Gary Ackerman @garyackerman@qoto.org

If your data sucks, so do your decisions. If you have assessed your data assume it sucks,

Encryption, data masking, and de-identification techniques are vital for protecting data at rest, in transit, and during sharing.

If this is all foreign, please do not call yourself "data-driven."

Your answers are fine... but you show you know what you know with your questions.

Instruction is the dominant pedagogy for narcissistic educators, as they see themselves as the experts with the only correct approach.

Competent individuals are seen as a threat and are often disempowered, diffused, or deflected by narcissistic leaders.

Narcissistic educators form cliques that reinforce their sense of self-importance, but these groups dissolve quickly when they turn on each other.

“The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool.”
― Richard P. Feynman

A lack of trust between faculty and IT can harm the entire institution. IT leaders need to ensure their staff are responsive to educators' needs.

Saying "no" to new hardware and software requests without understanding educators' needs is unacceptable. IT in schools must prioritize supporting teaching and learning... and they must defer to educators as they know it in a way IT does not.

Hey IT: Educators are often excited about new tech tools they see at conferences. But they need support from IT departments to implement them in the classroom. Do you make this reality, or no?

“Wisdom is not a product of schooling but of the lifelong attempt to acquire it.”
― Albert Einstein

“Do you know what we call opinion in the absence of evidence? We call it prejudice.”
― Michael Crichton,

Traditional tests are outdated. They measure memorization, not the higher-order thinking skills needed in today's world.

“AI is transforming assessment and pedagogy, shifting the focus from knowledge transmission to knowledge creation.” Yeah, we have heard this before. New technology hasn’t and won’t cause this shift.

“In my opinion, we don't devote nearly enough scientific research to finding a cure for jerks.”
― Bill Watterson

“So, although we have computers in schools, the key education artifacts are a century and older: the textbook, the lecture, and ephemeral classroom discussion.”

“Knowing” is important in being “smart” but it isn’t sufficient. It is also not necessary to “know” everything before proceeding to the rest of becoming “smart.”

35 years in education led me to conclude tests are not for students. They are of limited value to teachers. They are highly valued by managers and regulators.

“Standard-based” tests were supposed to fix the inequalities inherent in standardized testing. It has not.

I think “identifying misinformation, disinformation, and bullshit (the technician definition)” is more important than “remembering” in our current information landscape.