Inferential learning requires three distinct, but connected, phases. First, learners build models of situations and systems. This model building brings foundational knowledge togethering a manner that allows learners to make predictions about what will happen in specific situations. This represents deeper learning as the learners must sufficiently understand and generalize what they have learned to Read More
On occasion, one finds a piece of writing that brings captures and consolidates their thinking about important ideas. This post shares such a discovery for me. The concept of design has captured my attention in recent years. Specifically, I have come to understand that planning is an inadequate approach finding solutions—effective solutions—to most problem we Read More
One of the difficult lessons that all teachers face when they first meet a group of students is that not all students arrive with the same motivation, goals, and experiences as the teacher. This is certainly true in liberal arts classrooms and mathematics classrooms, but it is even true in many programs that prepare students Read More
IT professionals know the danger of using computers when logged on with an account that has administrator permissions. When logged on with an administrator account, users have access to controls to change configurations, install software, and manage other users. All of these have potential to be set improperly. Most IT professionals have two accounts; they Read More
Some folks asked me about unions and school IT jobs recently, I thought my response might be a good blog post: Schools tend to be highly unionized organizations. Often, the licensed educators in the school are members of one union (and covered by a different master contract) than non-licensed employees. Many factors affect whether an Read More
187: On Advertisements in School Another overlooked aspect of IT use in schools is students’ exposure to advertisements. Many sources of online information used in schools, including mainstream media and journalism sites, the sites of professional organizations and edited periodicals, and especially social media sites (like YouTube) are funded by advertisements. When students access these Read More
As learners become more skilled at observation, they become more capable of perceiving and interpreting important aspects of situations. When presented with a new situation, strong perceptual learners are able to understand it by attending to important and relevant elements. Those who have more deeply developed perceptual learning will be able to identify relevant patterns Read More
This comes from Technology in Schools: Its Not Like this in Business, the book I recently released under a Creative Commons license. 212; Layers of Educational Technology When looking at information technology in schools, we can break it into five levels (see table 1). As one proceeds from “IT Systems” to “Students and Teachers Using Read More
The concept of the paradigm shift was introduced in the 1960’s and revised in 1970 by Thomas S. Kuhn in his influential book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Kuhn, 1970). Kuhn was the first to publish this account of how knowledge in science advances: Scientists conduct experiments and carry out their observations to study unanswered Read More
All measurements are subject to error; this is well-known to carpenters who “measure twice and cut once,” and it is known to observers of elections in which recounts result in much different returns than the original count. Measurements in schools are subject to error as well. If a student is handed back a quiz with Read More