Announcing Now You See It in Paperback

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Yen Cheong Associate Director of Digital Media and Publicity yen.cheong@us.penguingroup.com / 212-336-2275 The book that has been starting conversations about how we can change our schools and workplaces to… Read more »

Bow Wave, or The Art of the Interview

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Yesterday Frank Statio interviewed me for his hour-long “Meet” show to air on July 2 on North Carolina NPR (WUNC 91.5 FM). An hour is a lot of air time but Frank is a great interviewer, canny and political and engaged. The hour sailed by. And I was fascinated because we ended up not talking about any of the usual things I’m interviewed about, and a number of interesting connections were made that I’ve not made before. A great interviewer does that, pulling out ideas and words you may not have had before. I asked Frank if he knew when something surprising was about to happen. He called it: Bow Wave.

The Change We Need Now

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What preparation does school give us for handling these new demands, including self-paced ones that require new forms of motivation and self-control?

Marketplace Money This Weekend!

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I was interviewed for Marketplace Money, in a segment that will air this weekend. We talked about all the new ways that new kinds of skills can and should be defined, assessed, and part of digital portfolios since so much of what the 21st century workplace demands is learned outside of school not inside. We also talked about how specious and useless letters of recommendation are becoming (because of fear of libel) and that resumes have become (padding!) and how peer systems, such as those used by Top Coder or Stack Exchange, offer lots more depth, specificity, complexity, detail, nuance . . . I hope you’ll listen to the interview and let me know what you think!

Twenty Doable, Practical, Easy, Self-Indulgent Travel and Jet Lag Tips

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fter giving 63 invited talks or workshops this year for Now You See It, hosted by lovely people in universities, corporations, technology centers, K-12, nonprofits, libraries, and assessment agencies, in the U.S. plus the UK, Hong Kong, and Thailand, there is one question I’m asked more than any other: how do you deal with jet lag? what’s your secret? The fact is, I don’t have any secret, but I have lots of really sensible, practical, self-indulgent advice. Here it goes, with utterly no science but a lot of experience to back it up, in no particular order:

Reverse Applique @alabamachanin: Or, How the Shallow/Distracted/Lonely Pundits Miss the Beauty

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Why do pundits miss so much of what online connection also reveals and makes possible about all the ways we live in this “bazaar” we call life together? I thought about this during an afternoon of handsewing (something I’ve never done before) with Natalie Chanin of @AlabamaChanin. The calm we shared as, so humbly and beautifully, was unforgettable. We took two pieces of cloth, stitched around the stencils, then cut through to reveal the lovely hidden color below: reverse applique. What a metaphor!

Cathy N. Davidson

Cathy N. Davidson

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