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It was weird walking into DrupalCon in Chicago this week knowing almost nobody. I’m a WordPress guy. I’ve been to dozens of WordCamps. Showing up at DrupalCon felt a little like wearing a visitor’s jersey at a football game — you just hope people are nice about it. They were more than nice. The Drupal community was warm, curious, and way more interested in shared problems than tribal…

I’ve been living in Claude Cowork for the last few weeks. Bringing all the new Connectors, Skills, browser access, and more together feels like seeing into the future. I just wanted to mark this time on this blog, as it feels like a significant shift. As someone who’s always described myself as one of those annoying people who know just enough about ‘code’ to be dangerous but not useful, well,…

Originally posted on TheEdublogger. In the Fall of 2006, just a few weeks after getting married, my wife and I packed two suitcases each and headed to Mexico. We both had found jobs at an English speaking International School. I was to be the only math teacher for grades 10-12, teaching 6 different courses from Algebra I through AP Calculus. If you’ve taught before, you know that 2 or 3 “preps”…

Originally posted on TheEdublogger. Last month, I had the honor of participating in a week-long tour of the education system in Israel. The tour was organized by the non-profit and non-political organization, Vibe Israel. In this post, I hope to summarize the overall experience, including a day-by-day recap of the schools, companies, and people we met. In the coming weeks, look out for…

Originally posted on TheEdublogger. Earlier today I sent an email out to the nearly one million educators on our Edublogs list. The subject line had an oh so embarrassing mistake. Here it is: Your invited! Free course on blogging with students Of course you caught it immediately. I did too, as soon as it landed in my inbox. Unfortunately for me, by that time, there was no way to ‘unsend’.…

In August, Edublogs will be celebrating its tenth anniversary. We’ve been humbled by the user base we’ve amassed over the past decade, including five million blogs across our networks in nearly every country in the world, with almost 100 million unique visitors per month. Our first homepage was all kinds of awful. Along the way, we’ve learned lots about becoming a successful edtech business.…

Looking for a last minute stocking stuffer for your kids? I have a weird idea!

Looking for a last minute stocking stuffer for your kids? Why not give them something that’ll last longer than candy. I just bought my 3 their own domain name. Here’s why: Domains are becoming an important part of digital identity. I see this as a digital investment. They can learn digital skills without even realizing it. We can talk about data ownership and digital footprints. Better than…

As a kid, I dreamt of being the best at something. That didn't happen. And I'm glad.

When I was little, and people asked what I wanted to be when I grew up, I didn’t always have a clear answer. Sometimes, I said I wanted to be a marine biologist, other times a lawyer. But I don’t remember ever saying what I truly wanted to be out loud. Frankly, I used to think about it all the time. I was actually kind of obsessed with it, but the older I get, the more I’m glad that it never…

Finally found a way to log the cities and countries I've visited...

I’ve been incredibly lucky to have been able to travel more than my fair share. I’ve been wanting a way to keep track of all cities/states in the US and countries I’ve visited, and I’ve been annoyed that my Google Maps timeline only goes back to ~2010. However, today I figured out a hack and will share it here! How do I add locations to my Google Maps timeline? If you can remember back to the…

New year, new dog! Challenge accepted.

This post is part of the Bloganuary challenge hosted by WordPress.com. What are your biggest challenges? We lost our 15-year-old family dog in December of 2022. For the past year, our three kids have been begging for a new dog. Truthfully, I’ve really enjoyed the freedom to travel, the lack of pet expenses, and the cleaner house. But for Christmas, we brought home a new puppy that we couldn’t…

I've been playing with Khan Academy's AI. Man I wish it existed when I was a teacher! Here's my review...

Another day, another AI. I’m not yet sold that chat is as good of a user experience as many are making it out to be. This is especially true for teaching and learning — where the best teacher asks good questions. And students often don’t know what they don’t know well enough to ask the right questions. I’ve experimented with using AI as a tutor with Open AI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Bard, Microsoft’s…