Latest posts
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Expanding Reality: How zSpace and ClassVR Made Me Feel Like a Kid Again
There is a moment at ISTE where the conference stops feeling like professional development and starts feeling like the future arrived early and forgot to send a warning. For me, that moment happened twice on the main expo floor. Once with my hands around a holographic human heart. Once standing in the trenches of World…
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From the Periphery: MYdys; the App That Hands the Text Back
I stopped at this booth for every student I have ever taught with dyslexia. Past and present. The ones who sat in the back and pretended the worksheet was not defeating them. The ones who worked twice as hard as everyone else to produce half as much on paper and knew it. The ones who…
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From the Periphery: Typed by Hand ISTE 2026
Let me tell you about the problem with AI detectors. They are trying to answer the wrong question. Every AI detector on the market: GPTZero, Turnitin, Copyleaks, all of them, asks some version of the same question: does this finished text look like it was written by a human or a machine? They analyze the…
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From the Periphery: DeskPad.ai and the Students Who Stopped Me At ISTE 2026
I was walking through the expo hall at ISTE 2026 when a young man stepped out from a small booth and said something I have rarely heard at a conference before. “Excuse me. I see that you’re a teacher. Can I show you a tool that another student and I built together?” I stopped. I…
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The Best Thing I Found at ISTE 2026 Wasn’t at the Loudest Booth
I have a theory about conferences. The best stuff is never where the speakers are the loudest and the lights are the brightest. I developed this theory the same way I developed my best opinions about food: by ignoring the obvious choices and wandering until something unexpected stopped me cold. I am the person who…
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Who’s Ready to Soak Up the Sun at ISTE 2026 in Orlando?
The laptop, headphones, and portable batteries have been charged. The sunscreen has been forgotten. The kids have been hugged and kissed goodby with the promise of seeing them again in a week. I’m currently in KCI chatting it up with some World Cup fans and some Europeans who’ve traveled here to support their team, and…
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The Grading Trap: Why a 95% Was Never the Problem
On more than one occasion, a student has opened their PowerSchool account, seen their grade, and come to talk with me about it. When I asked what it was, they responded: a 95%. I knew I didn’t turn my poker face on fast enough. This was not the first time, and it will depressingly not…
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Your Body Already Knows What You Think
I want you to try something. Think about a topic you have a strong opinion about. Something you feel clearly and specifically. Not something abstract, something real. A policy, a decision, a choice someone you know made, a position your school or district has taken that you either love or deeply disagree with. Now: stand…
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The Difference Between Tolerating a Perspective and Understanding One
I have spent the better part of my life constructing arguments. Since 1998, policy debate tournaments have been a large part of my life. Argument construction is my identity. Arguments are the air I breathe. Competitive debate does something to rewire the way you think about argumentation and the world that is genuinely difficult to…
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Year Zero: What Happens When a 20-Year Teacher Starts From Scratch?
I have been teaching for almost twenty years. That sentence used to feel like a credential. Lately, it has started to feel like a question. Not in a crisis-of-confidence way, I love this job as much as I ever have, maybe more! But in a genuinely curious way. What would I do differently if I…