Roy F. McCampbell's Blog

All too often these days, we hear certain buzz words: “personalized learning,” “individualized learning,” “customized learning.” Usually they are used all together, as in “personalized, individualized, customized learning.”

Buyer beware! What these words usually signify is that some corporation is selling a computerized learning program with pre-set questions and answers. The students will click through the questions to find out at what step they are on, until they reach the point where they get the wrong answer. Then the computer will respond with a pre-set instruction about what to do next.

Like everything else in the faux-reform vocabulary, this is the opposite of what is meant by personalized, customized, and individualized. This is mechanized teaching, with nothing individual, personalized, or custom about it. At bottom, the goal is to sell stuff to schools and make money. The hope: computers will replace teachers, won’t ever get a pension or a raise…

In our digital age, we interact with new technologies each day, yet some of us also pine for the past: we cherish handwritten things and value — even fetishize — physical objects. Posts like “Diaries and Connections to the Past” and “Found Objects and Books” reveal a collective nostalgia.

Consider a diary hidden in a shoebox. Postcards from your best friend, traveling around the world. Or a stack of letters from a secret lover. We view messages crafted by hand as more personal and meaningful — check out Cristina Vanko’s handwritten texts as modern-day snail mail. Words from our pens stand the test of time, and are viewed as more intimate — and meant to be shared and carefully considered by you, the reader.

PostSecret: Now on WordPress.com

We’re happy to announce that PostSecret, founded by Frank Warren, has made its home on WordPress.com as one of our newest

Sue Altman of the new and unaccredited EduShyster Academy notes the irony that Microsoft has finally abandoned its stack ranking system but the schools are stuck with it, thanks to the Gates Foundation and its best buddy Arne Duncan.

What is stack ranking?

“Now, after hiring a new HR person, Microsoft is getting rid of the stack rankings—and good riddance. But thanks in no small part to Microsoft founder Bill Gates, our schools are still ruled by an education reform-mindset that’s informed by the same wrong-headed ideas that Microsoft just rejected.

“The belief that punishment motivates people to work better

“The belief that competition is better than collaboration in an organization

“The idea that worth of employees can be measured by ranking them on narrow criteria and that teamwork, innovation, problem solving and communication don’t count towards that criteria”

Now that Microsoft has decided that its players should not compete…

Dear Mouse,

You went to a birthday party today and your father’s report was… well, not great.  It seems you spent most of the time being a barnacle on your daddy’s leg, despite the kind efforts of other kids to get you to play.  In fact, your daddy told me you were pretty unkind to one of the kids, and that hurt my heart a bit.