There is always a gulf between technology providers and users, but the one between schools and edtech is mammoth and frequently peppered with disrespect. Part of the reason for this is that there are key matchmaking roles that are missing in the education sector, as described in my article this week.

Of course we want evidence-based learning, right? Except when educators insist on evidence before trying something different and the evidence is absent, then they're locking themselves into the current paradigm. Absence of evidence shouldn't be treated the same as evidence of negative outcomes.

In my new article I describe the main problems with evidence-based learning (while all the while acknowledging that I'm a scientist who loves evidence!)

1. Most educational evidence is weaker than advertised.

2. Evidence on learning durable skills is largely absent.

3. Insistence on evidence-based learning impedes progress on new skill needs.

I think schools and teachers tend to have precisely the wrong reaction to disruption and disengagement. They clamp down on student agency in the hope that a dutiful classroom learns more. The correct reaction in my view is just the opposite. Disruption is a sign that students don't have enough agency in their learning path. Insistence on dutiful students is inconsistent with the desire to have creative, critically thinking students.

The conversation about AI bias needs to become more nuanced and actionable. A better awareness requires understanding: that ethical bias and math bias aren't the same thing, and AI works through math; that many AI errors aren't due to (math) bias, but rather to another error type, noise; and that bias and noise have different solutions, including ones available to AI users.

I argue that much of what educators tout as constructivist is really something in between knowledge delivery and experiential learning, and that gray zone is where realizations are robbed.

"Funny that it takes something artificial to force us to understand humanness." AI literacy is a dance between two intuitive 'creatures', helped only by the small, conscious piece of our brain. Lasting AI literacy skill is really about understanding our own minds and relating that to our artificial partners.

ADHDs have strengths too, and those align well with the skills needed by AI-compatible workers.

You think student motivation is already bad? What will the uncertainty from AI do? In this article I address the most foundational aspect of schooling. Students must want to learn. What might the possibility of AI job consumption do to that? And how can AI supply part of the remedy?

This Inside Higher Ed opinion article deals with the strategic reality that durable skills must be the highest priority in the AI era (for all education levels), that school paradigms are mismatched to that priority, and that game-based experiential learning, turbo-charged with AI, should be a key transformation tool.

The mantra is "AI won't replace teachers", but is that really true? AI could fill in for gaps in teacher availability, allow underused pedagogies, adapt quickly when instructors are too slow to learn new topics, and potentially shift paradigms of entire educational systems. Whether those impacts result in fewer teachers is a function of complex factors and societal choices.

I am quoted in this SAP.com article touting the potential benefits of game-based tools for assessing and improving workplace intangible skills.

Whether or not your school wants what software companies are selling, you should definitely adopt how complex software is developed-by lots of little steps instead of one giant leap. It's a hedge against uncertainty, and a defense against rapid, uncontrollable change.

Maybe you aren't happy with Silicon Valley. Perhaps you think the world is better off without super-powerful AI. So you've decided to abstain. Think again. Being informed about AI is a prerequisite to joining the societal conversation, or the one in your organization.

Think you or AI can catch your students cheating? That’s not likely, and it’s a time-consuming distraction from what’s needed—changing the way you teach.

There is a branch of AI chatbot misinformation that says it just parrots people, or that it doesn't 'know' anything. This is usually followed by an attempt to diminish AI's potential impact. Yet for years AI researchers have known that it figures out stuff it wasn't explicitly taught to do. The truth is more nuanced, and quite mysterious.

It's easy to get mentally stuck, individually and collectively. But what if we adopt a different perspective?

In this article, I leverage the premortem technique that assumes future failure and asks why it happened. From that vantage point, I see two big issues that should affect how educators think about AI right now.

It's almost a year since the release of ChatGPT, and for many of us changed the way we think about a lot of things. It has been a whirlwind year.

Training Industry Magazine article on how games can revolutionize corporate training and development.

Unpacking the realities of AI-generation bias in HR