Fundamentally, computer networks are simple systems. To build a network, one provides a pathway to move data from one node to another (through electrical signals transmitted over wires or radio signals that travel through the air), gives every node a unique address (so the network “knows” where to deliver packets), and then keeps track of Read More
Several years ago, I was asked to gather some “data” regarding “how our school technology is doing.” I was familiar with technology acceptance model, and intended to ground my answers to the inquiry in data collected with a valid and reliable instrument. Turing to the literature, I found there were instruments for measuring Unified Acceptance of Read More
At its most basic level, the World Wide Web is a collection of servers; these computers are always powered on and connected to the network. Files on a web server are contained in a directory that is configured to allow outside users to read the contents, and the file is read when a visitor uses Read More
In reviewing some data I gathered and prepared for presentation in the last year, I found four factors that were positively associated with the decision to adopt and the decisions to continue to use educational technology once it had been adopted: Improvement: Which was summarized as “the degree to which the planning method solved the Read More
Computers, networks, and mobile devices are deeply embedded in classrooms. Even if we avoid their use in formal lessons, students are going to arrive with the devices in their bags and pockets, and they will use them for research, calculation, writing, and other information tasks. It seems reasonable to expect all instructors to teach, model, Read More
The digital devices we carry in our pockets and that we keep on our desks and in students’ backpacks hold amazing capacity to access and manage and create information. We can download many repetitive cognitive tasks to these devices and they complete in fractions of seconds what took me many minutes to do as a Read More
A liberal arts education, the primary purpose of higher education for many generations, was originally intended to prepare young people to be able to understand complex problems and apply their skills to solving problems in diverse fields. The value of liberal arts education is lost on many stakeholders, including many who advocate for coding, STEM, Read More
Among the studies summarized by Gary Small, a cognitive scientist who works at the University of California Los Angeles, and his co-author Gigi Vorgan in the 2008 book iBrain: Surviving the Technological Modification of the Modern Mind, were several documenting the effects of technologies on human brains. They described research in which scientists measured a 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
Once writing is introduced to a culture, there are recognizable changes in the culture that are attributed to the changed information technology systems, and especially the ability to store information indefinitely. Scholars find evidence of similar changes as writing was introduced to cultures on different continents and in different centuries. Historians Michael Hobart and Zachary Read More