In this blog, I have reasoned educational technology must be appropriate, proper, and reasonable. As I think about this more, it seems there are three separate and related, but largely independent groups that must give input into the management of information technology in school organizations. Steering Committees are diverse groups comprising representatives from across the Read More
Category: Technology
What Tenner Wrote About Technology
Edward Tenner (1996), who served as the editor for physics and science at Princeton University Press, suggested in many instances, the actual outcomes of technologies are contrary to the intended outcome and even make the original problem worse. Tenner used the term revenge effects to describe the outcomes of technology that are opposite the intended Read More
Thoughts on “Education for Misinformation”
I’ve been kicking around the concept of “red herrings” for a few years, at least since I started to recognize them. I attribute this skill to the habits I developed while a doctoral student, but we all know how “reliable” such stories are about ourselves. For me, red herrings always appeared in our school structures, Read More
Yeah, I’m Not a Conspiracy Theorist, but…
Last week, one of my wife’s colleagues had a medical emergency. It is a rather rare condition and she was asking me what I know about it (noting really), so I said it a few times as I through what it might be from the words in the title. When I started typing it into Google for a search to Read More
On Ethics in #edtech
In the recent move to remote teaching, the interest in and “need” for online proctoring of tests students complete at a distance has come to the front of many educators’ and instructional leaders’ attention. increasingly, as well, this discussion focuses on the question “Should we use these tools?” Personally, I see little value in these Read More
Minds Online: Teaching Effectively with Technology
For all of the rhetoric around being data driven for the last few decades, educators are generally woeful users of data when it comes to making classroom decisions. In my opinion, this is due to the fact that data (quantitative date that is) can only be meaningfully be applied to large data set. We might Read More
Small Teaching Online
The stream of “how to teach online” books and materials to support those faculty who are teaching online. I enjoy these. They are increasingly aligned with what we know about learning (and we know much more than my teachers did… we know more than any teachers did even 10 years ago). One of the great Read More
Lessons from Remote Teaching
In the months since “remote” teaching became a “thing,” the tension between educators and technology professionals seems to have become more obvious. I believe this arises in port form the fact that many who were successfully avoiding technology in their teaching no longer have that option. This hassled me to revisit the “technology planning cycle” Read More
A Teacher Enters #edtech
In the time between when I left high school (in 1983) and I entered the classroom as a teacher (in 1988), computers entered schools in a serious way. Whereas my high school had a small computer room for students to use (I recall four computers in the room which was a converted storage room), my Read More
Proprietary File Formats… Can We Just Stop?
Spoiler alert: This is the rant of someone who is ticked off at a sub set of the individuals in his profession right now. Faculty are in the business of helping students make sense of information and ideas and procedures. This requires they communicate, and we communicate today with files we create on word processors Read More