Schools have always been information technology-rich places. That makes sense as one of the fundamental purposes of school is to prepare students to use the technology common in the systems they will enter when they leave. When print was the dominant information technology, we used books and other paper-based media in schools and prepared students Read More
Category: Schools
“Pedagogically Mature” Educators
Young educators are enthusiastic. They spend years preparing: They learn the content they will teach, they learn how brains work, they learn pedagogical theory, and they practice various strategies. Of course, the details of what they learn depends on the specific regulatory agencies to which their teacher preparation program reports, but they learn in classrooms Read More
On 1:1 Computing in Schools
In the United States, the Maine Learning Technology Initiative (MLTI) is recognized as the first large-scale effort to provide school-owned computers to students. In 2002, middle school students in the New England state were provided Macintosh laptops. Since then, one-to-one initiatives have been widely adopted. In some schools, students are allowed to take their devices Read More
On Grading on 100-Point Scales
Quantification of knowledge has a dubious history. Stephen Jay Gould’s book The Mismeasure of Man described the disturbing history of intelligence testing in the 20th century, the rocky science upon which it is based, and the on-going unjustified application of it in education and public policy. In this post, I consider the quantification of knowledge Read More
Thinking About Schools
We are working at a moment in history when education is changing. For more than one generation into the 21st century, adults have been trying to figure out how to create schools that reflect the changing society and culture. For those generations, adults have spoken of the need to create “21st century schools.” (I have Read More
Why School?
The purpose of schools may seem obvious, but it is not, and it never really has been. Who teaches? Who is taught? For what purpose are they taught? Schools require resources. We construct special buildings where teaching happens (unless the learners are apprentices who are learning in the workplace). We pay teachers, administrators, and other Read More
On Design in Education
On occasion, one finds a piece of writing that brings captures and consolidates their thinking about important ideas. This post shares such a discovery for me. The concept of design has captured my attention in recent years. Specifically, I have come to understand that planning is an inadequate approach finding solutions—effective solutions—to most problem we Read More
On Unions and School IT
Some folks asked me about unions and school IT jobs recently, I thought my response might be a good blog post: Schools tend to be highly unionized organizations. Often, the licensed educators in the school are members of one union (and covered by a different master contract) than non-licensed employees. Many factors affect whether an Read More
Understand Your IT Users
One of the challenges for designing information technology for school populations is the broad range of skills that users bring to the device. When we build IT for business users, we can usually assume their skills fall within a narrow range. Consider the range of literacy and numeracy skills as well as the physical characteristics Read More
The Concept of School
Stop reading this sentence and picture a school; in your mind enter a classroom where class in underway and look around. See the teachers in the room, see the students, imagine what they are doing. If you didn’t play along with the preceding sentence, recall a movie or television program you watched in which a Read More