
I recently attended the annual conference held by NYSCATE, the New York State ISTE affiliate organization. It is a favorite conference of mine, since I served as a board member of that organization for about six years. It is also both comprehensive and progressive in the way of education conferences. As with all education conferences it is easy to…
Continue
Added by Thomas Whitby on November 29, 2018 at 8:00pm —
No Comments
In a recent #Edchat discussion we discussed whether or not schools should encourage teachers to use technology to reach out in communication with parents. I really did not think this would still be a relevant discussion in light of how we have all grown dependent on technology for communication, but evidently there are…
Continue
Added by Thomas Whitby on October 31, 2018 at 8:39am —
No Comments
September 13, 2018 by Tom Whitby @tomwhitby
https://tomwhitby.files.wordpress.com/2018/09/bookkindle.jpeg?w=150 150w,…
Continue
Added by Thomas Whitby on September 13, 2018 at 2:33pm —
No Comments
If a doctor, who is faced with a patient exhibiting multiple symptoms of an unknown disease, were to address each of the symptoms rather than addressing the disease itself, he/she might find the outcome for that patient to be disastrous in the long run. The patient might have had the symptoms lessened, but the disease would eventually win out with a poor outcome for the patient.
Our education system is…
Continue
Added by Thomas Whitby on August 30, 2018 at 1:30pm —
No Comments

I have long been a guest blogger for Edutopia, which has been both a challenge and an honor. I have always found it challenging to be provocative in promoting change in education in a blog post, while remaining positive in tone. That overriding positive tone however is one constant in Edutopia posts that engenders loyalty, trust and a reliance from about a million followers who want to know more about education. To have my work read and appreciated by that vast audience is…
Continue
Added by Thomas Whitby on July 17, 2017 at 9:30am —
No Comments
I recently read yet another article that questioned the effect of using technology in education. I believe it stated that there are 3.6 million educators using edtech as the basis for the post. The post itself was well done, but throughout my reading I was troubled by what defined an edtech-using educator. How is it determined that an educator is truly an edtech user?
I have been in meetings where educators had to fill out questionnaires…
Continue
Added by Thomas Whitby on June 1, 2017 at 11:00am —
1 Comment
I have been writing in social media about education and changes in education for about a decade at this point in time. One of my observations, as I enter discussions with educators in various parts of the country, is that many educators bring up problems within their own districts that were discussed in detail and often resolved in many other districts a number of years ago. There are topics and ideas brought up that social media has introduced, discussed, and developed as…
Continue
Added by Thomas Whitby on April 20, 2017 at 1:35pm —
No Comments

A lingering general question hanging over the heads of all has been what effect does social media have on our society? That answer has never been so evident as it has been today as social media tools have been placed directly in the hands of the President of the United States, as well as foreign operatives. Social media is a very powerful tool that can have a lasting effect on what people do, and how they do it. Placing those social media technology tools in…
Continue
Added by Thomas Whitby on April 20, 2017 at 1:30pm —
No Comments
During a recent snowstorm I found myself perusing a list of recorded television shows on the DVR. While watching an episode of Bull, a show about scientific jury selection, or possibly jury manipulation, there was a term used by Dr. Bull that I had not heard before, “The IKEA Effect”. It was explained by the main character that it was a cognitive bias in which consumers place a disproportionately…
Continue
Added by Thomas Whitby on February 10, 2017 at 8:00pm —
No Comments
View Original Photo
This year I made a few changes to my WordPress Blog site. I removed all of the ads that WordPress placed on it and I now use my name as the domain name to more easily traffic readers to the site. As I did these things at a minimal cost, I questioned whether or not it was worth…
Continue
Added by Thomas Whitby on December 28, 2016 at 9:13pm —
No Comments
The flipped classroom, maker movement, project-based learning, blended learning, student centered learning, hour of code, collaboration, direct instruction, and lecture, there are passionate teacher advocates supporting each of these methods as the best way for kids to learn. I am sure that there are some additional methods or movements that I have not mentioned.
Each of these methods to teach can be effective with many groups…
Continue
Added by Thomas Whitby on December 7, 2016 at 6:30pm —
No Comments
Recently, as I was tweeting about the need for teachers to be more aware of what was going on within their profession an unexpected tweet response came from a connected educator who I greatly respect and hold in high regard. He tweeted that he was tired of the teacher bashing. I was upset for that was the furthest thing from my mind as I tweeted my opinions out.
I have always supported teachers and have a record of doing so during my very public run in social media for the…
Continue
Added by Thomas Whitby on October 11, 2016 at 1:49pm —
No Comments

As a society, we place a premium on innovators and entrepreneurs. They are admired, or for some revered in Business, Politics, and even Education. The reason for that bias is that innovators and entrepreneurs are scarce commodities. Most people are employees and not entrepreneurs. There is nothing wrong with that. Most people follow trends; they don’t start them. There is nothing wrong with that. Few people lead while most…
Continue
Added by Thomas Whitby on August 20, 2016 at 9:55am —
No Comments

I remember way back in the 70’s, I think it was Time magazine that came out with an article listing the most difficult jobs in America. I remember it because at the top of that list was the job of an eighth grade English teacher. Time based its list on the number of decisions an individual had to make on the…
Continue
Added by Thomas Whitby on July 26, 2016 at 2:28pm —
No Comments

Like many people my first foray into the virtual world of connectedness was through Facebook. I connected with family and friends. This led me to consider making some professional connections out of necessity. I began my connected collaboration as an educator over a decade ago. I realized as an adult learner that I learned best through collaboration and that collaboration could only take place if I was in some way connected…
Continue
Added by Thomas Whitby on July 9, 2016 at 4:00pm —
No Comments
One undeniable fact
about teaching is that teachers not only need to be masters of content within their subject area, but they must also be masters of education as a…
Continue
Added by Thomas Whitby on June 4, 2016 at 12:30pm —
No Comments
Over the many years that #Edchat has been engaging educators, one topic that always generates a huge amount of interest, based on comments, is the faculty meeting. Teachers are required to attend the faculty meetings that administrators are required to hold and very few are happy with the results. The only upside is that with each meeting a check may be placed in the box for attending.
Technology may be a way to update the tired model of the faculty meeting. Email for the faculty may…
Continue
Added by Thomas Whitby on September 21, 2015 at 4:33pm —
No Comments
I posed an #Edchat Topic recently based on a number of studies I have been reading about that are claiming millions of dollars are being spent, or wasted, on professional development, while very few teachers are benefitting from it. Again the age-old story of doing things the same old way but expecting different results defeats us as a profession. The method of doing professional development for educators has largely not changed over the…
Continue
Added by Thomas Whitby on September 19, 2015 at 8:01pm —
1 Comment
One Education Twitter chat that precedes all others is #Edchat. It was founded July 30, 2009 and has run continuously ever since. For those who are not Twitter chat savvy, a Twitter chat originally was a discussion that uses a specific hashtag to conduct a real-time chat on a specific subject. Of course education chats are education-specific. Typically, they run about an hour in length and are running on set periodic…
Continue
Added by Thomas Whitby on September 18, 2015 at 1:26pm —
No Comments
We are now better than fifteen years into the 21st Century and educators are still discussing what role technology plays in education. The fact of the matter is no matter what educators, who are mostly products of a 20th Century education, think, our students today will need to be digitally literate in their world in order to survive and thrive. Digital Literacy is a 21st Century skill, but therein lies the rub. Most of our educators have been educated with a…
Continue
Added by Thomas Whitby on September 1, 2015 at 3:06pm —
2 Comments