Why Build a Wall?

This is a wall: If your purpose is to protect information, this wall is useful. If your purpose is to make money on the information, this wall is useful. But if your purpose is to share information this wall will keep people out. When we are trying to build a community, even if everyone has […]

Escape Your [Filter] Bubble 10/10

We’re mesmerized by our phones.  It’s  like having a little television set that we can pull out of our pockets, and check into the many dramas unfolding around us whenever we are otherwise unoccupied. Every time we open an app, our content – the information that reaches our eyes – is being controlled by someone else, often […]

Retweet or Share?

Social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook make sharing easy, much easier, in fact, than reading the full content or discovering the real source of the post. An algorithm, which you have no control over, determines what content reaches your eyes. There is no human to complain to when that goes wrong. Facebook makes money through […]

Open Education Leadership

Should education leaders work openly? Is knowledge more rapidly mobilized through the system when leaders work openly? For the purposes of my work, I am considering personal professional openness – the concept of sharing thinking and learning in open spaces, curating resources for others, engaging in open conversations in text or through broadcast technologies like […]

What’s an Education That’s Worth Having?

[In 2014, I wrote a post on technology and pedagogy that was recently circulated on Twitter.  It reminded me that it is time to update the thinking in that post.] Simon Breakspear asked the question, “What is an Education That’s Worth Having?” at #uLead15 three months ago.  The answer is complex, and context driven, but, […]

Intergenerational Digital Literacy

This past week, I read a blog post by Jennifer Casa-Todd: Childrens’ Rights in a Digital World It is based on this UNICEF publication: Childrens’ Rights in the Digital Age This is the quote that first attracted my attention: “… digital literacy across generations..” I immediately thought of Ontario’s Renewed Vision for Education.  “Our children, youth […]