Last year, while visiting New Zealand, a dream was born to teach in a Modern Learning Environment (MLE) school. Peggy Sheehy and I visited the Hobsonville Point Secondary School . It was immediately evident that there was something extraordinary about this space, the faculty and the students. A cheerfully dressed gentleman greeted us, introduced himself as Maurie Abraham , and offered to show us around. Maurie explained the school philosophy. He admitted they didn't have all

Trust has been on my mind a lot lately and what it means to trust. I have witnessed several friends unexpectedly lose jobs over the past few years. They erroneously assumed they enjoyed job security after years of dedicated service. The reasons for severance varied but all of my friends harbored feelings of betrayal. Some recovered quickly and secured new jobs, others struggled to find comparable work. Some endured extended periods of unemployment and the loss of insurance an

Time to tackle the two most controversial questions that came out of our discussions at the Minecraft Education Summit in LA. Q4: Is the...

Slowly working my way through the questions raised at #MinecraftLA, but I’ve been putting off answering this query: Q3: Is there a...

What a happy crew participating at the first HackMini held at the Bergen Makespace - May 9, 2015 After a year of plotting – with the...

One of the questions raised at #MinecraftLA Summit was: Q2: When does a game cease to be a game and becomes a tool? Vu Bui, COO of...

Many people speculate that Minecraft will change education. Perhaps. For me, the bigger question is: Will Minecraft change education, or...

I recently had the opportunity to attend the first Minecraft Education Summit sponsored by Microsoft FuseLabs and Connected Camps . A small, but diverse group of stakeholders gathered to look at questions surrounding the use of Minecraft for learning. It generated exhilarating and sometimes tense conversations about Minecraft’s educational use to date as well as recommendations and projections for the path Microsoft should take moving forward. It was fascinating to hear all

Updated April 2026 for clarity. In my last post, Obsession with Assessment , I confessed that I once blurted out in a conference presentation, “I don’t give a shit about assessment. I’m a teacher, I KNOW what learning looks like". To be clear, the entire post was focused solely on standardized testing which is summative assessment. After a friend read that post, he pointed out that my piece was deeply flawed because I was obsessed with assessment… formative assessment that i

When asked about assessment at a conference, my teacher filter failed. What came out of my mouth was shocking, but true.

Two 7th graders admitted they were "playing school" to get into college. They knew the system was broken and played the game anyway.

I never wanted to be a teacher. Growing up dyslexic in 1970s Utah, it was the only option left. Why I stayed is the real story.

What if a national curriculum started with people, not content? An American teacher finds her map.

MLK said education must teach intensive, critical thinking. You can't teach tolerance — students have to live it.

A veteran teacher adopted Minecraft to teach governance. The hardest part? Letting students lead.

Teachers became dungeon masters. 3rd graders governed themselves and solved problems no adult could predict.

What happens when a teacher stops teaching and starts designing space for students to think?

What can we learn from the extraordinary things kids teach themselves outside of school?

How do you teach technology in a world that won't stop changing? You follow the students.

A dyslexic teacher explains why she avoided writing her entire career until something fundamentally shifted.