The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was enacted to ensure those who cannot use media (text, audio, and other methods of communicating) have access to the information they need in a format they need. (Of course there are many aspects of life affected by the ADA, but this post focuses on digital media.) Teachers are Read More
Appropriate Proper Reasonable This idea is also the subject of the post Cognitive Load Theory Educators avoid theory whenever they can, and that is an unfortunate stance as a good theory is very useful when we want to understand what we do and why we do it. Cognitive load theory is an excellent example of Read More
A review of The Distracted Mind: Ancient Brains in a High-Tech World by Adam Gazzaley and Larry D. Rosen by Dr. Gary L. Ackerman
Educators import technology expertise from other industries—the individuals who manage your school network and repair malfunctioning computers probably learned their craft in a field other than education. What they learned about keeping devices functioning and providing you with robust and reliable service can be transferred from business or industry into schools. There is an important Read More
When we stop to think about the tools we use in teaching, especially the digital tools that we have today, the question “Do these help us achieve our goal?” arises and appears only incompletely answered. One’s answer to the question depends, of course, on what we believe the goal to be. For me, one who Read More
35: Narcissistic Educators The label “narcissist” has become relevant in the United States in recent weeks and months. I will avoid comment on current events, but I will observe the concept is useful in understanding the actions of some educators. For the professional psychologist familiar with the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, a Read More
153: A Brief Typology of Teaching Perhaps it is the many advertisements that have found there way through my spam filter recently. Perhaps it is that I have been reading (actually browsing) equal amounts of vendor-created content in trade magazines and peer-reviewed book chapters and articles from academic authors. Regardless of the origins, it is Read More
Born Digital: How Children Grow Up in a Digital Age In 2008, John Palfrey and Urs Gasser wrote the first edition of Born Digital. It was one of several books to appear at the time that focused on the nature of “digital generations.” The timing of those books was reasonable as the generations who had never Read More
Greenhow, C., Sonnevend, J., & Agur, C. (Eds.). (2016). Education and social media: Toward a digital future. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Find it on Google Books When new technologies—information technologies—emerge, educators have a very predictable response: They reject it. This is, of course, a quite rational response: Clayton Christensen is well known for describing Read More
© 2016 Dr. Gary L. Ackerman Even through the third decade of the 21st century is quickly approaching, and information technology (IT) is deeply embedded in the lives of our students, many educators are still reluctant to find a role for computers (in all of their variations), digital information, and social media in their classrooms. Read More