That Which Gets Attention

Dr. danah boyd has posted a video of her Webstock keynote, which reflects on fear and the attention economy. The three key assertions of danah's talk are: 1. We live in a culture of fear. 2. The attention economy provides fertile ground for the culture of fear. 3. Social media is amping up the attention …

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Evidence of Struggle

Yesterday, Jim Burke began his presentation at NCTE with this slide. I thought- Thanks, Jim. That's exactly what I need, more pressure when it comes to writing. If writing is a public performance of my intelligence, then what does it say for all the times that the page is filled with garbage, or even worse, blank?  …

Terrified and Closer to Joy

On the plane from Boston to Philadelphia this weekend, I had a conversation with an educator seated next to me. At one point, he said he thought many teachers didn’t care about their students. The statement came across as less of an attack than a sort of sad commentary. I volunteered that I thought the …

Work Freedom

"One of the deepest horrors of modern man is to recognize to which which degree that inner fear, to which he doesn't know how to relate, makes a sham out of freedom." -Ivan Illich, The Rivers North of the Future Last October, John Palfrey, former Executive Director of the Berkman Center and one of the …

The Light of Words

"I must say a word about fear. It is life's only true opponent. Only fear can defeat life. It is a clever, treacherous adversary, how well I know. It has no decency, respects no law or convention, shows no mercy. It goes for your weakest spot, which it finds with unnerving ease. It begins in …