“No unread messages in conversations or conferences” It was the message, all those years ago, in the world of dialup and text conferencing, that told you it was time to log off and go do something else. “There’s nothing to see here. You’ve already read everything.” There’s no email to read. There are no new posts in the online communities. You’re at the end. No … Continue reading No Unread Messages
Where is the school? The school that empowers our children to create the better world that we have decided to eschew?The school that fosters curious, lifelong learners?The school that invites skepticism and expects students to point out inconsistencies between the things we say and the things we do?The school that embraces Christian values, and Muslim values, and Hindu values, and Jewish values: that taking care … Continue reading Where is the School?
“Has your district implemented any AI literacy materials for staff and/or students?” It’s a reasonable question. I was in a virtual meeting with about 60 other educators earlier this week. We were talking about artificial intelligence, and how schools are working to embrace it, manage it, leverage it, govern it. It’s a working group. We’re trying to figure things out. There are no right answers. … Continue reading AI Literacy
I took an online graduate level course last month. The course was called “AI and Society: Redefining Learning, Work, & Human Potential” and it was offered through an accreddited instution of higher learning. I earned three semester workshop hours, which means that I can use those hours to renew my professional license. If I were a teacher, I could also use those hours for salary … Continue reading Where Credit is Due
Fifteen years ago, I mentioned that my school district was receiving 20,000 email messages per day. That was four times the email volume that we had seen five years prior. At the time, we were switching to Google for email, and we were planning to provide email accounts to students for the first time. That kind of growth is impressive, but it’s not unusual. Nearly … Continue reading The Speeding Up is Slowing Down
Last month, the Beatles won a Grammy award for best rock performance for their song, “Now and Then.” They had also been nominated for record of the year for the same song. The Beatles last performed together on August 29, 1966, and last recorded together on August 20, 1969. This “new” song is built on a demo recorded by John Lennon in 1977, with some … Continue reading Complacent Innovation
Technology makes us stupid. I’ve written about this before. The availability of amazing tools that provide knowlege and organization allows us to stay on the ball without remembering anything. My car knows where I’m going and how to get there. My calendar will tell me what I’m doing this weekend. My phone knows how to contact everyone I care about, so I don’t need to … Continue reading Artificial Words
Last week, this image showed up as a memory online. I tweeted it at the beginning of 2012 with the caption “This might be our nextgen learning / tech planning process.” I remember drawing this. I recall a long conversation with my superintendent about it. Just the two of us, sitting at the table in his office. I wanted to redefine public education. He was … Continue reading The Grand Plan
The FBI is recommending that we stop using text messages. After last week’s reports that Chinese hackers have infiltrated at least eight American telecommunications companies, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency issued recommendations to telcoms to help them secure their infrastructures. For the rest of us, the FBI “warned iPhone and Android users to stop texting and to use an encrypted messaging platform instead.” According … Continue reading Sorta Secure
I was playing with Notebook LM a few weeks ago. This is an AI tool, developed by Google, that is supposed to help people interact with documents and resources. You can give it a bunch of content, and then summarize that content and ask questions about it. It has a cool feature that creates AI-generated audio overviews in a conversational, podcast-like format. So I fed … Continue reading What’s Next?
I don’t know where I learned about the purpose of government. I don’t think it was in high school. While my American History class did a deep dive into information literacy through the lens of primary sources, the motivations of those creating the sources, and the necessity of identifying and accounting for bias, we didn’t get into the big picture of why there’s a government … Continue reading Self-Evident
For the last decade or so, I’ve carried around a little notebook that I refer to as my “think book.” It’s a place to put notes and ideas and observations and connections that I may want to come back to later. This week, I transitioned from volume 9 of the book to volume 10. Whenever I do that, I read through the old book one … Continue reading Odds and Ends
Taste of Tech 