Gary Ackerman @garyackerman@qoto.org

One of my summer hobbies (in New England) is reading outside. I’m reading outside today too. Very spring-like November afternoon.

In know educators. You don't want them running your IT.
I know IT. You don't want them running schools.

If you aren't ' collaborating, you are doing it wrong.

Asking questions and understanding the answers are two different things.

Just because Excel suggests 3-D graphs does not mean you should use them.

We have lots of systems to facilitate communication. Communication is a problem in our organization.

This is common. It is not solved with another technology system.

One thing I learned as an IT professional is the best way to get folks to pay attention is to break something.

“That person is really great at x” is often not confirmed by observation.

I travel a stretch of road with multiple low-hanging power lines crossing the road. If flying cars must follow existing roads, then I predict lots of power outages along those roads.

Understanding comes from thinking… actively engaging with ideas. AI may be able to replicate it, but it cannot replace it if it’s a human who seeks to understand.

When I started teaching, there were no locks on school doors. What has changed?

RT Tin Foil Awards: It's interesting when people point out that trust in science is declining, then blame it on scientists and not on the people actively sowing the mistrust to sell you snake oil as an alternative.

I followed lots of folks recently. I’m getting lots of posts in my feed showing students in classrooms. I’m off to unfollow.

Imagine education focused by curiosity, questions, problems. If I could change one thing, it’d be that.

If your data can all be presented in pie charts or bar graphs, I gotta think your presentation was not necessary.

Habituation is real. Change up your routine on occasion. (Yes, I realize all brains do not respond in the same way.)

On Identifying Plants & Technology https://hackscience.net/2023/11/14/on-identifying-plants-technology/

A leader says “I’m going to help you improve communication,” but their writing is ungrammatical and they struggle with coherent sentences when answering questions in public. Do you follow their advice?

Why don’t we just call the false positives of false negatives? Isn’t that more clear than type 1 or type 2 errors?

“X is great.” “X is terrible.” You can’t both be right… unless you are using X for different things.

I’ve worked in education long enough that folks complain how terrible schools are when they are young, then complain schools aren’t like they used to be when they are old.