I’m not sure it is possible to resolve the agony and the ecstasy of Steve Jobs, which is to say the agony and the ecstasy of the interconnected world we live in together and interdependently, in complicated ways that defy the elegant simplicity that defines Apple and defined Steve Jobs.
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There are many, many reasons why we need Internet activism now. Here are seven good ones. You can add your own. These are basically what Howard Rheingold has called “twenty-first century literacies” transformed into activist principles with some real-world examples
Cathy is excited to be traveling to Chicago for a range of speaking engagements. Catch her for a book reading and signing at the Chicago Public Library on Tuesday, October 4 at 6pm…. Read more »
Bubble tests are the wrong answer. The 1914 inventor of the item-response test, Frederick Kelly, recanted this reductive, standardized way of assessment as soon as the national crisis of a teacher shortage during World War I ended. I tell his story in the Washington Post editorial and at greater length in Now You See It. I also tell the story of so many teachers, parents, educators, and others who are working to find a better way to measure achievement. I am confident that, together, we can find much better answers than A, B, C, D, or none of the above.
Cathy spoke to a packed house at CUNY Graduate Humanities Center on Monday, September 13. Thanks to Kandice Chuh for a great action shot! Can you see the gorilla???
Two upcoming events at universities in New York City are free and open to the public. Come on out! Monday, September 12, @CUNY, 6:30pm CUNY Graduate Humanities Center Tuesday, September 13, @NYU, 5pm… Read more »
I am thrilled to be speaking at the Vision and Voices series at USC this Thursday, September 8, at 7pm. The event is free and open to the public with a reception to… Read more »
The point I am making in response to this very long and often exceptionally thoughtful essay by Richtel is that the issue of “technology” is inseparable from all the ways we think, communicate, and interact today. Of course we need to teach kids how to be successful in their world. That also means not “teaching to the test” but working with teachers to teach this technology in the best ways possible. In studying how to do this in the course of my research for Now You See It, some of the most brilliant and inspiring teaching I observed prepared students for technology with things like scissors, construction paper, popsicle sticks. It taught them to think structurally and interactively, not just to Google the right answer. That’s the deal. We are wasting our money and the time our kids spend in school if we just throw a bunch of technology into the classroom without helping them to understand that technology.
Cathy Davidson spoke in the Perkins Library Rare Book Room. View the presentation on the Duke “On Demand” website.
I wish every library and every school adopted this “human library” program. Think of the human resources we could take advantage of! Think about what a great project it would be for kids to be able to nominate a human resource, to pitch the nominee to their fellow students. A beloved grandfather who fought in the Vietnam War. A blind grandmother with stories to tell. A friend down the block from Afghanistan. An entrepreneur who once did jail time and learned, in prison, how to read. Every child knows someone amazing. This could be a no-cost learning opportunity that everyone would learn from. Let’s do it!