Gary Ackerman @garyackerman@qoto.org

Small changes are fine, necessary, and worthy.

At some point, however, we do get to the point where quantum and irreversible changes occur in the organization or your practice.

Things fundamentally change. You are doing something different, and there is no going back.

When I was an undergraduate student doing botany research, we realized our measurements were proxies for something else. They were not reified in our minds. One thing that drive me out of k-12 teaching in the US, was the fact that test scores had become reified. #edutooter #edutoot #education

It never ceases to amaze me to observe two or more people discussing “learning” and seeing they each have vastly different concepts of it but no one realizes it, yet they argue on. #EduTooter #education #teaching #learning

In the USA, those of us who understand and can calculate fractions only have another 24 hours or so of halving and doubling recipe ingredients for those who refuse to use the metric system because “it’s too hard.”

Do web services improve the efficiency and effectiveness of instruction and school operation?

- Provide email and similar messaging services
- Maintain an active and up-to-date web and social media presence
- Ensure classroom information, resources, and interaction is available on the web
- Have a library with appropriate digital materials
- Ensure and improve accessibility and mobile compatibility of web services
- Use the web to facilitate purchasing, permissions, and similar administrative tasks

#edutoot

Two questions to ask about #school #IT #education #edutoot

Are there sufficient computing devices available in the school?

- Enough devices so teachers’ decisions are not limited
- Enough capacity that students can create products teachers deem appropriate
- Methods to easily share limited resources

Is the school’s information technology network reliable, robust, and secure?
- Allows all devices to connect without delay
- Has no latency
- Protects data and systems from threats

Averaging is about the worst way to report learning.

As they collaborate to make decisions about what technology to install and how to manage it, school and technology leaders must share understanding of three ideas.

First, the systems must be sufficiently secure to remain functional and reliable, but open enough to allow for the functions educators deem necessary.

Second, to accomplish secure yet flexible systems, educators and technicians must engage in an on-going process to improve technology systems.

Third, all stakeholders must recognize the complex nature of the enterprise networks in schools.

If your answer doesn’t start with “that depends” or you stating off to think, I’m probably not too interested in your answer.

So many who argue “it will motivate them” do not understand motivation nor do they understand the individuals who comprise them.

When the consequences or rewards don’t work, don’t look for effective ones, look for a different theory.

Some things we do are so clearly effective that the research hasn’t bothered to demonstrate it… or the obviously faulty research found that it wasn’t effective… so we have to create the data ourselves. The benefit of this version of research is you always prove you are right.

Now, the problem is lots of folks in education (none of whom are here on this platform) will not see the sarcasm I intended.

When I started my career, the answer was always “restart the computer.” Now it is “change the sharing settings.”

One event isn’t a trend. Two aren’t either. Once you get to three, you can start being curious… but get some math to back up your argument if you start claiming a trend.

Why Use Digital Tools in Classrooms?

Complex ideas that are difficult to understand can be illustrated with digital tools. Regression lines are an excellent example. With analog information technology, students must draw “best fit” lines through data sets once they are plotted on graphs (typically paper graphs drawn by students after many minutes of effort). If the graph is drawn with a spreadsheet, however, a regression line can be added to the graph and it changes as data points are plotted. This technology-mediated manipulation of the data helps many students understand the “best fit” nature of regression line more quickly than reflecting on the slow plotting and permanent drawing of the line on a physical graph.

Objectively measuring the value of anything seems dubious… except maybe money and votes.

“Network analysis”—the integration of more variables into decision-making—creates better decisions than “industry analysis”—decision-making based on recognized variables.

Those subject matters that are so important in school do not exist outside of it.