Gary Ackerman @garyackerman@qoto.org

“Listening to” and “learning from” are not the same.

If your students do well on tests, but are bored and not curious, have you accomplished anything?

“Education is a big business and it is flooded with entrepreneurs,” is and accurate statement. The most distressing part of this is the active role educators play in nurturing them.

Popular and high-quality are not the same... especially when evaluating information.

As computers become central to learning, everyone involved in IT management must step up to understand the complex services that keep schools running.

Schools aren't homes. Leaders must differentiate between consumer, business, and enterprise networks to manage the complexities of large-scale systems.

Gone are the days when school leaders could ignore the "tech stuff." Understanding IT services is now vital for effective school management and modern teaching.

Protecting school data is a top priority. Devices like the unified threat management appliance guard against malware and hackers, while the gateway connects everyone to the web.

Human interaction is a complex study. We learn to compete and cooperate, lie and cheat, and share and support. These nuances of behavior are part of how we navigate our social world from a young age. #SocialScience #HumanBehavior

Empathy is a deeply rooted skill. We learn to sense others’ states of mind and express sympathy or disgust, acting based on what we sense in our environment and what we learn from others. #Empathy #SocialIntelligence

Beyond physical tools, we build conceptual models to predict the environment. We constantly test these internal models and modify them based on our results to better understand the world around us. #MentalModels #LearningTheory

While we can contemplate alone, humans are much better at constructing and contemplating when we collaborate. Working together significantly enhances our ability to build models of the world
. #Collaboration #Teamwork

What truly sets Homo sapiens apart? Science suggests it comes down to two defining characteristics: we are social creatures and technology-using creatures
. #HomoSapiens #Anthropology

So many “best practices” in #education are undertaken for social conformity and don’t stand up to critical analysis.

“Humans adjust new information to fit what they already know,” but what they “know” is largely based on bias.

The smartest among us realize they know less and less about more and more.

Yeah... teachers... please stop blaming your students... you can’t do that in one breath then complain about the lack of support for your profession in the next.

Peripheral brains are real. Maybe educators will figure that out soon.

A blog post on how we teach computers:
https://www.hackscience.education/on-teaching-computers/
#edtech #education #schools

“You can be A or B, but not both” is an dreadful message, that the recipient too often believes.