Biologist Stephen Jay Gould was well-known for his insightful essays. In my teens and early twenties, he influenced my thinking as an undergraduate science education major. As I reread his works these years after his death and on the other end of my career, they seem as timely and insightful as they did back then. Read More
In my work with teachers as they begin teaching in virtual spaces, a common reaction from those whose first experiences were disappointing is “they just post silly stuff,” and they contend that students do not engage in academic discussions when online. When pressed to define silly stuff, they suggest using text abbreviations, deviating from the Read More
There can be little question that characteristics of our brains differentiate humans from other creatures. Increasingly, cognitive scientists recognize our brains are designed for the social interactions that have allowed humans to cooperate, and this cooperation has enabled our species to avoid extinction. Cognitive and developmental psychologist Michael Tomasello (2014) described the importance of social Read More
The leaders of almost every school face the same challenging situation: They must create schools that reflect the dominant role of digital IT in society and they must prepare students for that world; but the changing landscape of teaching, inadequate technical expertise, and limited resources are genuine barriers to this work. What we know, how Read More
Conceptual artifacts are ideas that we use in planning, but these are ideas whose definitions never change. We are all familiar with the compromises that we make when planning and decision-making, but when planning is organized around conceptual artifacts, we do not compromise on what we mean. When planning with conceptual artifacts we cannot even Read More
A previous post described educational design research, a method for designing and understanding interventions: Educational Design Research: An Emerging Planning Tool In this post, I continue developing the rationale for using this method. Compared to other planning methods and other methods of gathering data and evidence, educational design research may be perceived as necessitating greater Read More
If information technology is to be used to realize the strategic goal of allowing students to fully participate in the digital world, then it must be appropriately used, properly configured, and reasonably supported. Deficiencies in any of these aspects of technology management are a serious threat to the overall efficacy of the IT managers. To Read More
In the 20th century, life revolved around places; we went to a place called school for education, a place called a store to buy groceries, and a place called a library to borrow books, a place called a theatre to watch movie, and so on. In the 21st century, many of the social and economic Read More
This brief post continues the theme of: Wicked Problems Transparent Taming of Wicked Problems Solving Wicked Problems Wicked Solutions Matter Because education is a wicked technology, it is anticipated that curriculum and instruction designed for 21st century classrooms will be assessed and evaluated using terms such as good or bad, working or dysfunctional, acceptable or Read More
Early in the history of electronic digital computing, computers were large devices that filled rooms. During this phase of their evolution, the calculation to be performed by the computer was hard-wired into the circuits. Changing the calculation required technicians to physically reconfigure the circuits following the direction of the computer engineers. Lohr (2001) observed the Read More