Customer service is of particular importance in the technology industry; customers rely on technical support services when they have a problem with a piece of hardware, software, or a consumer device. The current darling of the technology industry is Apple, and you don't have to go farther than the Genius Bar at your local Apple Store to see how Apple approaches customer service, creating a fantastic customer experience that ensures rabid fans. Most people think of customer service as a department, but customer service is also a technology industry all on its own. This book gives an insider's view of the customer service industry, providing insight for those battling mediocre service every day. If you understand the tools, vocabulary, and metrics that power customer service, you can definitely demand better service from your providers. For those already working in customer service, this book will provide you with some new best practices, worst practices to avoid, and maybe even a laugh or two along the way.

Colonel Pat Proctor’s long overdue critique of the Army’s preparation and outlook in the all-volunteer era focuses on a national security issue that continues to vex in the twenty-first century: Has the Army lost its ability to win strategically by focusing on fighting conventional battles against peer enemies? Or can it adapt to deal with the greater complexity of counterinsurgent and information-age warfare? In this blunt critique of the senior leadership of the U.S. Army, Proctor contends that after the fall of the Soviet Union, the U.S. Army stubbornly refused to reshape itself in response to the new strategic reality, a decision that saw it struggle through one low-intensity conflict after another—some inconclusive, some tragic—in the 1980s and 1990s, and leaving it largely unprepared when it found itself engaged—seemingly forever—in wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The first book-length study to connect the failures of these wars to America’s disastrous performance in the war on terror, Proctor’s work serves as an attempt to convince Army leaders to avoid repeating the same mistakes.

"“Why is it,” writes noted assessment expert W. James Popham, “that today’s educators seem almost compelled to replicate their predecessors’ blunders?” Looking back over a career of more than fifty years in education, Popham identifies six key “unlearned lessons” in education and reflects on their impact on schools, teachers, and students. In an account enlivened by personal anecdotes and the unique perspective gained from long experience, he shows how each of these six mistakes has persisted over time, gives examples of encounters with these mistakes in the course of his professional career, and points the way toward straightforward solutions. This lucid and powerful book belongs on the bookshelf of anyone interested in the history of education and the intersection between assessment, policy, and instruction." Notable Education Book of 2009, American School Board Journal

“This book merits every American’s serious consideration” (Vice President Joe Biden): from the Secretary of Education under President Obama, an exposé of the status quo that helps maintain a broken system at the expense of our kids’ education, and threatens our nation’s future. “Education runs on lies. That’s probably not what you’d expect from a former Secretary of Education, but it’s the truth.” So opens Arne Duncan’s How Schools Work, although the title could just as easily be How American Schools Work for Some, Not for Others, and Only Now and Then for Kids. Drawing on nearly three decades in education—from his mother’s after-school program on Chicago’s South Side to his tenure as Secretary of Education in Washington, DC—How Schools Work follows Arne (as he insists you call him) as he takes on challenges at every turn: gangbangers in Chicago housing projects, parents who call him racist, teachers who insist they can’t help poor kids, unions that refuse to modernize, Tea Partiers who call him an autocrat, affluent white progressive moms who hate yearly tests, and even the NRA, which once labeled Arne the “most extreme anti-gun member of President Obama’s Cabinet.” Going to a child’s funeral every couple of weeks, as he did when he worked in Chicago, will do that to a person. How Schools Work exposes the lies that have caused American kids to fall behind their international peers, from early childhood all the way to college graduation rates. But it also identifies what really does make a school work. “As insightful as it is inspiring” (Washington Book Review), How Schools Work will embolden parents, teachers, voters, and even students to demand more of our public schools. If America is going to be great, then we can accept nothing less.

What does it mean to unlearn? Once we have learned something, is it ever possible to unlearn that something? If something is said to have been unlearned, does that mean that it is simply forgotten or does some residual force of learning, some perverse force, also resonate in ways that might help us to rethink traditional approaches to teaching and learning? Might we say that education today is haunted by the spectre of unlearning?This book invites readers to reflect on the possibilities of knowing, reflecting, understanding, teaching and learning in ways that allow us to imagine the other side of education, the side which understands non-knowledge, ignorance, stupidity and wonder as potentially the most important learning experiences we can ever have. In a series of provocative essays by some of the world's most renowned theorists in philosophy, psychoanalysis, cultural studies, politics and education, The Pedagogics of Unlearning challenges us to think again about what we mean when we talk about learning - about what it really means to learn - and whether the kinds of learning we imagine in our classrooms and daily lives are actually synonymous with the sort of learning we envision when we think and talk about the purpose and passage of education.If you think you know what education and learning are doing, what teaching strategies do, and what learning outcomes are, then this book asks you to think again, to unlearn what you have learned, to learn to unlearn.TABLE OF CONTENTS // Éamonn Dunne, "Preface: Learning to Unlearn" - Jacques Ranciere, "Unwhat?" - Deborah Britzman, "Phantasies of the Writing Block: A Psychoanalytic Contribution to Pernicious Unlearning" - Sam Chambers, "Learning How to Be a Capitalist: From Neoliberal Pedagogy to the Mystery of Learning" - John D. Caputo, "Teaching the Event: Deconstruction: Hauntology and the Scene of Pedagogy" - Paul Bowman, "The Intimate Schoolmaster and the Ignorant Stifu: Postructuralism, Bruce Lee and the Ignorance of Everyday Radical Pedagogy" - L.O. Aranye Fradenburg and Eileen A. Joy, "Unlearning: A Duologue" - Aidan Seery, "After-word(s)"The Pedagogics of Unlearning originated at a conference held at Trinity College, University of Dublin, 6-7 September 2014.

"Why is it," writes noted assessment expert W. James Popham, "that today's educators seem almost compelled to replicate their predecessors' blunders?" Looking back over a career of more than fifty years in education, Popham identifies six key "unlearned lessons" in education and reflects on their impact on schools, teachers, and students. In an account enlivened by personal anecdotes and the unique perspective gained from long experience, he shows how each of these six mistakes has persisted over time, gives examples of encounters with these mistakes in the course of his professional career, and points the way toward straightforward solutions. This lucid and powerful book belongs on the bookshelf of anyone interested in the history of education and the intersection between assessment, policy, and instruction. "Popham shares the wisdom gained from a lifetime in education and assessment. He reminds us, with humor and clear examples, that there are ways to build accountability systems that do not lead to excessive test preparation, teaching to the test, or attempts to cover curricula more rapidly than is sensible. Unlearned Lessons helps us to see the folly of repeating our errors again and again." -- David C. Berliner, Regents' Professor, College Of Education, Arizona State University "A wise and witty analysis of six obstacles to better schools from one of the nation's foremost testing experts. Popham identifies persistent flaws in the way we approach education--and shows how to fix them. Anyone frustrated by the current wave of test-driven reforms will enjoy this guide to bringing more sense to schooling." -- Jack Jennings, president and CEO, Center on Education Policy "Given all that has been written about what ails American education and how to fix it, seldom are the problems and possible solutions captured so cogently, and in terms everyone can appreciate. There is much here that demands careful attention by educators and policymakers alike." -- Jim Pellegrino, Distinguished Professor of Psychology and Education, University of Illinois at Chicago W. James Popham began his career in education as a high school teacher in Oregon. He is professor emeritus at the University of California, Los Angeles Graduate School of Education and Information Studies. He is the author of twenty-five books and a former president of the American Educational Research Association. In 2002 the National Council on Measurement in Education presented him with its Award for Career Contributions to Educational Measurement. In 2006 he was awarded a Certificate of Recognition by the National Association of Test Directors..