Hapgood

Mike Caulfield's latest web incarnation. Networked Learning, Open Education, and Online Digital Literacy

Mike Caulfield

  • School Choice, Civics Knowledge, and Fraud

    So that Oklahoma “civics test“” from a couple of months ago? The one that looked fishy to anyone with half a brain? The one where most students couldn’t name the first president, and thought the two parties in the U.S. were Republican and Communist? The one that generated of so much-hand wringing from the Ed… Continue reading

  • Open Google Test

    This is a neat idea — because if you make assessment authentic, courses have to change, of necessity: In Denmark, the government has taken the bold step of allowing pupils full access to the internet during their final school year exams. A total of 14 colleges in Denmark are piloting the new system of exams… Continue reading

  • Abstinence-only Web Education

    So I came up with this term a couple of minutes ago, and was surprised when I Googled it to find it didn’t exist. So here it is. And here is what it expresses — my utter shock that when talking to some otherwise intelligent adults about the fact that we are not educating our… Continue reading

  • Polymath, Blogging, and HE

    I really don’t know what it will take to show higher education how anti-intellectual their dismissal of Web 2.0 has been. But one might think this speech from Fields Medalist Terence Tao might have an effect. Very recently, software tools have become available to allow easier collaboration by large numbers of authors from across the… Continue reading

  • Core Knowledge, Magellan, and the Great Man Theory of History

    I guess in honor of Columbus Day the Core Knowledge Blog has put up a list of questions about the Age of Exploration. The first question is this: 1. Who was the first explorer to circumnavigate the world? The answer they list below is: Ferdinand Magellan This is going to sound like nitpicking, but this… Continue reading

  • Common Core, Bloom’s Taxonomy, and Thinking Historically

    I’ve just read what is hands-down my favorite article this month. It’s so good that I hate to excerpt or summarize it, so please read the whole thing whole thing if you can. Ok, for those of you that don’t take orders well — the core of the article deals with a well-educated AP student… Continue reading

  • NBC + Blackboard makes me want to hurl

    Oh, please make it stop. Check out the newest deal “inked” by Blackboard: Blackboard is providing academic users with access to historical multimedia resources from NBC Learn. The two companies today announced that that they’ve inked a deal to make historical and current events materials from NBC News accessible within the Blackboard Learn platform. Through… Continue reading

  • On the Hanging of Census Workers and Our Education Scapegoats

    The hanging of a census worker is going to be quickly dismissed by the Right as the work of meth-heads or moonshiners. I’m not sure I’d disagree with that analysis. But what it misses is this: all those ACORN workers that the Right has been demeaning over the past weeks? All those census workers that… Continue reading

  • Well, There Goes the “Harlem Miracle”

    David Brooks, last May, on how the “Harlem Miracle” proves that the proles just need more stick and less carrot: To my mind, the results also vindicate an emerging model for low-income students. Over the past decade, dozens of charter and independent schools, like Promise Academy, have become no excuses schools. The basic theory is that… Continue reading

  • Building an IQL Course From the Data Out

    Cross-posted from the new blog you MUST subscribe to — the Keene State CELT blog… I’m meeting with a quite a few people doing interesting things around quantitative literacy, and I can’t help but be amazed with the audacity of what they are attempting. If any of you are reading this post, know that you… Continue reading