Posts by Guest Author
On the Blended Learning Road with DSST’s Jake Firman
Jake Firman, Denver School of Science and Technology is on a blended learning road trip. In the first of a series, he considers individualized instruction for students, rich banks of digital content, and achievement recognition systems.
Technovation Challenge Launches to Build Women in Technology
The Technovation Challenge, a program to promote women in technology by giving girls the skills and confidence they need to be successful in computer science and entrepreneurship, will be held on Saturday, April 28th and the National Pitch Night will be held on Thursday, May 3rd from 6-9PM.
Can Six Year Olds Really Demonstrate Their Learning?
This week we finished up another one of our project based learning (PBL) or inquiry-based units in my first grade classroom. It had the grand title of rules, relationships and responsibilities.
Welcome to the Education Renaissance
Today's disruptive changes in education -- from the proliferation of digital devices to the availability of open educational resources, online universities, and badge-based certification -- have the field abuzz like never before. Recently I had the opportunity to give a talk at WNET's Celebration of Teaching and Learning on creating the conditions for innovation in education.
When Will Blended Learning Be Mainstream?
At the CUE conference this month, a questioner asked our Panel a simple question about blended learning – What is your prediction for when blended learning will be a mainstream application in education?
Would Alabama’s Football Coach Nick Saban Do This?
We all know that something in our educational processes is not right. Our businesses talk about how our graduates lack skills, our government talks about how we are falling behind as a nation, our neighbor talks about how they can’t find a job and our schools talk about how frustrated they are. Like the scene in the movie Moneyball “blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.” All talk aside, what is the fix? We can even debate it, yet not many will argue that something needs to change. Once we starting fixing our nation’s education our neighborhoods can begin to regain their confidence, our communities can start to feel like an actual community and our local economies may just start to pick up.
Learning STEM in Classrooms Modeling the Future
The typical elementary, middle and high school classroom is filled with chairs and desks, chalk and erasers, and a teacher and students. There is also closet space for backpacks, cabinet space for educational tools and wall space for exemplary student work. Does this traditional classroom provide the best teaching environment for teachers and the best learning environment for students? The answer depends on what needs to be taught, and we are quickly finding out that educational needs of the future look much different than the past.
What Would You Do With Endless Internet Bandwidth?
The theme of the CoSN 2012 Annual Conference was to “reimagine learning” and the keynote speakers and concurrent session presenters all provoked us to do just that. From my conference experience, none was more provocative than the session, “On The Horizon: Harnessing Emerging Technologies In Education,” with Larry Johnson, CEO of New Media Consortium.
Why My Six-Year-Old Students Have Digital Portfolios
From the first week of school, the six-year-olds in my classroom begin to create an online presence in the form of a blog and digital portfolio. We use a blogging platform to do this, and include artifacts that show their progress in writing, reading, math, social studies, and science.
Protecting Your Career: Why Virtual School Teachers Need Liability Insurance
More than a year ago, Sarah Walters* was a well‐liked virtual school teacher living in a small community in Colorado. Sarah had taught at a suburban school in its close knit community for more than five years before transferring to a new, virtual school for increased career flexibility where she received many awards. It was in this position that the rug was swiftly pulled out from under her after she was fired for contact deemed “inappropriate” by school administrators.