Latest Posts
The Future of Higher Education is Online—Let’s Do it Right
2020 has changed the face of higher education. Around the world, schools have closed their campuses and are switching to online learning during the Coronavirus pandemic. However, simply moving courses to a video platform will not produce engaged, successful students. Take the lessons learned from the failures of the Massive Open Online Courses, or…
Understanding and Closing the Digital Divide
In the Bronx, one of the five boroughs of New York City, 38% of residents do not have home Internet service. In the rest of New York City, there are 29% of people without home Internet. This is a higher percentage than most people realize. When looking at other parts of the country, along…
Inclusivity or Political Correctness? Bridging Polar Perspectives
One of the complex issues that educational institutions are grappling with is how to navigate inclusion in such a manner that all stakeholders feel heard and understood. The idea of opening the curriculum, recruitment, leadership, guest speaker invitations and partnerships to a wide and inclusive range of constituents seems straightforward at face value but…
Decolonizing the Curriculum
The modern idea of a curriculum, which is to say a published and detailed scheme of work that lays out what students will learn, is relatively recent. It was only after the 1850s and the expansion of compulsory education that schools and universities began to detail the aims, objectives, assessment, and structure of courses systematically…
Genetics and COVID-19
Why do people's immune systems and bodies respond differently to the novel coronavirus? Even with the same viral dose, people experience differences in severity and symptoms. Scientists are beginning to unravel the complex genetic risks that mediate COVID-19 severity. This research gives us clues as to why some people have symptoms that persist months...
Creating Fair and Unbiased Artificial Intelligence
Ample research has shown that humans are biased in many ways, from confirmation bias to gender bias and anchoring bias. Bias of any sort can be problematic, even when people don’t believe they fall prey to this way of thinking. Understanding and acknowledging various types of biases can help to root them out of…
Computer Science Innovation and COVID-19: Emerging Solutions
At every level, COVID-19 has had a profound impact on government, education, our ability to earn a living, and, of course, upon human health and wellness. Further, between bombast and misinformation, it’s easy to overlook the significant innovation of data and computer scientists in combatting the novel coronavirus. The truth is that innovation abounds,…
COVID-19 Around the World: Why Do Different Countries have Different Outcomes?
We’ve watched the horror story unfold around the world. Dead and dying in Italy. Infected and suffering people in Spain. We’ve seen images of COVID-19 patients lining the hallways in New York City hospitals at the peak of the pandemic. However, despite those images, the truth is that COVID-19’s impact varies dramatically from…
The New Employment Paradigm: Understanding the Present and Future of Remote Work
The global workplace has changed quite dramatically this year. At the beginning of 2020, in-office work was the indisputable norm. Remote work was a growing trend with lots of promise, but little more. Today, remote working is a way of life for a vast number of employees worldwide. In-office work, face-to-face interaction, the traditional…
Closing the Teacher Diversity Gap
This article argues for teacher diversity, explaining why and how it is so important. Teaching is an extremely complex profession. On the one hand, there is the mastery of the content being taught that is necessary for teachers to earn the respect and learning of their students. You simply cannot teach something you do…
Challenges to COVID-19 Vaccine Delivery
The world has been living with COVID-19 for the past year, although for many it may feel like the virus has been plaguing the globe for much longer. Multiple vaccines are already being administered around the world, with more likely on the way later this year. Yet, challenges remain concerning the vaccine distribution….
Online Sales Save What Many Thought Would Be a Slow Holiday Season
The 2020 holiday season has concluded, and given the reality of a deadly pandemic the likes of which haven’t been seen in a century, there were significant changes to how consumers shopped. Because of the coronavirus, people shopped online more in 2020 than at any time in the past. The trend of online…
Are we Becoming Less Intelligent? Why? What to do?
With the endless barrage of information hitting us 24 hours a day, permanent online “connection” and ever-unfolding social media discussions, we are very much in the age of big data. Ridiculous-sounding names like zettabytes (of which it is predicted there will be 175 in circulation in 2025) are used to describe data volume and there…
Education’s Role in Creating Global Peace
Education is a key that unlocks the door to a better life. The more people we empower with education, the safer and better the planet we share will be. If we want to achieve peace and live in a world with less violence and poverty, it must be done through education. A more…
On the Importance of Teacher Diversity: What the Research Says
Further to my blog on closing the teacher diversity gap, it is worth looking at what some of the research on the question of teacher diversity says. Most of the research comes from the United States, since studies on diversity tend to be more developed in Northern America (and the United Kingdom) than elsewhere,…