This post is the profile of an “early majority user” (Rogers, 2003). This was a school leader whose work aligned with the characteristics of one at that stage. Our project started with me talking with another curriculum coordinator at one of our regionalmeetings. He was talking about how they were supporting teachers. Teachers were sharing Read More
I recently had a series of conversations with educators about Google. I was anable to point these folks to the specific artcile I read a few years ago in which scholars challenged some of the assumptions we made how Google uses student data. I promised a blog post pointing to it. Here it is! In Read More
One of the biggest differences between working in schools and working in business and industry is the lack of a clear and unambiguous measure of success; in the vernacular, we can say, “schools lack a clear bottom line.” In education, they attempt to use test scores as a bottom line comparable to financial measures in business, but many educators find those to Read More
I once took a stand with a colleague against a program intended to encourage reading. I was responsible for managing the IT in the school along with my teaching duties and she was the school librarian. In this program, students read books, then took computer-based tests on the contents; students were expected to earn a specific number of points by passing tests each marking period. The librarian was frustrated by students asking for books Read More
Today, we’re tackling a big question: What does it mean to be human in an increasingly computerized world? We’ll explore the concept of “AI-Complete” and its impact on society. The term “AI-Complete” refers to problems that are as hard as any problem that AI can solve. In other words, if you can solve an AI-Complete problem, you can theoretically solve Read More
One of my LinkedIn connections liked a post recently. The post can be summarized as “community colleges don’t have a strategy problem; they have an execution problem.” The author details how many of the goals that have been integrated into community college plans in the last decade or so have not resulted in the expected Read More
If you have read recent posts, you will know I have connected with a book written before I was born about the nature of science. In this final post, I continue to reflect on the fact that science depends on two types of knowledge, but that is often ignored in most descriptions of science. Nash Read More
Science is a relatively recent human endeavor. I will state I am unequivocally a fan of science. I studied it seriously as an undergraduate student and investigated various methods of doing it as graduate student. I am ashamed that we have political leaders who bash science, the people who do it, and the lessons we Read More
I’m always interested in the idea of becoming educated. What exactly happens when we have truly learned something? This idea is opposed by other things that we conflate with learning. Inert learning is the opposite of what is learning to me, and we are all familiar with this as we forget what was on the Read More
Imagination is the ability to create “things” when they don’t exist. We envy imagination amongst children, and imaginative play is an activity that early childhood educators confirm is healthy for young children. It so healthy for their cognitive development, they many promote their programs as encouraging it. As children get older, we are less concerned Read More