Staff Picks: Access, Activity, Inpiration & Innovation
Tom Picks 5 Strategies to Deliver Access to Every Student Tom says, “Every American student deserves equitable access to great learning content and great teachers. Â A take-home access device for every student is key. Â Discussions at CUE and COSN in the last few weeks helped inform a set of…
Students Inspire College Readiness With Street Art
Voting ends today on SchoolTube's video competition Going Mindless, which encourages students to express change in their schools or communities by modeling the youthful, positive change by the R&B band Mindless Behavior. The band will pick their favorite student video to award an exclusive Mindless Behavior concert at their school.
Abeo Launches Blended Principal Support Program
Washington State school principals have a new web of support this morning. iPLN – The Innovative Principal Leadership Network – is an Abeo Change Network offering professional networking to principals and their school leadership teams.
Rick Hess Says Edupreneurs Need to Be Thought Leaders
Rick Hess, the edpolicy maven at Education Week, published an article this week that looked at the roles of edupreneurs in the education marketplace. He argues that unlike entrepreneurs in other markets, edupreneurs need to be outspoken in order to inform, persuade and motivate the public space in which education operates.
i-Ready is Ready for Prime Time
i-Ready's two components, adaptive diagnostic and standards preparation, provide a visually appealing and fun approach to educational materials. Both programs allow teachers, parents and administrators to follow the progress of every student down to the skill level. The diagnostic program not only identifies the grade level a student is at, but pin points the skills needed to improve and adapts lessons accordingly.
5 Strategies to Deliver Edtech Access to Every Student
Over the last few weeks I’ve participated in a number of conversations about student access strategies. It comes down to what device and who pays.
How to Hack Into the Joy of Gaming
In schools, we need to figure out how to get our own joy and our students’ joy back, but we are going to have to move past grieving over what has been lost to do this. We need to hack the joyful mindsets of video gamers and use them to reinvent how we engage students, building a bridge to lure them back from the virtual world into the quaint magic of literature, art, and imagination in ours.
US Grad Rate Inches Up–But Marshall Plan Needed
High school graduation rates are inching up to more than 75%, that's the conclusion of a report released monday. It's also good news that from 2008 to 2009 (the most current data available), the number of dropout factory high schools decreased by an additional 112 schools to 1,634. Compared to 2002 almost there has been a decline of nearly 800,000 in 'dropout factory' enrollment.
Physical Activity Proves a Vital Function in Cognitive Ability in Recent Studies
Physical activity among today’s youth in the United States has been on a steady decline while learning disorders like attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and others are on the rise. Scientists have yet to draw a direct causal link to physical activity and learning disorders; however, research is showing an increasing correlation between physical activity and its affect on learning and behavioral disorders.
Badges Will Be Big
We need a great Common Core-aligned merit badge system that motivates and recognizes achievement. It should be free and open. Badges should be awarded based on multiple forms of assessment. Badges should be linked to multiple forms of instruction. Badges will be a core component of emerging learning platform ecosystems.