NewSchools Summit: Where Equity Meets Entrepreneurship
This crowd starts with an unquestionable commitment to educational equality. They embrace entrepreneurship. Most would still prefer to support or work for a nonprofit just because they want absolute mission clarity.
OER Brings Affordable Learning to More Students
The average college student pays more than $1,100 every year for textbooks, reported the U.S. Public Interest Research Group (PIRG). PIRG also reported that textbook costs are 26 percent of tuition at public universities and 72 percent of tuition at community colleges, according to estimates by the U.S. Government Accountability Office.
Teaching Opportunity: Excellence, Leadership & Student Impact
Public Impact posted summaries of how 10 different school models leverage talent. "In each of these models, teachers have career opportunities dependent upon their excellence, leadership, and student impact. Advancement allows more pay and greater reach."
Knewton Engages Students With Personalized, Adaptive Math Courses
Big data, personalized learning, and adaptive learning have been buzzing conferences around innovations in learning for the last year. Yet, who's on the right track? We've had our eye on Knewton who is developing quality, online math readiness courses with compelling results.
Music Students Overcome Stage Fright With Automated Digital Audience
I was asked by Professor Michelle Gingras, clarinet faculty, and Dr. Harvey Thurmer, violin faculty, at Miami University to create a tool that would help reduce stage fright for their students. Music students perform fine in the comfort of their own home or in the professor’s office. Yet, on stage students are fine until an audience member causes a slight distraction. Student performers lose their concentration causing them to miss a note. The student is so mindful of the miss that suddenly, all focus is gone and catastrophe unfolds on stage.
Change the space, change the program, expect high outcomes
Stephen Harris directs the Sydney Centre for Innovation in Learning (@scil). It is the research, creativity and development unit of a K-12 school serving 1300 students. His philosophy is change the space, change the program, expect high outcomes.
Connections Learning Supports Network of Innovative Blended Schools
Connections Academy plans to open Nexus Academy of Lansing and Nexus Academy of Grand Rapids, two new blended learning charter schools in Michigan for high school students.
Measurement is Friend Not Foe to Creativity
A writer in the Daily Iowan is worried about automated essay scoring killing creativity. He confused two issues. The online scoring engines use the same rubrics to score essays as human graders. The answer is more assessment not less, but much of it will occur in the background behind engaging learning activities.
Charlottesville Chooses Windows Tablets
Charlottesville Virginia introduced Windows tablets this month at its secondary schools. They selected the Fujitsu Stylistic Q550 model, a Windows 7 tablet with a 10.1-inch display, protective case, stylus and rollup keyboard.
SmartTech Roundup
On the edu-innovation calendar, we’re shifting from the market-focused ASU summit to the Sundance of edReform, the NewSchools Venture Fund-Aspen Institute Summit.  There’s a big overlap between the two but there’s more innovation at ASU and a stronger equity focus at NewSchools.  Rahm Emanuel, Sen. Michael Bennet, Harvard’s…