Gary Ackerman @garyackerman@qoto.org

Occam was right.

In drawing parallels between the history of life and the history of societies (including our 21st century society), biologist Geerat Vermeij observed, “the most effective adaptation for dealing with unforeseen circumstances is adaptability”.

I'm old enough to know that any complaints about "the younger generation" we said about the complainers... and the patents of the complainers.

I just realized Banned Book Week just ended in the US. I miss talking about it with students. Especially when I had the children of the families well-known to be covertly attempting to have books removed from local libraries.

It's 2024, certain IT skills must be assumed of you are applying to be an educator:
- Create and manage documents with any productivity suite, including cloud platforms;
- Use email;
- Undertake basic troubleshooting;
- Make informed requests for help.

When properly applied, technology does increase the efficiency and efficacy of tasks thus increasing the effort expectancy, but learning how to perform the task with the technology requires time and effort.

The fact that science changes its mind is exactly why we should follow its advice.

“Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.”
― Isaac Asimov

"If the curriculum is “too easy” or “too hard,” students pay little attention and make little progress. When the curriculum is “just right,” students “get it.”

Political problems are resolved by debate and discussion and, frequently, compromise. Political discussion and debate can be driven entirely by opinion; no participant is compelled to be accurate in the arguments being made and any interpretation of evidence is permitted.

Most "data-driven" leaders are really engaged in political argumentation .

For generations, a fundamental purpose of schools has been to give students experience using the dominant information technology and data sources. When we ban the emergent technologies (most recently this is AI), we are ignoring this important role.

An Experiment with AI https://hackscience.education/2024/10/06/an-experiment-with-ai/

Just because a digital device is observed as part of the lesson, that does not mean that it is being used to affect students’ understanding.

What if technology is helping us do things that don't matter?

One thing I learned during 30 years using, teaching, managing, researching technology... it rarely has the effects you predict.

I paid to attend a conference this fall. Virtual conference and in-person for one price. Turns out, I can't attend the in-person and most of the virtual presenters are not showing up. Guess who won't pay an attendance fee (virtual or in-person) next year.

My professional organization used a new platform to host their conference program this year. it was terrible.

The reason I don't use AI to improve my writing of, say, emails is that no one would believe it came from me were there no typos.

Every group of students is unique, and lessons don’t transfer in the way teachers believe .

The most flawed educational proposals proceed from the position that education is an engineering problem, thus we can build educational systems can be built to create systems that produce measurable achievement reliably.