Personalized Learning

Prize Means More Writing, Deeper Learning for American Students

With the support of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Open Education Solutions announced the winners of the $100,000 Automated Student Assessment Prize (ASAP) this morning in Washington DC. The top three teams, made up of international data scientists, developed predictive algorithms that were able to score thousands of essays very quickly with remarkable accuracy compared to expert graders.

Personalized Learning

Big Data: Like Sunshine For Parents

Does school performance data really matter to parents? And does it facilitate parent-driven school accountability? As GreatSchools CEO Bill Jackson put it during his testimony before Congress in late 2011, “School performance data is like sunshine for parents. Parents need data to make good decisions about their children’s education.”

Personalized Learning

Online Learning Works for Student Athletes

Online learning is not just for "certain" students- the real beauty of it that is allows school to work for students in new and innovative ways. That definitely includes the students who are motivated to succeed in athletics as well as the classroom.

EdTech

SmartTech Roundup: Deals, OER, Tablets, & Awards

Interesting Deals Countering all the Knewton press, Blackboard launched Blackboard Developmental Education to improve student outcomes and completion rates. DevEd was developed in partnership with American Education (A+), a company acquired by K12 last year. Atlanta investor Richard Smyth spent 2010 gaining control of a public company.  Last January he launched…

Innov8

Innov8: Looking Ahead

In light of our excitement for spring to fully arrive and our optimism for the upcoming month, this week's top 8 education news stories are all about looking ahead.

EdTech

Latest Tools Added to edshelf

This past week we had quite a few notable educational tools added to edshelf by some impressive teams. Experienced entrepreneurs, former classroom teachers, academic researchers, and game designers.