Posts by Guest Author

EdTech

3 Signs of Quality You Should Look For In Instructional Content

The future will bring amazingly better instructional content for teacher and student use. If the market notices key signs of this, then more effective, comprehensive content will be broadly and rapidly adopted, to the benefit of teaching and learning. I believe there’s three signs the market should be looking for.

EdTech

Informal Learning for a Better World

nformal learning should not be seen as a threat to the formal education system, but as a challenge, model, and important counterpart. With the rise of the open content movement, some of the world’s best educational content — from TED talks to MIT’s OpenCourseWare — is now freely available online.

EdTech

Is the Flipped Classroom the Right Tech Approach for Teachers?

By Charles Perry “Flipping” a classroom refers to a reevaluation of a standard classroom environment where the teacher functions as a “sage on the stage” and the students as passive receptacles for knowledge. Teachers who flip their classrooms instead serve as a “guide on the side” who introduce new…

Personalized Learning

Online Learning Keeps Sisters Together

Two sisters from Nevada, Kaleigh and Danielle Fair, graduated from high school together the other day. As this touching video shows, the odds against these young women were extraordinary. Their school, Nevada Virtual Academy, and the teachers there evened those odds and made their journey together across the commencement stage and through their high school experience possible.

EdTech

Common Core PD Goes Open Source

Educator engagement in the implementation of Common Core State Standards is critical if we really want to see a quantum leap in college readiness. The Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC), which is one of two groups creating assessments for Common Core, recently awarded a contract to the National Math + Science Initiative’s Laying the Foundation program to create an Educator Leader Cadre to ensure greater expertise in the new standards at the classroom level.

Personalized Learning

Why I Teach On Udemy

I teach the way I like to learn, by completing a task. My style of teaching varies from traditional curriculums in that I show the steps necessary in completing a project, regardless of the academic structure of the task as a whole. My courses are constructed to offer a cross-section of the main principles, then offer tangents that people can explore on their own. This method ensures that people get to ‘touch’ and ‘experience’ all aspects of a project, while sparking additional interests in particular aspects.

Personalized Learning

Teachers and the Push for Online Education

Educational use of Internet technology is on the rise in school districts across the country. But its effectiveness depends on more than just access, to be truly useful, teachers must understand how it works. Technology in schools started slowly, first with email access and then with more regular computer use in classrooms.