Blurts

In general, I believe Betsy DeVos is poorly prepared to serve as Secretary of Education and that with the talent available she was a very uninformed pick. However, since such beliefs cannot influence the decisions made or the decision maker, I suppose it useful to understand the DeVos vision.

This article in U.S. News and World Report does a nice job of outlining the DeVos priorities. There is little in this list I regard as unique or dangerous with the exception of the focus on school choice and efficiency in the use of taxpayer resources. These are issues that are certainly worth exploring as policy issues, but the issues can also be very divisive. What do the data suggest about school choice and the consequences to all schools and students involved? What is the relationship between public expenditure and the quality of those attracted to the profession of teaching? Are public expenditures impacting learners in an equitable fashion?

Apple’s new iOS makes creating tutorials on the iPad much easier than had previously been the case. Recording from the screen is a simple process, but there are a couple of tricks that may stump new users. The following video should make things easier.

Twitter experimenting with a possible expansion of its tweet character limit has brought some interesting reactions. Some suggest that this would be a mistake and ruin the Twitter experience (e.g., innovation and tech today).

I am a supporter of the proposed expansion to 280 characters. I base this on two observations:

1. Twitter is often used for purposes for which it is not well suited. I see Twitter chats as frequently lacking substance and quite inefficient for the time expended (my analysis). Expanding the potential length of a tweet would allow participants to explain themselves in greater depth.
2. I don’t experience annoyance others must in a scrolling experience. The logic that if you have more to say just author two tweets (see the link above) makes no more sense to me that proposing that if you have little to say just stop when you have said what you are able to express. Of the things that annoy me about the Twitter experience (e.g., autoposting long lists of tweets) and increase my scroll time, I find the length of individual tweets pretty much irrelevant.

There are some options to Twitter that allow great length (e.g., Mastodon). I regard Mastodon as a much better experience, but without the following Twitter has attracted by establishing itself as the big player in the microblog space. Inertia is difficult to overcome when it comes to online services.

I am traveling and I noticed something interesting about the photos I was uploading to Google Photos. I shot the following image with a Sony Nex 6. This is a great small camera that takes very nice photos. When I uploaded images to Photos, I noticed that it was attaching a location to the images. This is pretty much where I was when I took this image. The Sony Nex 6 does not have GPS capabilities. This image is not a landmark Google might be able to identify. How does Google do this? This is not the location from which I uploaded these images. Is it using other images in the sequence it can identify (Castle at Ha Ha Tanka) to assign a location?

Homework seems to be a popular topic among educators posting online. I get it – students would rather not do homework and educators would rather not spend the time to grade and provide feedback. Fact is, learning requires an investment of time expended on a variety of cognitive tasks and this time simply might not be available during school hours. Conclusion – homework plays a useful role in learning.

I would refer educators interested in the logic and research on homework consider the Schwartz, et al chapter on deliberative practice. This is a different kind of book providing what some instructional designers would describe as a job aid. The ABC thing is an organizational feature I find kind of artificial, but the idea is to identify specific learning challenges and what is known about specific tactics that can be applied.

The authors consider homework within the context of deliberative practice. This concept implies a specific type of learning activity and homework may or may not be understood to serve this need.

Deliberate practice involves focusing on what is beyond one’s current skill set rather than just executing what one is already able to do.

I recognize that homework may also be about repetition to develop automaticity. When deliberative practice is the goal, Schwartz and colleagues contend:

Deliberate practice, if done well, requires a degree of concentration that people cannot sustain

Schwartz, Daniel L.; Tsang, Jessica M.; Blair, Kristen P.. The ABCs of How We Learn: 26 Scientifically Proven Approaches, How They Work, and When to Use Them (Kindle Location 842). W. W. Norton & Company.

Without getting into the work done in support of this position (you can read the original using the reference I provide above), the authors suggest that short, but intense engagement is what educators should be assigning to meet the requirements for effective deliberative practice.