With all the AI hubbub there's been a lot of talk about AI and teaching. Will it enhance teaching? Replace teachers? Others? In this vein, I saw this tweet by Pat Yongpradit of code.org yesterday evening: I would share the nuance that teachers who don't use AI might be replaced by teachers who use AI, but honestly we need as many of you as possible. Our students need teachers to expand their effectiveness with AI, even if it just opens up more time for developing student… https://t.

I woke up this morning and as usual, looked over recent postings on Diane Ravitch's blog. For those of you who don't know, Diane is an education historian and a staunch advocate for public schools. She's been outspoken against charters, vouchers, and other privatization efforts. What adds to Diane's credibility is that she came over from the other side as she was assistant secretary of education under George H.W. Bush and originally a charter supporter until she saw through the lies.

I was talking to the CS chair at Hunter the other day - he's been a good friend since I joined Hunter and is also teaching the programming course in my teacher ed program this summer. William also taught the same class last year. Due to a shift - we're moving our advanced certificate program from a Summer->Fall->Spring schedule to a more traditional Fall->Spring->Fall->Spring one, this summer, we're running very small sections of our classes specifically for the 4 masters students who would be left in the lurch otherwise.

Yesterday I was at a former student's wedding. It was a beautiful affair. For me, to be invited to attend was one of the greatest gifts I have received as a teacher. Seriously. One of the greatest opportunities of teaching is the chance to be a force for good in a student's life and one of the greatest gifts we can receive is when a student lets you know you've made a difference.

The title might come of as hyperbole but it's really true. I'll explain. A few years ago, NYSED created a certification area for computer science. At Hunter, we've been running our certificate program for the past three years and taking current teachers and qualifying them to earn this new certification. This past Fall, NYSED finalized it's grandfathering position and just the other day it opened up the portal to allow teachers to sign up.

My feeds have been inundated with post after post dealing with teacher burnout, teacher shortages, government attacks on teachers and public schools. In response to one video, a friend of mine commented: This is going to be a crazy summer and fall. I wonder if we are witnessing the end of public education. Teaching was always a high attrition profession but given the stress teachers have been under since the pandemic started it's no surprise that teachers who can are leaving in droves.

I always enjoy Fred Wilson's predictions for the new year over on his blog and this year was no exception. I was inspired to think a bit on his education prediction: K12 systems around the US (and around the world) faced with teacher shortages and desperate to erase several years of learning shortfalls, will increasingly adopt online learning services in the school building in lieu of and in addition to in-class learning.

Lots of chatter with Donald Trump being kicked off platforms left and right. On the one hand we're getting a lot of "it's censorship, it's unust" and on the other side we have "it's about time." I'm of course in the "it's about time" category but even so, there's a cause for concern and a lot of meat for a discussion on tech policies. What makes this interesting discussion fodder is that Trump was removed from different levels of the internet.

Teachers are back and students will soon follow either in person or remote. In person means in person one or two days a week with the rest of the time from home. This of course shows horrible leadership. It fails in terms of education, safety and even freeing up parents to get back to work. After all, if your kid is only in school one or two days a week it hardly allows you to get back to your own full time job.

Yesterday, Bill de Blasio and Richard Carranza unveiled their open the schools in the fall plan. The plan is perfectly consistent with de Blasio and Carranza's education policies and efforts in general - tone deaf, ineffective, and in this case, unsafe. I know we were told that part of this came from survey results but we all know that surveys are super easy to fix. I mean, ask any teacher or parent "do you want schools to be open and in person in the Fall?