120: Red Herrings “Continuous improvement” has been a “thing” for much longer than it has been a “thing.” Leaders and workers, including school leaders and teachers, have spent generations trying to make the systems they use for economic, political, and cultural purposes more efficient and more effective. Today, I spend time with school leaders who Read More
113: What Would Happen If…? The question “what would happen if…?” has focused human inquiry since our species evolved. Those of with a curiosity and the desire to satisfy our curiosity with answers that accurately reflect nature turn to science. Science is based on inquiry that is grounded in observation that is controlled so we Read More
111: Should Educators Judge Initiatives? At several times during my career I have found myself in a rather uncomfortable situation: I was philosophically opposed to initiatives being undertaken by the school leaders. Specific situations I remember include: The decision to replace good middle school practice with a junior high school model; The decision to replace Read More
(Please forgive the male pronouns in this post… the individuals featured in it all identify as male and prefer make pronouns, so I used that convention.) A school leader who is working on his dissertation asked me to give him some feedback on his project. He was defining his research question which focused on Read More
“Data” and “research” have been recurring themes in this blog: The Problem with Data On #Data and the Quality of Data On the Ethics of Data Collection in Education Data versus Evidence This post continues the theme, and is focused on one of the fundamental ideas of those who seek to use “data’ or “evidence” Read More
95: Edtech for #Edleaders: Managing Network Resources Once IT infrastructure has been installed, IT professionals hired by the school adjust the configurations of devices installed by the engineers and technicians so the network is secure, robust and reliable. They configure settings to authenticate users; give them access to servers, printers, and other devices; and adjust Read More
94: Experts and “Expertiness” in Education In the middle of the first decade of the 21st century, an American comedian coined the term “truthiness” to capture an idea that individual or groups held as true although there was little evidence of the truth. That comedian applied this term to political situations and the satire was Read More
99: #Edtech for #Edleaders: Whom to Hire: Technology Integration Specialists For decades, those responsible for organizing and presenting in-service professional development for educators have used a variety of models for providing learning experiences for teachers, and these have been designed to support all aspects of TPCK and to accommodate the needs of individual learners. These Read More
98: Technologies and Structural Deepening When a technology developed for one purpose is applied to another purpose, the receiving technology is said to be structurally deeper as it becomes more complex than it was before the new module was added. Structural deepening can arise from several different causes: Users of a technology will actively seek Read More
96: #Edtech for #Edleaders: Network Planning and Installation An information technology network is much like other technologies as the expertise needed to design and build it is much more specialized and expensive to than the expertise needed to manage and operate it once it exists. Consider how an IT system in a school is similar Read More