competence-ed

On Learning

Fink (2003) suggests learning how to learn comprises three types of activities. First, learning how to be a learner by becoming more competent at the activities such as reading, listening, questioning, and writing that are necessary for success in classrooms. Second, learning how to construct knowledge. This work is facilitated in the conceptual and thematic Read More

competence-ed

Education Cannot Be Engineered

The most flawed educational proposals proceed from the position that education is an engineering problem, and thus we can build educational systems can be built to create systems that produce measurable achievement reliably. For many reasons, those systems that approach all teaching and learning as a recipe that produces learning that can be measured with Read More

competence-ed

An Elevator Pitch on Learning

Humans are learners. Humans are also the products of their environments, and once something from the environment is learned it is very difficult to unlearn it. What you know becomes your ideology which determines, in large part, your cognitive biases, what you “know,” and what you will learn in the future.

competence-ed

#edtech for #edleaders: Passwords

Brute force attacks are one strategy whereby hackers attempt to access systems. A common brute force attack is to attempt to guess passwords. By requiring users have complex passwords—complexity being defined by length and different types of characters—system administrators can minimize the potential that  brute force attack will guess the password. In the example pictured, Read More

competence-ed

#edtech for #edleaders: End of Life

Several factors make it impossible for commercial software developers to update operating systems and applications indefinitely. Even open-source operating systems and applications that are developed by communities of programmers rather than businesses are usually retired. When software is retired, the publishers no longer release security updates. At that point, responsible IT professionals will upgrade the Read More

competence-ed

Elevator Pitch: Firewalls

Even before computer viruses and network security became a concern, the idea of a firewall was familiar. We construct them to prevent certain unwanted “things” from passing through. The firewall in your car prevents an engine fire from passing into the passenger compartment. In IT systems, firewalls enhance network security by ensuring only certain types Read More