Especially when educators include significant amounts of deeper, active, and authentic activities in their classrooms, there is frequent need for students to be reminded of how to perform certain tasks or to solve particular problems. This need often arises at different times in different students as they study independent inquiries, therefore demand is irregular and Read More
Author: Gary Ackerman
Efficiency of #edtech Repairs
For much of the history of computers in schools, the “timeliness” of repairs was ill-defined and repair deadlines were not critical. When computers were only one or two per classroom and they were only marginally used in the curriculum, a computer being inoperable for a few days or even weeks posed little disruption to students’ Read More
An Example of Data
Data can become evidence only if it is reliable. Reliability is based on the degree to which the same observations can be made under similar circumstances but at different times, and also one the degree to which different measures of the same effect agree. Theory allows managers and leaders to make predictions about what they Read More
Thought on Network Security & Educators
As educational professionals, we have unusual access to computer systems and data. We are likely to be users of many computing devices. At work, you have classroom computers, computer rooms, library computers, and mobile devices that you and those around you use. These are the devices that are most tightly secured. There are sophisticated firewalls, Read More
What Computers Do
Perhaps the most impressive capacities of computers are those related to information manipulation and analysis. Computers can remember with precision and longevity, and computers can follow algorithms at billions of steps per second. The keyboard strokes that become digital displays that humans recognize as words and sentences are actually a series of digital signals. Those Read More
Let’s Diversify Computer Education
40: Let’s Diversify Computer Education | RSS.com I heard through the grapevine—one comprising trusted individuals—that a former student was interviewing for a job as an IT professional. My name came up in their conversations as members of the interview team know me and knew the candidate had been my student. The message I got through Read More
A Secret About Curriculum and a Message for Students
Education is fundamentally an endeavor grounded in guesses. Well, that may be hyperbole, but our curriculum is a guess at what our students may need to know for their future. We really can’t know what they are going to do, how things are going to change, or what we missed that we should have taught. Read More
On Video Editing in Schools
Among many users, multimedia has been replaced with video, so video editing has increased in importance as an education technology in recent years. Whether teachers are creating video to supplement instruction or students are creating video to demonstrate learning or student performances are captured on video, there are situations in which the original footage needs Read More
Elevator Pitch on Wikipedia
Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia that was begun in 2001, had a reputation as an unreliable resource as it is edited by volunteers. Many who were responsible for managing school IT at the time blocked access to it on their internet filters; I was one of those who did. Over time, educators and IT professionals realized Read More
Elevator Pitch on Changing Nature of Education
Education really has changed in recent decades. My reasons for concluding this is true are many, varied, and too complicated to detail here. It is tempting to blame education for the changes in society that we observe, but that will gain us nothing and the blame is not deserved. All schools serve the learners who Read More