21st Century Collaborative

There is no past we can bring back by longing for it. There is only an eternal now that builds and creates out of the past something new and better. – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe This post is inspired by the anger, jealousy, weariness and frustration from educators I have seen and heard lately as [...]

Dear Will, You know better than anyone that I am an optimist. I truly do see possibilities more than problems. Well, I woke up this morning feeling empty. I woke up grieving for children. I blame it on a dream I had. A dream about unhappy students, hundreds of them, shuffling through halls with broken [...]

Cross posted from Conversations from the Edge Series Conversations from the Edge is a series of raw, honest and candid dialogues about education’s shifting learning landscape. Hosted by Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach and Will Richardson. Dear Will, I have been thinking a lot about standards, Common Core, and the dynamic tension education is experiencing between content and [...]

Dear Staff, I have been thinking of you today. Thinking about your various roles within Powerful Learning Practice. Thinking about how I can help you (us) be more passionate about what you (we) do and how I can provide vision, hope, trust and inspiration as the leader of our company. This is “our” company you [...]

Phone rings. It’s Saturday, why are they calling me so early? The dogs decide it is time to get up and start my day anyway. I am up, coffee, walk outside, shiver and decide I will come up to the office and learn something. I open my email and there is a message from Seth [...]

Making a difference… a common phrase used with educators both when considering teaching as a profession and once immersed as a seasoned teacher leader. Most of us really do want to make a difference in the lives of the children we teach. We care about our students- some of us would even say we love [...]

A good friend told me that he heard another friend whining about how he wished educational bloggers would get back to blogging from the heart. It struck a cord with me. While I am anything but a Chicken Soup for the Soul kind of blogger– (more emotion than substance in posts) I do think there [...]

Yesterday was fun. I was asked to be one of the presenters at the TIE/ISTE Leadership Bootcamp. More importantly I was also allowed to be one of the learners. During the facilitated round table discussions we had a process activity that I participated in as a learner. It was a 4 step writing process.  Which [...]

Alec Couros and I were talking the other day and I was reminded of a post I have been wanting to do about deep thinking, sharing and action. We originally connected to talk about a new project PLP is sponsoring, a virtual Institute for Higher Education, which Alec will lead, but it took us awhile [...]

While I am becoming more and more dissatisfied with Delta as my preferred airline because of treatment by most (not all) gate folks and flight attendants, I am finding that I am enjoying the networking opportunities with the folks I meet there more and more. I travel. A lot. Because of that I often get [...]