Gary Ackerman @garyackerman@qoto.org

“Religion is a culture of faith; science is a culture of doubt.”
― Richard P. Feynman

New podcast episode is available
https://bit.ly/3W6DV63

Diverse groups make better decisions. Deal with it.

Human care about the messages, technology does not. The messages “baby is a healthy girl” (with its 22 characters—including spaces) is the same as “grandmother died today” those messages have much different meanings for humans however.

Once we recognize that education is a technology, we must recognize that like all technologies it is not neutral. How it is organized and how students (and teachers and others) experience it exerts real and powerful influences on how humans interact with information and thus with how their brains work.

One of the underlying assumptions about technology is that it makes life easier or more efficient. This turns out to be a false assumption.

“Eliminate the impossible and whatever remained, however improbable, was the truth.”
― Isaac Asimov

Technologies transfer (sometimes). The technologies developed in one area for one population may not be accepted in other populations or have the same result.

The leader is called out for being a poor communicator and not transparent in a high profile situation.

The leader develops a plan and the board "supports the plan."

No one knows the plan. 🤦

What if you data are all invalid. Do you still want to make "data-driven" decisions?

“Nothing goes really to waste if you're determined to learn.”
― Isaac Asimov

The construct and the instrument seem to have converged in education; “performance on the test” is the goal, but there is no agreement that the goal is worthy or measuring what it is designed to measure. This makes “data-driven decision-making” inherently unscientific.

Over my career, I have adopted the role of skeptic. Whenever anything new comes along, I look at it carefully and I must become convinced there is a compelling reason to adopt it. I also, however, turn the same critical eye to my own practices; I seek to convince myself that what I am doing or what I am thinking is really as I perceive it.

It seems counterintuitive that abandoning passwords would make system more secure, but there are reasons why network administrators may choose this options.

"Maybe it will go away" is a strategy leaders employ on occasion. How they act when it doesn't tells you most of what you need to know about them.

Humans like to assign things to categories. Nature does not. The more clearly we understand that, the better decisions we make.

Unless you work in IT, there are no IT emergencies as urgent as phishing attempts suggest,

Students are always learning in you classroom. It may not be what you intend, but they are learning.

The last generation of educators have been trained that the “outcomes” matter. The measurable outcome that will be the indicator of learning is defined and producing it is all that matters. In reality, learning is in the messy thinking, questioning, drafting, and improving that all learners experience.

“Scientists are the destroyers of myths and sometimes the myths they destroy are there own.”
― Charles Darwin