Gary Ackerman @garyackerman@qoto.org

Stuart Russell warns that we "had better be quite sure that the purpose put into the machine is the purpose which we really desire" to avoid superintelligent AI conflicting with human objectives.

"Education, therefore, is a process of living and not a preparation for future living."
--John Dewey

Technology has been slow to transform classrooms, but digital networks today are different; they're widely adopted for official purposes, interaction, and content creation, unlike earlier electronic media! #EdTech #DigitalTransformation

Plato criticized writing, seeing it as "an elixir not of memory, but of reminding" that offered the "appearance of wisdom, not true wisdom". This ancient debate on technology's impact still resonates today. #EdTech #Plato #Writing

School leaders: Understanding basic technology like IP addresses is vital for informed conversations with your IT professionals! It helps you grasp the tech that's crucial to your schools. #EdtechForLeaders #TechLiteracy

It's important to note that scaffolding is not simply dispensing correct answers or using behaviorist reward/punishment systems. Instead, it's about interactive dialogue and support that truly guides the learning process. #TeachingPhilosophy #Scaffolding

Facial recognition tech is quietly entering schools for campus security, automated attendance, and even student emotion detection. Seen as routine, but experts warn it could make schools more authoritarian & oppressive. #EdTech #SchoolSurveillance

Multiple-choice prequestions are often found to produce both specific and general benefits. This is because considering all answer options encourages a broader focus on related information during learning.

Measuring human intelligence is a complex endeavor, and the measurement of artificial intelligence is still in its nascent stages. Comparisons between human and AI intelligence often rely on evaluating AI's performance against a few human experts. #IntelligenceMeasurement #AIResearch

That which is most important in #education does not appear in your data.

Anyone noticing the “it’s in the syllabus” crowd are also the instructors who send an email asking for help in how to do what is in the “remote teaching toolkit” the dean told them to use? #education #teachers #highschool #highereducation

The "darker impacts" of LLMs: Half of users (50%) have felt lazy or taken a too-easy shortcut, and 35% have felt like they were cheating when using LLMs. #AIDilemmas #UserImpact

Half of American adults now use AI large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Copilot. This marks one of the fastest tech adoption rates in history. #AI #LLMs #TechAdoption

A brief blog post on how technology affects organizations, especially schools now with audio:
https://hackscience.education/2018/07/31/technologies-and-structural-deepening/

A blog post with a rationale for technology integration specialists, written for school leaders:
https://hackscience.education/2018/08/01/edtech-for-edleaders-whom-to-hire-technology-integration-specialists/

A blog post on an article that has informed my thinking about graded for a long time:
https://hackscience.education/2025/07/06/the_deceptive_simplicity_of_percentages/

Social scaffolding involves dynamic interaction and dialogue between students and teachers, or between peers. This includes coaching, guidance, questions, clarifications, and answers, fostering a collaborative learning environment. #CollaborativeLearning #EdChat

"Big idea" leaders often find they can't get folks to follow along. That's because those of us who can implement ideas are too busy with our own ideas.

For scaffolding to be effective, learners need a sense of the entire task or solution they are working towards. Scaffolds have little impact when skills are taught in isolation. #TeachingTips #StudentSuccess

While flexible for small data, spreadsheets can be challenged by formal business needs. When data access grows or a centralized store is needed, organizations often transition from spreadsheets to relational databases. #DataManagement #BusinessAnalytics