In the last year, leaders from several schools reached out to me to provide some advice as they and their technology leaders were managing serious disruptions in service. Some were the result of failed devices, some were the result of misconfigurations, some the result of malware; all were solved and all led me to some Read More
The question “What does it look like when technology is being used effectively in classrooms?” arises often… it has been treated in previous posts on this blog. Here is another version of my answer that is being repurposed for this blog. Effective “Sreeentime” In recent years, it has become clear to me that there are Read More
In many ways, an information technology network is much like other technologies in that the expertise needed to design and build it is much more specialized and expensive than the work of managing and operating a network. Network engineers are the professionals with the greatest understanding of how to design and build robust and secure Read More
When computers arrived on the consumer market, they were tools for programming hobbyists. By the mid-1990’s consumer and educational computers came with Internet protocols and modems as standard parts. As massive numbers of users went online, the Internet was predicted to be “the infinite library.” While traditional publishers moved content online to begin creating this Read More
A colleague has been sharing the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s passphrase generator at recent workshops. The steps and tools they recommend can be used to generate passphrases (as opposed to passwords) that are long… so long they cannot be discovered through “brute force… but they can be easily remembered by humans what create a story to Read More
208: Does #edtech Benefit Students? “Our students need computers, and teachers need to use them.” This idea is expressed by politicians, school leaders, business leaders, community members, technologists, and various other stakeholders. We hear the rhetoric loud and clear, but the critical educator wants an answer to the questions, “Does using computers make a difference? Read More
217: ADA Compliance Educators have had access to productivity suites for generations. In the first few years after computer arrived in schools, we tended to use whatever came installed on the machines that we purchased or that were installed in our classrooms. We had many challenges in those days. Anyone remember the student who arrived Read More
Several years ago, some colleagues created a brochure for faculty in which they described five active learning strategies. These can be used in any classroom to engage students with any content. The work is still available on their website: http://mwcc.edu/wp-content/uploads/blogs.dir/47/files/2012/09/MC081-02_Active-Learning-Strategies.pdf
Two educators I met as they were participants in case studies that crosses my desk recently are adherents to learning styles. This is the widely-held but false belief that individuals have preferred methods of learning. According to this idea, one who is an “auditory learner” will benefit from hearing explanations while “visual learners” will benefit Read More
Technology acceptance is an idea that has recurred in this blog, and with good reason. I have used it as a guiding principle in the design of instructional technology for more than a decade. Specific posts where it is featured are: #edtech for #edleaders: Measuring Technology Acceptance The Application of Technology Acceptance to Educational Design Read More