Personalized Learning

UK opens 200th sponsored academy

One of Tony Blair’s reforms that I’m fond of is the Academy program–the equivalent of a sponsored charter school in the US.  The BBC reports that the 200th opened with 67 more to come this year.    They’re dropping a feature that I liked–the requirement to invest at least 2 million…

EdTech

FCC & ED Push Digital Textbooks

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the U.S. Department of Education is hosting a meeting today with the goal of getting digital textbooks in every child’s hands in five years. Karen Cator, the Director of the Office of Educational Technology at the U.S. Department of Education, helped organize the meeting and provides energy and insight to the Departments focus on the shift to digital learning.

Personalized Learning

Hall Davidson at TASA 2013: Tablet Device as Backpack

I had never heard Hall Davidson speak until I saw him at the Midwinter meeting of the Texas Association of Schools Administrators. If you have not heard his presentation, you are in for a treat: enthusiasm, energy, state-of-the-art information. As we say around here in Texas, it was the whole enchilada.

EdTech

Smart Cities: Portland, Countercultural and Interesting

Like other left coast metro areas, Portland is a creative hotspot. But also like left coast cities, school districts are resistant to options and innovations. State leadership on proficiency-based learning has started to get some results and it is exciting to see the ed startups begin to connect to the public school systems.

Personalized Learning

Automated Essay Scoring in a High Stakes Environment

Dr. Mark Shermis One of our goals here is to begin to create the data abundance mindset in U.S. K-12–prepping for policies and practices informed by big data surrounding anywhere anytime learning.  To that end, we like to highlight interesting projects and proposals–and we have a good one…

EdTech

New Android App Makes Math Adaptive for Students

By: Allan Folz. From the technology stand-point, Allan reports that their apps have two fundamental features which set them apart from the typical offerings in the app marketplaces: an adaptive problem generator and screen captures of student's work.

EdTech

Education Leaders Meet At the Wash. Education Innovation Forum

Policy leaders, foundations, district leaders, and local and national technology innovators plan to meet today at the Washington Education Innovation Forum, hosted by Robin lake and the Center on Reinventing Public Education (CRPE), to explore how Washington can become a leader in education technology and innovation.

EdTech

The Long Stretch Until Summer

Your day-to-day is anything but ordinary. Each day you have the opportunity to reach students in a way that nobody else can. You will spend more time with them in a given day than some of their parents. Your "boring" life involves shaping the future.