Gary Ackerman @garyackerman@qoto.org

Averaging is about the worst way to report learning.

As they collaborate to make decisions about what technology to install and how to manage it, school and technology leaders must share understanding of three ideas.

First, the systems must be sufficiently secure to remain functional and reliable, but open enough to allow for the functions educators deem necessary.

Second, to accomplish secure yet flexible systems, educators and technicians must engage in an on-going process to improve technology systems.

Third, all stakeholders must recognize the complex nature of the enterprise networks in schools.

If your answer doesn’t start with “that depends” or you stating off to think, I’m probably not too interested in your answer.

So many who argue “it will motivate them” do not understand motivation nor do they understand the individuals who comprise them.

When the consequences or rewards don’t work, don’t look for effective ones, look for a different theory.

Some things we do are so clearly effective that the research hasn’t bothered to demonstrate it… or the obviously faulty research found that it wasn’t effective… so we have to create the data ourselves. The benefit of this version of research is you always prove you are right.

Now, the problem is lots of folks in education (none of whom are here on this platform) will not see the sarcasm I intended.

When I started my career, the answer was always “restart the computer.” Now it is “change the sharing settings.”

One event isn’t a trend. Two aren’t either. Once you get to three, you can start being curious… but get some math to back up your argument if you start claiming a trend.

Why Use Digital Tools in Classrooms?

Complex ideas that are difficult to understand can be illustrated with digital tools. Regression lines are an excellent example. With analog information technology, students must draw “best fit” lines through data sets once they are plotted on graphs (typically paper graphs drawn by students after many minutes of effort). If the graph is drawn with a spreadsheet, however, a regression line can be added to the graph and it changes as data points are plotted. This technology-mediated manipulation of the data helps many students understand the “best fit” nature of regression line more quickly than reflecting on the slow plotting and permanent drawing of the line on a physical graph.

Objectively measuring the value of anything seems dubious… except maybe money and votes.

“Network analysis”—the integration of more variables into decision-making—creates better decisions than “industry analysis”—decision-making based on recognized variables.

Those subject matters that are so important in school do not exist outside of it.

“Precise measurements” are not necessarily “scientific.”

“It’s obvious that…” is a sure sign someone is about to say something no one agrees… and nature objects too.

“That OER book is OK, but they need to fix….”

Let me explain how this works.

Punishment isn’t pedagogy.

The fact that as many people need to learn this as I near the end of my career as needed to hear it at the beginning shows how little educators care about research-based methods.

When I no longer cared about grades, I became a straight A student. Unfortunately, it was my in the last half of my undergraduate studies.