A good online course will be complete (the syllabus will include everthing that it should), clear (well-organized and accessible to students), and allow for connections (between students and content and teacher and the world beyond the course). Such courses are designed through three iterative processes: First, the outcomes and products are designed to ensure it is clear what students will learn Read More
School has been a social institution for centuries. The purpose of school, the nature of the curriculum, the role of the experts who operate school and teach in school, and the people enrolled as students are variables that change to reflect the dominant culture. In many cases, these factors are explicit and accepted by all Read More
I have addressed the problem of cold closure in this blog before, but I still see it happening… and it is still a drain on educational technology resources. Just like good stories, good technology support has a beginning (when the problem is reported to the appropriate technician or trainer), middle (when the problem is solved), Read More
Computers break; they break frequently. Timely repairs of IT systems are essential in schools. For much of the history of computers in schools, the “timeliness” of repairs was ill-defined and not critical. The strategic goal of schools is ostensibly to “help students learn to consume and create information.” When most information was created and consumed Read More
Forgive the deviation… this is not a post about technology or teaching. Forgive, as well, the seeming “fuddyduddiness” of this post. Can we please start using “myself” in the right way? I have pretty much given up hope of hearing the correct use of “me” and “I.” I accept the fact that people will say, Read More
School and technology planners must answer three questions: “What are we doing?” “Why are we doing it?” and “How shall we do it?” Planners typically address those questions in the order written. The “what” question has greatest urgency as it determines the actions that will be taken by technicians and teachers, thus the experiences of Read More
The idea of deeper learning has been kicking around for a couple of decades. Various authors and groups have presented their version. Here is one that I have discovered in some past writing: Collen Carmean and Jeremy Haefner (2002), scholars from the western United States, suggested that curriculum and instruction in the 21st century will Read More
The rationale to approach the curriculum as integrated content is grounded in the observation that few problems encountered—and little of the information use in—the real-world conforms to the boundaries that delimit subjects in schools. Herrenkohl and Polman (2018) reason, “people do not experience the world from a singular disciplinary perspective” (p. 108), and they conclude Read More
Psychologists and others who study multitasking and its effects on human attention, learning, and cognition have yet to decide if the effects are “good” or “bad.” Much of the difficulty comes from the differences between the observations made in the highly controlled environments of the laboratory and the observations that are made in the real Read More
143: The Paradox of Moving Goals Goals seem a natural part of human organizations and design; we define what we want, then take steps to achieve what we want. Those who have been involved with defining or achieving goals are likely familiar with the phenomenon of “moving goals.” We observe this when a goal is Read More