Getting Smart Staff

EdTech 10: America’s Got Talent(ed) Teachers

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As we visit Amelia Island, Florida for Pearson’s CITE 2016, we’re also busy following the release of Bloomboard’s Collections, bite-sized resources that help educators learn how to put theory into practice. Next Generation Talent Development and Promoting Student Agency are two Collections we produced in partnership with Bloomboard as part of the rollout. With the release of these Collections, we’re making the case that teachers deserve the same blended, personalized and competency-based learning experiences that we advocate for students. They also deserve the same high quality news for EdTech as they would receive for any other news. That’s why we curated this week’s top 10 EdTech stories.

Blended Schools & Tools

Adaptation. Our friends at EdSurge produced a new report based on six months of research and reporting that dives into the realities and complexity of adaptive learning. The OG to note in this space is Curriculum Associates, a 47 year-old adaptive curriculum provider and perhaps the most explosive impact story you’ve probably never heard of.

Digital Developments

SEL tool. After a recent visit to Cincinnati Public Schools, we learned how two minutes of SEL can change the tone for the day. That’s why we were so excited to learn this week that The Susan Crown Exchange developed a new SEL tool for teachers and students working in after-school and out-of-school programs.


Learning about online learning. Babson Survey Research Group, the Online Learning Consortium and Pearson have teamed up for the 13th annual report on the state of online learning in U.S. HigherEd. According to the report, more than one in four students now take at least one distance education course — about 6 million, an increase of 217,275 from last year.

Dollars & Deals

Big Bird. Sesame Street is getting into venture capital. Sesame Workshop and Collaborative Fun launched a $10 million joint investment for startups focused in education, health and social welfare for children.

New ton of support. Knewton secured $52 million in capital to use to accelerate the rollout of the recently launched Knewton.com. The challenge with building an adaptive platform has been easily incorporating new content while maintaining a decent learner experience — Knewton claimed to have cracked the code.



Watch your language. Helios Education Foundation announced an investment of $720K to ASU to partner with Childsplay and the Osborn Elementary school district for dual language learning research and practice for children ages three to five. In Elevate and Empower, we explored how world language educators have the potential to lead in the shift to school and district-wide blended, competency-based, deeper learning models.

Higher, Deeper, Further, Faster Learning

Higher trends. The New Media Consortium and EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative released NMC Horizon Report > 2016 Higher Education Edition. The 13th edition describes annual findings from an ongoing research project designed to identify and describe emerging technologies likely to have an impact on learning, teaching, and creative inquiry in HigherEd. Don’t be surprised to see next-generation courseware supporting the shift in HigherEd from instructor-centered teaching to student-centered learning in the near future.


Turning around Carolina blues. With two consecutive Tar Heel losses, and Cam Newton dabbing his way tears from the Superbowl loss, Carolinians have something to celebrate when it comes to education with this week news out of Chapel-Hill. In a blog on Medium, UNC VP Matthew Rascoff announced the launch of the UNC Learning Technology Commons with Raleigh-based LearnTrials, as a step toward a more modular, flexible and learner- and educator-centered approach. “Learn Trials has been a terrific partner,” said Rascoff, “We have really co-designed this project with him and his team, building on the Learn platform and figuring out together how to do this for HigherEd.” 

Policy Pieces

Pinky promise. ‘Promising Policies’ is a new blog series from iNACOL to provide analysis on supportive policies and approaches to enable and catalyze high-quality personalized learning. In the first blog of the series, Dale Frost shares how the new series will specifically explore how state policies can support and enable personalized learning.

Teachers & Tech-ers

Micro-Credentials, Macro Impact. In partnership with BloomBoard, we published the essential educators’ guide to implementing powerful professional learning with micro-credentials. Download the guide and join the social media conversation using #Love2Learn.


For more EdTech 10’s, check out:

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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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