One of the challenges of being a school technology leader (and probably in other fields as well, but my area of greatest expertise is in education) is what I (and probably others) call “Comfort Zone Technology.” Here is the general situation: A new leader is hired into whatever is their field. It may be in Read More
Author: Gary Ackerman
Your Online Course Is Draining Student Brainpower: Four Simple Fixes from Learning Science
150: Spinning Up Distance Learning Classes Quickly I uploaded the syllabus for a course I planned, but never taught, to NotebookLM which generated this post Introduction: The Challenge of the “Empty Classroom” If you’re an educator, you’re likely familiar with this scenario: you’re handed an empty digital “course shell” in your learning management system and Read More
Statistics
An AI-generated podcast I generated based on items I had prepared for a workforce development course in data analytics. Statistics
Supporting Education in Rural Schools With Open Source Technology
I’m messing around with rehashing my old writing with AI… here is an example from a chapter I wrote several years ago. In the chapter, I described several projects in which we supported education in rural areas using open source technology. Rural educators and school leaders face an often-exacerbated set of challenges, including limited financial Read More
On the (Limited) Value of “Big Idea” People
A colleague recently arrived at my door with a “great idea.” I listened patiently and finally told him “sure, that sounds like a good idea. I think your first step would be to….” He interrupted me to say, “I thought you would do that. I’m more of a ‘big idea’ person. You know, I come Read More
Open Source Technology
I’m messing around with rehashing my old writing with AI… here is an example from a chapter I wrote several years ago Open-source technology is defined by its dimensions of transparency and freedom. This type of software is produced by a growing community and has begun to compete with and complement commercial products in both Read More
The Challenges of Rural Education
148: The Challenges of Rural Education I’m messing around with rehashing my old writing with AI… here is an example from a chapter I wrote several years ago The challenges faced by rural educational communities are unique and often exacerbated by factors related to demographics, resources, and geography. School leaders in these areas must navigate Read More
Supporting New Teachers with Open Source Technology
I’m messing around with rehashing my old writing with AI… here is an example from a chapter I wrote several years ago Educational environments today demand that teachers constantly evolve their curriculum to reflect rapidly changing content expectations and new discoveries from the learning sciences. For educators who are developing previously untaught curricula or using Read More
Gathering Organizational Intelligence for Network Security
a post for network security students At its core, intelligence gathering supports the broader objective of evaluating security risks. A robust cybersecurity program rests on a thorough understanding of the technology environment and the external threats it faces. Recall that risk exists only when both a threat and a corresponding vulnerability are present. Intelligence gathering Read More
AWS: Autoscaling and Monitoring
AWS: Autoscaling and Monitoring For anyone preparing for the AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner exam, understanding the core benefits of cloud computing—namely elasticity, high availability, and cost optimization—is critical. Nothing embodies these principles more directly than AWS Auto Scaling and Amazon CloudWatch. Imagine running a popular e-commerce website. On a normal Tuesday, traffic is steady. On Read More