Jim McLaughlin's Blog

Keep the faith. That’s what I said to a client who is going through a crisis of confidence. Over the summer he had put together the underpinnings of what on paper looked like a promising growth business. But — as is usually the case — the more he analyzes, the more he doubts; the more… Read more

Online Education published another great infographic! This week, the focus is on the Textbooks of Tomorrow: Digital Textbooks Will Take Off as Print Dwindles. The infographic points out many evident truths about textbooks in education today and the ways that digital technologies provide increased benefits. For starters, an ipad or single laptop is a lot… Read more

What’s the best early childhood combination communities can provide? Until now, research hasn’t had an answer. Although there is a wealth of research on pre-k and on kindergarten, they have been examined mainly in isolation. The Center for Public Education’s new report, “Starting Out Right,” looks at the effect of various combinations of pre-k and… Read more

This was written by James Harvey, executive director of the National Superintendents Roundtable. Harvey, who helped write the seminal 1983 report “A Nation at Risk,” is the author or co-author of four books and dozens of articles on education and has been examining the history of NAEP as part of his doctoral studies at Seattle… Read more

Instead of teaching physics or mathematics as we teach second languages, then blaming the victims for not doing well, and expecting them to internalize the blame (an example of the Stockholm syndrome), why not use physics and mathematics to ask and answer questions about the world? Rather than starting the course with “motion in a… Read more

On the surface, social media and knowledge management (KM) seem very similar. Both involve people using technology to access information. Both require individuals to create information intended for sharing. Both profess to support collaboration. But there’s a big difference. Knowledge management is what company management tells me I need to know, based on what they… Read more