In locations where computers, laptops, the Internet, handhelds, and related devices have penetrated into the consumer market, ICT has become a transparent part of life making it difficult to perceive its strong sociocultural influences. From inside one of those cultures, we hardly recognize the extent to which ICT changes how businesses buy and sell, performers Read More
Category: Leadership
#edtech for #edleaders: Open to Secure
Technology systems are very valuable. Even a modest system can represent an investment of tens of thousands of dollars for network devices (routers, switches, access points, servers, and similar devices that users never see). The cost of software to keep the devices functioning is frequently thousands of dollars per year as well. Including personnel and Read More
#edtech for #edleaders: Cloud Computing
“Cloud computing” is the vernacular term for computing services that are provided via a World Wide Web interface. As mobile devices have become more popular, cloud computing has become popular as well. Despite the impressive computing capacity that is available in mobile devices, they have less capacity than a laptop or desktop computer with a Read More
Interactions with Leaders
In cleaning out decades’ worth of journals, letters, and reflections including those stored on both bits and bytes, I have identified several types of situations encountered over and over in my professional life. In this post, I describe one of them that I call the “You Had Better Save Yourself.” The title is grounded in Read More
The Nature of Learning and Education Policy
My email response to a leader seems to deserve a place on this blog: The purpose of education is to help people learn. Learning is a natural physiological process of the human brain. Nature, then, defines the rules within which educators (and education policy makers) must play. While it might be convenient for policy makers Read More
Planning and Goals
A short excerpt of a school leader’s comments on goals and the valuable planning methods she had discovered. All of the leaders articulated the expectation that they follow prescribed planning methods. Carol indicated the expectation had been formalized in her school district. “Once the state department of education started taking about SMART goals, we were Read More
Types of Data
Different problems require different methods, and all education researchers must understand the nature of the problems they study and the nature of the methods available so that data can be ethically gathered and reliable conclusions can be drawn. In general, education researchers may use either quantitative research methods or qualitative research methods. Quantitative methods are Read More
Does America Need More Innovators?
This question is addressed in a collection edited by Matthew Wisnioski, Eric S. Hintz and Marie Stettler Kleine that is available from MIT’s Open Press. https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/does-america-need-more-innovators The innovation imperative has been a permanent part of my professional life in education. The motivation to innovate and the practices that were labeled innovative have changed (the innovative Read More
Becoming Educated
As any teacher with more than two years of experience knows, education is an endeavor that is rich with fads. Each year it seems, the initiatives that were held up as “essential to the progress of the school” at the beginning of the previous year are forgotten and at the start of the next school Read More
“You are not being a team player.”
Another in my series of terms education leaders use and the real meaning behind the well-intentioned term. Usage: uttered by one (who either is more powerful or who believes they are more powerful) towards another in an attempt to get the less powerful to go along with a bad idea. Ostensible meaning: we value teamwork Read More