Last week, I attended my first meeting of a user group for a particular educational platform. In my new position, I was glad to find a cohort of professional who do similar work at similar institutions, using the same software. As a newcomer to the group, I introduced myself to many attendees, gleaned what I Read More
Hegemony is an interesting word. It describes the dominance of one idea (or culture or social group) over another. Users typically adopt a critical tone when using the word; hegemony is established and maintained by imposition. Pedagogy is also an interesting word. It captures the actions taken by a teacher in a classroom, as well Read More
With the growing complexity of the domain of teaching and learning, it is reasonable to conclude that educators will be engaged in increasingly dynamic learning in all aspects of their domain: the content they teach, the natural phenomena surrounding human learning, and the application of technology to curriculum and instruction design. Compared to 20th century Read More
Claude Levi-Strauss (a French anthropologist who died in 2009 less than a month before he turned 101) introduced the term bricoleur to western thinkers to describe a “jackof- all-trades” approach to technology (and other practices). He suggested the term after observing individuals in other cultures who would explore the potential uses of various new tools Read More
I’m reviewing some recent observations I have made of lessons in which technology was used for education. One teachers explained her what she sees when she walks past some classes as they use the new Chromebooks for the math program that is recommended by the school district: You go in and see all of the Read More
I have been talking with teachers about the role of technology in their courses and the changing nature of the schooling experience. This one particular English teacher is realizing the traditional curriculum is no longer sufficient for her students. She described her recent realization: We have to face the fact that things like reading are Read More
In describing education as a social invention, Bruner (1966) suggested each generation of educators engages in a process of revising educational theory and realigning the resulting practice in response to changes in human understanding. Bruner reasoned (a) the need to update education arises from advances in understanding of human growth, development, and learning; (b) advances Read More
My grandfather graduated from the University of Vermont in 1939 and I have some of his textbooks on my bookshelves along with the textbooks I used while an undergraduate student at the same institution 49 years later. The content of the textbooks (we both studied biology) is vastly different, but the literacy skills useful for Read More
I opened a random file on a hard drive I use to store archived files just for the fun of it. I discovered a draft of a piece written about 10 years ago; it contained this account of my entry into computing: As an undergraduate science education major, I concluded that computers were certainly a Read More
In general, humans like to categorize using dichotomies; an object is placed in one group or another. As an undergraduate student preparing to be a science teacher, I classified plants using dichotomous keys for a particular botany class, hours examining specimens (usually alone and with coffee) to decide if each demonstrated a trait described in Read More