Gary Ackerman @garyackerman@qoto.org

Every decision made and every action taken by IT professionals (regardless of their role) affects end users either directly (by providing troubleshooting, training, and other support) or indirectly (by installing and configuring systems and interfaces).

Tacit knowledge is necessary to frame a problem, to develop a strategy for solving it, and to predict and evaluate the outcomes of solution. These are too valuable to ignore in schooling.

Standards-based tests are supposed to measure the degree to which students know the materials defined in the curriculum.

Standardized tests measure an individual’s performance on a test compared to other test takers.

Self-testing, in which students reconstruct what they learned previously, improves learning.

“The scientist is not a person who gives the right answers, he's one who asks the right questions.”
― Claude Levi-Strauss

Can educators devise assessments that can predict how students will develop rather than what they did?

“I don't accept the currently fashionable assertion that any view is automatically as worthy of respect as any equal and opposite view."
― Douglas Adams

You ended my free trial. Why am I still getting emails?

Schools have always been places where information is consumed and created. For most of the history of schools, that information was created as physical artifacts (works written on paper, images drawn on paper, songs recorded on tapes, and similar creations).

“Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science.”
― Charles Darwin

Modern digital devices represent extreme aeropagetica. Any of the billions who carry a smart phone can capture an image or video and publish it to a world-wide audience quickly (measured in seconds) and inexpensively (margin cost is near zero).

I've changed my mind. Keep phones away from students during classtime.

Are we getting to the point where jobs will be lost to technology and not replaced?

Privacy is a myth in the digital age. Our data is constantly being harvested and sold without our consent.

“We can judge our progress by the courage of our questions and the depth of our answers, our willingness to embrace what is true rather than what feels good.”
― Carl Sagan

“A reliable way to make people believe in falsehoods is frequent repetition, because familiarity is not easily distinguished from truth."
― Daniel Kahneman

“We are stuck with technology when what we really want is just stuff that works.”
― Douglas Adams

I've been watching hockey on TV lately (my son works for the team). The dead pixels on the screen really look like a puck.

Smartphones are supposed to make life easier, but they often distract us from the present moment. Are we losing our ability to focus? We know adults are losing to ability to focus, children are learning this from their parents.

Innovation is exciting, but we must ensure it doesn’t come at the cost of ethical considerations.