Occasionally, we hear about a legacy computer system that is in danger of failure and the failure will be disastrous. Calls go out to long-retired programmers who had expertise in the long-abandoned language who make the necessary repairs. I imagine a time soon when similar calls will go out to teachers who remember teaching before Read More
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Prompts for Replies
Students in online courses that include discussions frequently complain the task is a burden, the discussions are disappointing, and they contribute little to their building of new knowledge. Students report that the prompts used to focus discussions can make the board more interesting. If the prompt simply has them restate information from a text, they Read More
On Correct Answers
The multiple-choice question has been a staple of educational assessment for generations and that makes sense. They are easy to create (unless of course we design good ones) and they are easy to administer and to grade. Educators also find they are very comforting. We can have confidence that students who give the correct answer Read More
The Scientific Attitude
“What is science?” Is a question that has held the attention of philosophers for quite some time. At least that is the contention of Lee McIntyre in his 2019 The Scientific Attitude: Defending Science from Denial, Fraud, and Pseudoscience. The author reviews many of the problems in the field including demarcation (how do we clearly Read More
A People’s History of Computing in the United States — Joy Lisi Rankin
Does Silicon Valley deserve all the credit for digital creativity and social media? Joy Rankin questions this triumphalism by revisiting a pre-PC time when schools were not the last stop for mature consumer technologies but flourishing sites of innovative collaboration — when users taught computers and visionaries dreamed of networked access for all. Source: A Read More