some ideas around his recent blog post, What if schools are closed for more than a year due to the new coronavirus (COVID-19)? We discussed that this present challenge also is an opportunity to rethink some big ideas around learning, teaching, and schooling. As Dr. Chris Dede noted, there is a potential silver lining in all of this… As a result of that conversation, we decided to launch a new website, Silver Lining for Learning. Over the following weeks and months, look for video conversations, blog posts, and other ideas at this new site.

Video conversations will occur live every Saturday at 5:30pm Eastern (U.S.). Please visit Silver Lining for Learning for further announcements about each weekly discussion.

Our chief instigators are…

• Yong Zhao, @yongzhaoed | Foundation Distinguished Professor, School of Education, University of Kansas; Professor in Educational Leadership, Melbourne Graduate School of Education
• Curt Bonk, @travelinedman | Professor of Instructional Systems Technology, Indiana University
• Chris Dede, @chrs_dede | Timothy E. Wirth Professor in Learning Technologies, Harvard Graduate School of Education
• Scott McLeod, @mcleod | Associate Professor of Educational Leadership, University of Colorado Denver; Founding Director, CASTLE
• Punya Mishra, @punyamishra | Professor and Associate Dean of Scholarship and Innovation, Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College, Arizona State University

We are using the #silverliningforlearning hashtag as well. Hope you will join us for some good conversations!

Books I finished reading (or rereading) in February 2020…

• The MVP Machine: How Baseball’s New Noncomformists Are Using Data to Build Better Players, Ben Lindbergh & Travis Sawchik [baseball]
• The Light of All That Falls, James Islington [fantasy]
• Secondborn, Amy Bartol [fantasy]
• Traitor Born, Amy Bartol [fantasy]
• Rebel Born, Amy Bartol [fantasy]
• How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them, Jason Stanley [political science]
• Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress – and a Plan to Stop It, Lawrence Lessig [political science]

Hope you’re reading something fun too!

A Washington Post article on the recent Iowa Democratic caucus fiasco states:

Every aspect of election administration should be designed around all the ways that we, as humans, fail, and all the ways technology fails us. The system needs to be set up to address the all-too-human challenges of inattention, fatigue, poor training, and even willful neglect. The technology, tools, machines, and systems must match human abilities and limitations. [emphasis added]

This is true for schools too. In what ways do we need to do better with that last sentence??

Image credit: Craters-large, Taylor Herring

Books I finished reading (or rereading) in January 2020…

• You Gotta Have Wa, Robert Whiting [baseball]
• The Apocalypse Troll, David Weber [sci fi]
• Lucifer’s Hammer, Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle [sci fi]
• Building School 2.0: How to Create the Schools We Need, Chris Lehmann and Zac Chase [education]
• The Shadow of What Was Lost, James Islington [fantasy]
• An Echo of Things to Come, James Islington [fantasy]
• Into the Looking Glass, John Ringo [sci fi]
• Our Towns, James Fallows and Deborah Fallows [economic development, sociology]
• Phantom Warrior, Forrest Bryant Johnson [history]

Hope you’re reading something fun too!