Getting Smart Staff

EdTech 10: With Arne Duncan Leaving… Now What?

Share

With Arne Duncan stepping down in December we’re witnessing the end of the active fed and a quarter century of national standards-based reform. Rather than an EdPolicy frame, we think the next two decades will be a sorting out of personalized and learner-centered driven more by teacher leaders and EdTech entrepreneurs–and there’s lots of evidence for that hypothesis in this week’s news. 

Blended Schools & Tools

Lighting the way. Getting Smart on Next-Gen School Design illuminates best practices and shares the stories of six regional hubs for innovation through NGLC’s Regional Funds for Breakthrough Schools.

Digital Developments

Meeting Aspirations. Aspire Public Schools announced the expansion of its blended learning program to 15 of its 38 schools – serving an additional 1,600 K-5 students in classrooms in the Bay Area, Los Angeles and Central Valley this school year. Before you read the blog, read the book by Aspire’s own Lis Arney — Go Blended! A Handbook for Blended Technology in School.

Measuring Up. A first-ever comprehensive citywide analysis of public schools in a metropolitan area was released from the CRPE using nine indicators related to school improvement and academic opportunity. Like this analysis, in Smart Cities That Work for Everyone we identified seven keys to education & employment and a framework for creating cities that work for everyone.

Reservation required. Nominations for The Harold W. McGraw, Jr. Prize in Education are open. The award that honors innovation in education will undergo significant changes next year with McGraw-Hill and ASU’s new alliance. Submit nominations at McGrawPrize.com. The Prize dinner will be held at the ASU+GSV Innovation Summit in early 2016. Here’s our list of EdLeaders from last year’s ASU+GSV.

Walk this way. The Best Foot Forward Project investigated whether video technology can make the classroom observation process easier to implement, less costly, and more valid and reliable. Check out the progress they made in one year. We recently asked, Where is the Accountability in Education?

Your unique path. CareerBuilder just launched Find Your Calling, an online aptitude test that includes 90+ cross-sector data sources to support students in finding jobs that are fulfilling and sustaining. This website should be bookmarked for GenDIY.  

Dollars & Deals

Million dollah holla. Lots of investment news this week — Newsela secured $15 million to accelerate its machine learning platform, General Assembly raised $70 million (welcomed news for students looking for HigherEd options), ZeeMee raised $5.8 million, and Picmonic raised $2.3 million.

Higher, Deeper, Further, Faster Learning

HigherEd entry. From the playbook of Data Backpacks: Portable Records & Learner Profiles, 80 postsecondary institutions are creating a new online portfolio platform for high school students to catalogue personal bests for admissions officers to improve in their selection process.

Let’s Get Personalized

Learners at the center. Educator Competencies for Personalized, Learner-Centered Teaching from Jobs for the Future and CCSSO is a first step in identifying the knowledge, skills and dispositions that educators need for learner-centered environments. The case is building behind learner-centered visions framing next generation learning.

We are the champions. Sanborn Regional School District was awarded the Nellie Mae Education Foundation’s 4th Annual Lawrence W O’Toole Award. The award is given annually to changemakers that exhibit leadership in moving forward student-centered approaches in New England. Brian Stack, Principal of Sanborn Regional High School just shared his strategy for teacher support in a competency-based school. Runners up included Youth on Board, a project of YouthBuild USA.

For more EdTech 10’s, check out:

Stay in-the-know with all things EdTech and innovations in learning by signing up to receive the weekly Smart Update.

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]

Discover the latest in learning innovations

Sign up for our weekly newsletter.

Related Reading

0 Comments

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. All fields are required.