Gary Ackerman @garyackerman@qoto.org

Review of Evolutionary Intelligence: How Technology Will Make Us Smarter https://hackscience.net/2024/03/17/review-of-evolutionary-intelligence-how-technology-will-make-us-smarter/

In the best classrooms learning is demonstrated through increased fluidity and flexibility as learners apply their expertise with greater ease and in more situations.

Human brains are born in a state of neoteny; our brains continue to develop long after we are born immersed in a social environment that we call culture.

Can the students produce polished solutions to sophisticated problems?

This is the most important question for me when I teach.

Technologies are not universally valued. We have our preferences, and these seem to be common among our age cohort.

We rarely use knowledge in isolation.

The trick in education is using just the right amount of novelty.

“The fundamental problem of communication is that of reproducing at one point either exactly or approximately a message selected at another point.” -Claude Shannon

In a 1960 paper Joseph Licklider predicted humans would assign computers and humans different tasks. It sure seems we need to keep this in mind in today's genertive AI world.

"Presumably man’s spirit should be elevated if he can better review his shady past and analyze more completely and objectively his present problems." - Vannevar Bush

“Creationists make it sound as though a 'theory' is something you dreamt up after being drunk all night.”
― Isaac Asimov

"Computers are well suited for instructional purposes because they provide a dynamic medium that can not only convey information in visual and auditory forms, but can also flexibly interact with users so as to respond to their actions.” Sure, but we need to design them appropriately.

New technologies are sometimes adopted first by marginalized populations, or for unsavory purposes.

Must the instructor *always* control what students learn abd how they learn it?

Standards and outcomes place a rigid external locus of control on education; the message is, “students shall learn what outsiders determine.”

Elevator Pitch on Digital Equity https://hackscience.net/2024/03/14/elevator-pitch-on-digital-equity/

It appears that our society perceives education as an individual benefit. We encourage youngsters to become educated so they can have a good job, and we burden those who receive greatest education with the greatest debt.

One things I learned during 35 years in education: The most competent people can justify their actions with a well-articulated rationale.

How do you know your leader is a narcissist? Failures are denied. Even when there is strong evidence that the individual narcissist was responsible for bad decisions, they will reinterpret the outcomes in a positive manner.

Educators depend on outside expertise to manage the IT systems, and the management of those systems can sometimes interfere with effective teaching and learning.