Scott McLeod

Lafayette, Waynesville

Professor. CASTLE Founder. Blogger. On a mission to make school less boring and more relevant for kids. #deeperlearning #4shifts #DLEMS ⚾️ 📷 ✈️ 📚

Articles

Join us for our 2025 Teacher Leader Summit in Denver!

6 days ago | dangerouslyirrelevant.org | Scott McLeod

Colorado educators! (and anyone else within reasonable driving distance… looking at you, Nebraska, Wyoming, Kansas, New Mexico, and maybe Utah and Oklahoma!)We hope that you will join us for our June 2025 Teacher Leader Summit in Denver. On Thursday, June 5, we will be leaning into instructional redesign for deeper learning. On Friday, June 6, we will fold artificial intelligence into the mix. Individuals are invited but teams are encouraged. Register soon!—THURSDAY, JUNE 5.
Managing the visitor experience is no easy task

1 week ago | smokymountainnews.com | Scott McLeod

A huge loggerhead turtle keeps surfacing around the boat, the massive snout poking above the water as she (I imagine here to nest) exhales and then gulps for air while likely feeding in these pristine waters. I can’t concentrate while imagining her journey of a thousand miles back to this nesting site, and her size — these turtles can reach 300 pounds — means she must be 30 or more years old.
The AI vicious cycle (REVISED)

2 weeks ago | dangerouslyirrelevant.org | Scott McLeod

Yesterday James Bedford reached out to me, noting that my AI vicious cycle was very similar to his AI Wheel of Death and asking me to give him proper attribution. Of course I was immediately horrified that I might have misappropriated James’ intellectual property…Here’s the thing: I had never seen James’ image of last September until he sent me a link!I said to James:Thanks for sharing.
The AI vicious cycle

1 month ago | dangerouslyirrelevant.org | Scott McLeod

Hey, y’all, I think I have this whole ‘AI in education’ thing figured out. Am I doing this right?
Stand against partisanship in schools

1 month ago | smokymountainnews.com | Scott McLeod

Since Hurricane Helene and the presidential election, it seems plenty of you have had plenty to say. I wanted to express a sincere thank you to all of those who have submitted and to those of you readers who gained, perhaps, a better sense of how your neighbors feel about what’s going on in this country. Discussion on important issues is a good thing. Keep’em coming. The Jackson County commissioners think helping their local school board get mired in partisan politics is a good thing?
Sara Lev | @mcleod

2 months ago | dangerouslyirrelevant.org | Scott McLeod

[I am reviving the Deserves a Bigger Audience (DABA) feature of this blog and the red megaphone!]I had the chance a couple of weeks ago to finally meet Sara Lev. If you don’t know Sara, she is absolutely incredible. Sara is a current Teacher on Special Assignment (TOSA) and instructional coach – and former Transitional Kindergarten (TK) teacher – at Larchmont Charter School in Los Angeles, California.
Letters reflect engaged community

2 months ago | smokymountainnews.com | Scott McLeod

No matter one’s political persuasion, it seems everyone is paying attention to the disruption that’s happening in Washington, D.C., and then filtering down to local communities. People are observing what’s going on and then taking the time to send us their opinions.
We need a manager for our fantasy baseball league!

Feb 5, 2025 | dangerouslyirrelevant.org | Scott McLeod

Do you love baseball? We lost a manager in our educator fantasy baseball league and need a new one… Details are below. Please get in touch ASAP if you are interested. Rounding for Home is a friendly competitive, weekly head-to-head, fantasy baseball league heading into its fourth year. We use Yahoo! to manage the league and use traditional fantasy baseball statistics (R, HR, RBI, SB, AVG | W, S, K, ERA, WHIP). All managers to date have been P-20 educators.
America’s golden age, or Gilded Age?

Jan 22, 2025 | smokymountainnews.com | Scott McLeod

So many promises I just can’t decide which I’m most excited about. Most people promise the moon, but Trump wants to give us Mars instead, or at least he wants to “plant the Stars and Stripes” on the red planet. And did you see his billionaire bro Elon Musk’s reaction? The man who is supposed to save us billions as a government cost-cutter fist pumped at the Mars declaration, knowing that his Space X company will make many billions to get us there. The irony is too rich to make up.
This January 6, it’s back to the routine

Jan 7, 2025 | smokymountainnews.com | Scott McLeod

It’s a cold 27 degrees with a gusting wind. It was only 4:30 p.m. or thereabouts when l left the office and home is an easy 10- to 12-minute drive. Lori intercepted me by surprise on Ratcliff Cove Road, and I smiled as she gassed her car in behind me. She was coming from Lake Junaluska via Francis Farm Road, myself from downtown Waynesville using Sunnyside and Racoon roads. Her habanero orange Volkswagen bug is easy to spot, as I believe it’s the only one of its kind that calls Haywood County home.