Gary Ackerman @garyackerman@qoto.org

Educators may see their role as primarily academic, but their learners will never be ready to learn if they do not become advocates for the mental and physical health of their students. "My job is to teach science (or whatever)" is no longer a tenable position.

Learning is the outcome of interaction such as modeling, explaining, asking, coaching, and many other activities that are replicated in good classrooms.

The familiarity that comes from recent experience cannot be confused with better performance. This is especially true when it comes to IT.

In many settings, IT solutions can be engineered and tested for highly predictable uses. In schools, one cannot accurately predict how IT will be used until it is used by students and teachers for educational tasks. Classrooms are places where diverse lessons are taught by diverse teachers to diverse students whose experiences affect how effective a lesson will be.

Most school leaders freely admit they are not “technology people.” While they use technology for their work, they generally have not built a career around using it, studying it, and managing it to the same degree they have other aspects of school operations.

It is entirely possible the skilled IT professional hired to work in a school has never thought about the unique characteristics of IT users in schools or the unique demands placed on the IT they deploy.

IT configuration is also non-neutral. The way the system is configured affects how users log on, which applications and data sources are available, how secure it is, and the degree to which they can use it to support teaching and learning activities and business functions.

IT configuration can be considered neutral. It does not matter the purpose for which the network is used for, the devices are the same and their configuration is the same. When configuring a firewall, an IT professional uses the same commands when they work in a school as when they work in an accounting office.

It Isn’t Your Parents’ #edtech https://hackscience.net/2024/08/27/it-isnt-your-parents-edtech/

When hiring new IT leaders, CEOs must be very cautious of those who intend to replace systems. The existing systems were installed for a reason and the familiarity causes the leader to prefer other systems cause large groups of faculty and staff to prefer the existing systems. Until a leader understands the systems and the many contingencies that affect the total cost of replacement, then they should not be authorized to make significant changes.

The best school technology leaders are the ones who accommodate reasonable requests, so they don’t become “the department of no” by refusing to make the changes or provide the capacity needed by faculty, staff, and students

Elevator Pitch: IT Leadership https://hackscience.net/2024/08/26/elevator-pitch-it-leadership/

“Absolute faith corrupts as absolutely as absolute power.”
― Eric Hoffer

No IT leader wants their systems to be unsatisfactory to users. The reality is they often do not how to prevent that.

“We lie the loudest when we lie to ourselves.”
― Eric Hoffer

Innovation is defined as “doing things differently.” In education, leaders, including technology leaders, must negotiate a balance between existing practices and innovation.

Effective leaders are finding that responding appropriately to emerging technology like generative AI requires a more sophisticated approach to ethics than simply crafting a list of what is acceptable and what is not.

By approaching ethics as a design process, leaders recognize that all decisions are based on incomplete information.

Changing one’s mind is a reasonable and responsible action when dealing with technology.

"The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits."
--Albert Einstein