When I was a child, I looked forward to our class visits to the library. As a teen, I spent more time than most in the library, but not as much as others. As an undergraduate student who lived off campus, I was very familiar with the library. I spent many days there studying to Read More
Category: Schools
On Standardized Curriculum
Curriculum (what teachers are supposed to teach) is an interesting part of school design. Ostensibly, there are things that each seventh-grade student (for example) should know, but it is very difficult to define “what students should know” outside of the context of school. The statement, “the book is written at and eight grade reading level” Read More
On Frameworks in Course Design
When preparing courses, whether they are planning or designing, instructors make decisions about what to teach, how to teach it, and how to evaluate students’ learning. When teaching for deeper learning, faculty attend to many more aspects of learning than what to tell students and what answers they should recall. The many decisions and the Read More
On Collaboration in IT Planning
Humans have a long history with technology. It is reasonable to conclude that humans and their technologies cannot be separated. Without our tools, our species would not have become the Earth-altering species we have become. When reviewing the history of our technology, we see that information technologies are a relatively recent invention, but for several Read More
Why Testing is Meaningless in Schools
It is widely known inside education (but much less so outside of education), that we really don’t know what to teach or how to measure learning. Educational researchers will dispute this, as they spend their entire careers defining learning and measuring it. In science that is allowed, and we accept the conclusions of studies, but Read More
On Open Resources in Schools
A wide range of expenses consumes educational technology budgets. Very obvious expenses marked the cyclic spending that characterized the first decades of educational computing; computers arrived in boxed, as did software on disks to be inserted into the computers. As networks were installed, expenses became more hidden from users. Servers, routers, and switches (each with Read More
Elevator pitch on gaps in education
Education is a field characterized by gaps: Teachers and school administrators view scholars with suspicion as they believe scholars are disconnected from the realities of the classroom. Scholars are suspicious of teachers and school administrators as they believe educators are unsystematic in their work. Educational theorists advocate for reform of schooling so that students are Read More
On Digital Information in Schools
Schools have always been places where information is consumed and created. For most of the history of schools, that information was created as physical artifacts (works written on paper, images drawn on paper, songs recorded on tapes, and similar creations). Once physical or analog media is created, it must be copied on to bits of Read More
Whose Perspectives Affect School Decision?
It has been observed by many that school decisions tend to be made by those who were successful in school. A positive feed-forward loop has resulted. Individuals who were successful in school become educators and create schools like those they experienced. Another group involved with school decision-making are those who were not successful in school, Read More
On Zeros in Grading
Grades. Formative assessments. Summative assessments. Whatever we call these things, teachers have the responsibility to report the degree to which students have learned what they were supposed to learn. While this seems a straight-forward aspect of the work, it is highly contentious, and different educators have very different perspectives on it. I have addressed this Read More