Gary Ackerman @garyackerman@qoto.org

If you assume natural selection—evolution—produces perfection, you misunderstand it.

Intelligence depends on how you define it.

No IT professional will be satisfied if their systems are perceived to be difficult to use or ineffective.

After considerable effort and expense to implement solutions, the original problem may remain, or the solution may have caused other problems.

I think there is an instructor who has their students but a copy of my book that is available under Creative Commons. If that is you, thank you.

I used to support students bringing devices into school to be used in lessons. Notice that sentence is in the past tense.

If students use an app on their phone to assist with homework--think graphing calculator --do teachers have an obligation to help them learn how to operate it?

If teaching could be engineered into something we could package and sell, we would have done it by now.

Until it is in the classroom with teachers and students, no one really knows how technology will affect learning.

I saw an IT technician work with a work force development learner dissect a computer that had not been powered on for some years. RAM, hard drive, processor, other bit and pieces were all on the table. They put it back together. It booted! We cheered.

I have found myself teaching more this fall than I have recently. I would return to it full time, but the pay is so abysmal, I will not.

What will we study?
How will students demonstrate their learning?

Students can be trusted to make these decisions more than we allow.

My teachers were experts at dispensing to me the knowledge and skill needed to succeed when information was available in print (a limited medium). I'm convinced teaching has a fundamentally different purpose, but I don't think the practices have changed.

The worst part of using AI to help with your work is that it loses your voice.

The best way to evaluate research or writing (or any other cognitive activity) is by reflecting on questions you have when you leave the work. The works that leave the most interesting questions are the most valuable.

Social media had so much promise, but I've concluded it has failed to live up to it.

While access to IT devices has increased, access to excellent technology-rich curriculum and to the educational benefits of good and well-used technologies is not as widespread as devices are.

Educators are quick to adopt the “precautionary principle;” thus they reason, “Until we are sure this new technology is best, we will continue with what we have been doing.”

New technologies are sometimes adopted first by marginalized populations or for unsavory purposes.

Interesting questions do much more for teaching than clearly articulated learning outcomes.