In a recent social media interaction, a member of Mastodon challenged my observation that: “The fact a large part of society has been convinced to abandon science with devastating effects is going to be what the early 21st century is known for.” In an interesting thread of replies, the responder made many observations that seemed Read More
Another observation from ca. 2008: 206:On Information For educators, the penetration of computer networks into the classroom has been simultaneously a great advantage and a great distraction. Using media in previous generations, teachers could be sure an editor working within some system of accountability had approved the information, and one could be reasonably sure that Read More
I recently discovered this prargraph that I wrote about 15 years ago. I was prescient: The milieu of information sources is further complicated by the fact that the hardware and software necessary to publish to the Internet is available on even the most modest computer systems in use today, and that connections to the Internet Read More
A fictional story based on true events: Mrs. Smith was hired as a principal in a school enrolling student in grades 5-8. She started a Facebook group for the school and encouraged parents to join in it. The principal’s time on the job was contentious and, in many cases, drama arising from the Facebook group Read More
Seriously teachers. Stop tweeting pictures of students. — Dr. Gary Ackerman (@GaryAckermanPhD) November 11, 2021 I recently had a tweet go “viral” in the non-celebrity sense… something like 80,000 impressions in a day which I attribute to the likes, replies, and retweets. In this post, I dig a little deeper into my rationale for the Read More
Twitter is a method of quickly publishing text, pictures, and video to the Internet. Many educators avoid using Twitter and other social media because of high-profile embarrassments that are reported on a regular basis. Those embarrassments are largely the result of the ease with which one can post information to the Internet. It takes only Read More
Twitter is a method of quickly publishing text, pictures, and video to the Internet. Many educators avoid using Twitter and other social media because of high-profile embarrassments that are reported on a regular basis. Those embarrassments are largely the result of the ease with which one can post information to the Internet. It takes only Read More
When computers arrived on the consumer market, they were tools for programming hobbyists. By the mid-1990’s consumer and educational computers came with Internet protocols and modems as standard parts. As massive numbers of users went online, the Internet was predicted to be “the infinite library.” While traditional publishers moved content online to begin creating this Read More
The dominant information technology has been print for so long that it has been natural for generations of students and teachers to conclude skills using text should be the focus of what we do in schools. Many of today’s educators were adolescents when print still dominated culture, but print is being replaced by digital electronic Read More
So, the word has come out that Google+ will be shutting down. I can’t say this is going to have any affect on my digital life. I have (had) a G+ account, but found little there that wasn’t other places and the community did little to help me (of course, I did little to help Read More