35 Blogs for Districts Planning for Personalization
This week the Department of Education released guidelines for the Race to the Top District Competition. As a result, hundreds of districts are contemplating personalized learning plans. Here are 35 recent and relevant Getting Smart blogs.
New Visions Builds On New School Success With Innovation Agenda
New Visions for Public Schools has probably been the most effective intermediary of the last decade. By launching 135 new secondary schools and helped to develop other intermediaries that developed hundreds more, they dramatically improved the quality of high school options in New York City. Thousands of students each year graduate from high school and go to college because New Visions created high schools.
What the Learning Sciences Tell Us About Competency Education
At a recent meeting sponsored by iNACOL to think deeply about competency and assessment, we talked about what impact the last few decades of learning science should have on doing the best job planning and using competencies for learning.
SMARTtech Roundup
Blended Schools & Tools Fuse Boost. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt announced that the results from a year-long pilot of their Algebra Curriculum for iPad stimulated a near 10 percent boost in Math scores. The HMH Fuse platform encourages the use of personalized lesson plans by combining direct instruction, ongoing…
Cornerstone Anchors Detroit’s Blended Future
Tom Willis isn't playing golf this summer. In a few weeks, Willis will open two new schools in Detroit, an elementary (opening K-4) and a high school (starting with ninth graders). CEO of the Cornerstone Charter Schools, Willis is a construction manager this month.
Q&A: What’s the Tune In Your Lesson?
Do you have songs that you can recall and recite from your teen years? Does it recall a whole slew of memories from the first time you heard it, saw it played in concert, or listened to it on the radio? What if we could leverage the memory-locking ability of music to help students learn in fun new ways?
GSV Launches American Revolution 2.0
GSV Advisors released the white paper "American Revolution 2.0: How Education Innovation is Going to Revitalize America and Transform the U.S. Economy," which takes a close look at the climate of education and the latest trends on the horizon of innovation, this week.
Investing in Education Innovation
Ask yourself, would the next Rocketship Education or Goalbook grow in your backyard? If not, what would it take? One thing is for sure: education innovation does not happen by accident.
10 Things I’d Do Right Now as a High School Principal
At the Moorseville edtech conference (#Connection12 on Twitter) this week a Midwest high school principal serving about 700 students asked me for some advice on the shift to digital learning. Borrowing from advice to superintendents, here's 10 things I'd do right now as a high school principal.
How to Build a Basic Toolbox for 21st-Century Learning
I remember exactly how I felt when I put together my first real toolbox. The gray no-nonsense plastic container, made by Rubbermaid, would house the essential tools I needed now that I was twenty-something and on my own. I bought a hammer, of course, two kinds of screwdrivers (one with a Phillips head and one with a flat head), a foldout miniature saw, some nails and screws, and a measuring tape. I mainly used the toolbox to hang pictures in my apartment, but oh my, did it make me feel empowered!