I found this when cleaning up files… in the thesis for my master of arts degree. He wrote it in 1980. I wrote my thesis in 2000. It still appears to be an accurate assessment of our situation. Twenty years ago, Papert perceived education to be on the verge of a technologydriven revolution that sounds Read More
I’ve been cleaning out my Google Drive account along with some other older files. I’m trying to reduce both the physical and digital clutter in my places and spaces. Here is an interesting story rescued from that clutter: We have a new fleet of largely dysfunctional computers. Two months ago, the principal invited me to Read More
Computers are excellent at solving problems… that is as long as the problem can be reduced to an algorithm (artificial intelligence researchers are working to change this, but most folks who use computers solve such reduced problems with them). Reduction to an algorithm requires rules to be clearly and completely defined. If the problem reflects Read More
I was recently cleaning out some digital files, and found some materials I had developed for secondary students focusing on Douglas Rushkoff’s 2011 book Program or Be Programmed: Ten Commands for a Digital Age. The work arrived on bookstore shelves a decade ago, but the rules for digital life seem as relevant today as back Read More
While I am a distance learning professional and I spend most of my time working at a computer and encouraging educators to use computers, I am an educator before I am a technologist. Teaching decisions must be made to benefit students. For much of my career, it has been easy for many individual educators to reject all technology-based and distance learning options categorically. They were justified in reasoning they could Read More
A friend and I were recently discussing John Perry Barlow’s “Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace.” Barlow’s ideas resonate with both of us. We were wondering if we (as a culture) had achieved what Barlow had envisioned. We challenged ourselves to compose a brief summary of what we have observed in the last few years. Read More
We all experience circumstances that we know cannot be due to coincidental. We see things on our digital devices that we interpret as evidence our devices are “spying,” as they “know” what we want. I had such an experience earlier this week. I needed an address… a real address where I was sending a piece Read More
The idea of affordances has been used in the last few decades to capture the idea that the environment allows us to do certain things. Some environments afford some actions, other environments afford different actions. In this post, I consider the characteristics of virtual classrooms and what they afford students and teachers. First, technology has Read More
The global computer networks that we have at our finger tips in the third decade of the 21st century have been attributed with creating a “global village,” and that seems a appropriate metaphor as many have had the experience of communicating with individual at the next seat or thousands of miles away using ICT. The Read More
Business and Industry Educational Organizations Competent users(generally adults have the general aptitude and literacy skills necessary for their jobs) Users with emerging competence(especially in primary and elementary schools, many users have emerging skills) Predictable skills(technology planners can be sure they know the skills and competencies of groups in the workforce) Unpredictable skills (planners Read More