- Chicago, IL
- admin@micahminer.com
- 1-312-504-4193
about micah.
the practitioner-scholar tension.
i am an educational leader, cetl-certified director of technology, and doctoral researcher. my work lives in the space between deploying technological infrastructure and critically examining its impact on human cognition.
22+ years in the trenches.
my perspective is not derived solely from theory. it is forged in the daily realities of public education. for over two decades, i have worked across multiple facets of the educational landscape, culminating in my current role as the director of technology managing the infrastructure, policy, and hardware for five schools in the chicagoland area.
being a cetl (certified education technology leader) means i understand the network routing, the data privacy laws, and the budgetary constraints that drive district decisions. this insider knowledge makes my critique of ed-tech much more pragmatic. i am not a luddite opposing technology; i am a practitioner demanding that our tools serve the developmental needs of our students.
the technoskeptical researcher.
as an ed.d. candidate in curriculum, advocacy, and policy at national louis university, my research focuses on what i term "tertiary algorithmicity." i study how generative ai systems are forcing a reorganization of the symbolic environments in which students learn.
my core theoretical contribution is the pedagogical friction framework. learning science dictates that durable schema construction requires cognitive struggle. yet, modern ai tools are explicitly designed to remove friction. my research, writing, and consulting are dedicated to helping educators intentionally preserve the necessary "friction" of noetic struggle, rhetorical defense, and existential ownership in their classrooms.
writing & community leadership.
i believe in learning out loud. i am the author of "ai goes to school: how to harness artificial intelligence in education to prepare students for the future" (times 10 publications), and i am currently developing my second manuscript, "ai gets schooled," which will expand on the need for technoskepticism in district leadership.
beyond my books, i have published numerous articles across major educational journals and organizations. i serve as an iste community leader with iste+ascd, and i maintain a regular newsletter addressing the intersections of social studies, ai, media ecology, and educational policy for an engaged community of leaders.