February 2009
7 posts
Disrupting Class: A Disruptive Educational Pattern...
I’m reading Clayton Christensen’s Disrupting Class, and posting a few of my favorite passages.
From Chapter 4: Disruptively Deploying Computers —
Because most organizations have limits on their resources, they allocate their priority resources to those customers whose business is most critical to their continued prosperity - or, in the language of disruption, they focus...
An Investigation Into Oakland's Public Schools -...
In this video, reporter Jennifer Ward explains how the Oakland Unified School District is implementing a practice of closing down “small” or “underperforming” schools grade by grade. She wants to investigate this issue further, and determine if there might be a better policy for dealing with under-enrollment at local schools.
If you’re in the Bay Area and If...
Taking Care of Business
I love how Jeff Atwood handles those Taking Care of Business type posts.
Preventing BadArgument key_name Errors in App...
A friend of mine was testing out PlopQuiz and reported to me that he wasn’t able to get past account setup. He just kept getting redirected to a 500 status code page.
In the logs, I found this unfamiliar error:
BadArgumentError: Names may not begin with a digit
It turns out that key_name values (indispensible for quick lookups and resilient cross-entity references) can’t begin...
Shovel Ready
The PlopQuiz Origin Story
Last night, President Obama formally announced that because “failure to act could turn a crisis into a catastrophe,” the federal government will finance an economic stimulus plan using of almost one trillion dollars to jumpstart the American economy.
When asked by a member of the press about the need for such a drastic measure, Obama described a dilapidated school he visited in South Carolina,...
A New Way to Watch the Recovery
Earlier today, I received an e-mailed invitation to an economic recovery house meeting. I went to the recovery website and printed out a list of suggested talking points:.
A couple quotes:
ACCOUNTABILITY: The Plan includes unprecedented accountability. All of the information on
investments will be posted on www.recovery.gov so people can make sure their money is spent
quickly and effectively...