Getting Smart Staff

EdTech 10: Leading Toward System Change with Policy, Partnerships and Progress

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Leadership is in the news this week– from a new Solution Tree book from Michael Fullan, new resources from ECS, and Facebook support for Summit Public Schools. There’s a mobile flare to the news with updates from Clever, ClassDojo, and Verizon Foundation.

Blended Schools & Tools

There’s a clever app for that. Clever announced that their product has been adopted by 44,000 schools across the country, which makes up approximately one-third of the nation’s public and private schools. Integration with student information systems and single sign-on are two functions of platforms that we recently measured 14 learning platforms against.

Partners in personalization. Agilix Labs Inc. announced their partnership with popular student information system (SIS), PowerSchool, in an ongoing effort to increase efficiency for school communities dedicated to personalized learning. “Educators are actively seeking digital learning solutions that enable them to deploy best-of-breed applications and content that fully meet the needs of their students,” said Curt Allen, CEO of Agilix. “Our Buzz customers value seamless integration with PowerSchool, so it is a high priority for us to deliver a new level of integrated learning solutions.”

Measuring Blended. The Learning Accelerator released their District Guide to Blended Learning Measurement in an effort to demystify measurement and show how manageable it is. This guide signals what we’ve seen in the last year — the conversation has moved from why blended, to how to implement blended and now how to track progress.

Reaching the summit. Social Giant Facebook is working with Summit Public Schools to develop personalized learning software. Summit is set to open two new innovative schools in Washington State this fall. Here’s why scaling Summit matters.

 

Digital Developments

Comm come up. Class Story was launched by classroom management tool ClassDojo. The new offering will streamline communication between teachers and parents in an effort to eliminate teacher produced newsletters and websites. Alesha Bishop, Getting Smart Teacher blogger and parent recently reviewed ClassDojo.

 

Dollars & Deals

Capitol capital. DC-based 1776 launched a $12.5 million seed fund to invest in health, education, energy, transportation and smart cities (Seems like they need a copy of Smart Cities). With folks like 1776, it’s easy to see that DC is a Smart City.

What’s next. NextLesson, K-12 curriculum developers landed $2.9 million from Silicon Valley Entrepreneurs. By 2017, the worldwide market for mobile learning products and services alone is expected to be worth $12.2B. Which means that EdTech companies better start building their brand.

 

Higher, Deeper, Further, Faster Learning

Support for states. For policymakers’ efforts to update instruction and assessment policy is a deeper learning primer from ECS. The primer shares how deeper learning models can be implemented at the state level. 

 

Policy Pieces

Columbus with the come up. Ohio H.B. 64 is creating a Competency-Based Education Pilot for five applicants to plan and implement competency-based programs in The Buckeye State. What’s the road to competency look like? Mastery tracking, fed by formative assessment.

 

Leading Leaders

Leading the way. EdLeader experts Lyle Kirtman and Michael Fullan have published a book that should be next on your reading list. Heck, you should be reading it tonight! Leadership: Key Competencies for Whole-System Change is available for purchase on solution-tree.com. There’s six reasons why this book is an important contribution to the field.

 

Stem Gems

There’s an app challenge for that. Up to $20,000 is up for grabs in the Verizon Innovative App Challenge. No coding skills are required, just life-changing ideas. Teams should keep in mind what’s next in mobile learning — Push-learning.

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For more EdTech news check out:

Solution Tree and Agilix Labs Inc. are Getting Smart Advocacy Partners. ClassDojo is a portfolio company of Learn Capital where Tom Vander Ark is a partner.

Getting Smart Staff

The Getting Smart Staff believes in learning out loud and always being an advocate for things that we are excited about. As a result, we write a lot. Do you have a story we should cover? Email [email protected]

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