Gary Ackerman @garyackerman@qoto.org

During and open forum on campus for candidates to fill the position when your boss retires. Some folks make statements about your office and team that are misleading or false. What do you do?

"Believe users, but distrust their troubleshootiung." This is great advice for IT folks.

Oh, no, I do understand accurately what you are saying, I just realize it is illogical and contrary to what we have observed.

Yes, I am a skeptic, but I recognize evidence when I see it.

“I um... err... huh?”

This is sometimes the most insightful response.

Things can be clearly categorized… until you get closer to the extremes… then you find “what counts?” cannot be answered.

Maybe Zevon’s “I Was in the House When the House Burned Down” does not describe the 2020’s to the degree I thought it did.

“Generative AI takes scissors to the web of pedagogy, teaching, and assessment in which faculty have created their courses.” Yup, pretty much.

Yeah… no… when we are critical, we evaluate the quality of ideas. That does require the thinker to adopt different points of view. While this is rejected by some, it is an essential aspect of being a critical thinker.

Can we at least agree that a white paper prepared by the #edtech vendor is *not* “data that it works?”

“Quality” is manufacturing is delivering “what the customer wants” which is defined clearly and objectively. Such clarity and objectivity is not possible in #education and (I expect) some other fields.

One thing I learned during 35+ years in education: Occam’s Razor is seldom applied when addressing school problems.

an flag be anything other than divisive? I mean their purpose is to know how to find friends or enemies.

Research starts with a question. If no one knows the answer to it, then it might be interesting research.

Controlled experiments are fine, but give me a good meta analysis if you want me to take you seriously.

I must be a cynic, because I always assume the “free” stuff is just items that could not be sold. (Open source software and OER resources excepted.)

an flag be anything other than divisive? I mean their purpose is to know how to find friends or enemies.

Do you think everyone should think/ act/ believe the way you do? If “yes,” then you were indoctrinated and want others to be. If “no,” then whatever you do is not indoctrination.

What are we working towards? Why are we doing it?

These questions are key to education planning.

One thing I learned during 35+ years in education: the philanthropists who have come to save the school are always wrong.