Three types of memories are stored so they can be used later. Procedural memories are largely unconscious and are developed through procedural or statistical learning. Episodic memories encode the details of what happened on particular instances. Important, stressful, or traumatic life events are typically stored in episodic memory, but these memories are not reliable. Semantic Read More
Author: Gary Ackerman
Brain Development
Perhaps one of the most important discoveries of cognitive and learning sciences, and one that contradicts a long-held belief, is that the brain is much more adaptive that was previously thought. When I was a student in the 1980’s, it was believed that brains developed through one’s youth, but that developed slowed in adolescence and Read More
Descriptions of Courses Never Taught
School Technology: A Wicked Problem Description: Schools are becoming technology-rich places, but that technology does not always translate into meaningful experiences for students. This course approaches school technology as a problem that is too poorly understood with blurred boundaries and inaccurate assumptions. Leaders will be introduced to strategies that recognize multiple perspectives on technology, teaching, Read More
On Portfolios
The central feature of every portfolio are the artifacts which are those examples and fragments of work that illustrate the learners’ skills, knowledge, and habits. It is important to note that with some exceptions, artifacts are fragments of work. Rather than including the entire paper, one will include only the abstract or the conclusion, or Read More
Someone Please Call These People and Tell Them it is 2019.
More than 25 years ago, when I first started working with computers in schools in a serious way, we were all trying to learn how these new devices were going to work out. We did not know that we were going to be carrying around the Internet (we didn’t even know about the Internet!) in Read More
A View of Technology
Historians of technology recognize the collection of human technologies includes both hard technologies and soft technologies. Hard technologies include the artifacts—from stone axes to automobiles to computers—that humans have built and that can be held and manipulated. Soft technologies include those practices—from language to banking to computer software—that function as technologies but that cannot actually Read More
The Paradox of Knowledge
We all know “things.” What it means to “know” and “things” are all open to debate, but let’s ignore those debates for a moment, and recognize that some people know more than others about topics. Gary has a degree in technology and spends much time using, thinking about, and troubleshooting and repairing technology systems. Compared Read More
Decision-making and Facts
Research depends on “facts.” In the vernacular, fact typically means information that is true and accurate; implicit also is the assumption that the fact is objectively defined so that every observer will agree on the both reality of the fact and the meaning of the fact. A more sophisticated view of facts recognizes the role Read More
Is Your Data Similar to Research?
“Data driven” or “evidence driven” (as they like to call themselves now) educators and leaders have always sought to co-opt the authority of research. It seems, however, that these leaders and educators lack a consistent and sophisticated understanding of research, and this leads them to use suspect data to support dubious conclusions. A few years Read More
Another Reflection on Leaving Teaching
I recently discovered this draft of a piece I wrote about five years ago. It is still relevant and explains my recent decision to leave teaching. “It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain, but, once conceived, it haunted me day and night.” Those words begin the second paragraph of Edgar Read More