Report cards went out last Friday. In our schools, 17% of our students earned an “A-” in English. What does that mean, exactly? Did 17% of our students learn most (but not all) of the stuff they were supposed to learn? Did 17% of our students turn in most (but not all) of the work that was assigned to them? Did this group of students … Continue reading What Do You Do With a B+ in English?
Artificial Intelligence is here. It’s embedded in the tools we use every day. There’s no practical way to block it in schools, and there’s no reliable method for detecting its use. We know our students are going to use it whether we want them to or not, and we know that there are lots of issues around privacy, safety, ethics, and security that we should … Continue reading What Should We Do About AI?
There are not many transformative technologies. In my role, I’ve become desensitized to the hype of new technologies. Yes, I know. This new shiny thing is going to revolutionize the way we live our lives. It’s going to redefine public education. It will fundamentally change the way humans interact with each other. Sure. But next year, there will be a new shiny thing and we’ll … Continue reading The Fundamental Realities of AI
Last week, I attended an Artificial Intelligence forum sponsored by OhioX and InnovateOhio. The event included a couple demonstrations, including one on how AI can be used for marketing, and one on Microsoft’s approach to AI. But the primary focus of the event was two panel discussions: healthcare and education. The healthcare discussion consisted of representatives from Cleveland Clinic, University Hospital, and Pandata, a company … Continue reading If Only
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. Preamble, United States Constitution The Preamble to the US Constitution defines what the … Continue reading Mission Driven
Here is the question that was put to 113,000 doctors, from border to border and coast to coast: ‘What cigarette do you smoke, doctor?’ Three of America’s leading independent research organizations did the asking. And the brand named most was Camel. Well, doctors like all of us smoke for pleasure. Camel’s rich, full flavor appeals to their taste. And Camel’s cool mildness registers with their … Continue reading Is it Time to Quit Smoking?
We’re not hungry. Over my career, I’ve often used the metaphor of feeding the hungry in my approach to technology use in the classroom. Some teachers and school leaders are eager and ready to try new things. We certainly want to support that. Others are struggling just to keep their heads above water. We need to support them, too, and perhaps through them a lifeline … Continue reading Appetites
The US congress is considering legislation that would ban TikTok in the United States. TikTok is an app that lets people create and share short videos. It’s used almost exclusively on mobile phones, and it includes filters, stickers, sound effects, and lots of other candy to help people easily create and share creative content. In other words, it’s very similar to dozens of other apps. … Continue reading Spies Like Us
Several years ago, we were upgrading our phone system at school. This work involved a much-needed voicemail upgrade, and I was holding up the process. The voicemail software was expensive. I don’t remember the exact cost, but I think it was around $30,000. We needed to sign off on the terms of service — basically click “I agree” to all the legal gobbledygook — so … Continue reading This Software is Provided As-Is
When I was in school, we weren’t allowed to use calculators. We did our calculations by hand. That included long division, and deriving square roots, and looking up logarithms and trig functions in computation tables. It wasn’t until my senior year of high school that my physics teacher said, “you know, you could just use a calculator and save yourself a lot of time.” By … Continue reading Don’t Criticize What You Can’t Understand
A few years ago, MSN fired all of their reporters and replaced them with artificial intelligence. “Reporters” might be the wrong word. MSN didn’t report their own news. They used other news sources, and curated their own news site based on the content that they gathered from other places. They found that this could be done just as easily by software as it can by … Continue reading Did I Really Write This?
I received an email from Santa. It was probably my sophomore year in college, though it might have been a year earlier or later. There was the address in the sender field: SANTA@NPOLE.COM. I don’t remember anything else about the message, but the sender was curious. I had never seen a spoofed email before. This was still years before we started using the word “spam” … Continue reading Bona Fide
Taste of Tech 