Thoughts on Consumer Learning
Consumer learning will get big. Consumer learning will be social. Consumer learning will be freemium: free plus premium services. Consumer learning will incorporate Massively Multiplayer Online learning games and learning environments (MMOLG, MMOLE). Consumer learning will mobilize money, energize entrepreneurs, and personalize a process that for…
More Online Learning, NOW!
More online learning, now! In a new report, Alliance for Excellent Education suggests that online learning can help solve the skill gap, the funding gap, and the teacher gap. Since leaving office five years ago former West Virginia Governor Bob Wise has been the leading federal policy…
Pearson Vision Impressive
Textbook publishers are catching a lot of grief these day, some of it deserved. Â But I met with a Pearson exec this morning and continue to be impressed by the leadership of this company (with whom I have a business relationship). Long before Obama landed on readiness, Pearson realigned…
Skill, Funding & Teacher Gap Point to Online Learning
Read this great online learning report from AEE, federal policy warrior for high school success.  Gov. Bob Wise makes the case that we can’t solve the skills gap, the funding gap, or the teacher gap without fulling incorporating online learning.  (more on this to come)…
Teacher Quality Means Some Must Go
The President and Secretary deserve credit for advancing the teacher quality agenda–a tough thing for democrats to do. Â Some of the credit for that goes to Jon Schnur and DFER. Â Because we don’t have very good predictive techniques, it’s important to watch teachers in their first few years,…
Brookings Makes Thoughtful Recommendations on Choice
Brookings  released a thoughtful report encouraging expanding K-12 choice including the following recommendations choice be exercised through systems in which parents have more options than at present (with the expansion of virtual education programs being a promising means to that end); admission into particular schools within choice systems be…
Apolo Ohno, Online Learning Pioneer
Apolo Ohno is one of the biggest stars of the Vancouver Winter Olympic Games. Tonight he begins his quest to be the most decorated American at the Winter Olympics. What you probably don’t know is that Ohno was one of the first graduates of the Internet Academy, one of…
5 Learning Breakthroughs of the Next 10 Years
I’ve written about what are likely to be the biggest developments of 2010 here, but a philanthropic service asked a really hard question, “What will be the 5 big breakthroughs in education during the decade to come?” Â Here’s a first pass: 1. Adaptive content & assessment and data…
More on Motivation: Knowledge Workers like Progress
Catherine Gewrtz, EdWeek, make great observation here that the ability to see progress is a great motivator.  Check out Harvard Business Review, “this is worth a look.”  Catherine continues: It’s an argument for the importance of feeling that you are making progress in your work. The authors…
Motivation May be More Important than Style
Jay Mathews dug up a report that suggested there was little evidence “to justify incorporating learning-styles assessments into general educational practice.” Â I think most teachers would agree that it’s obvious that kids learn in different ways. Â But it’s fair to say that books like multiple intelligences was taken…