Personalized Learning
Personalized learning is a mindset and approach to teaching that focuses on meeting each learner where they are and tailoring a curriculum that considers their interests, prior knowledge and skill level, and pace. Such a demand on the teacher requires sophisticated usage of technology in a combination of personalized, blended and online learning.
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.
Automating AND Humanizing Education for The First Time In History
While many parents and teachers lament over the amount of time today’s youth spend on video games, the truth is that these high-tech “toys” can be used to revolutionize education and training. Think of it this way: The games our kids are playing take them into a highly immersive, interspatial, 3D world. They learn how a wide variety of tools operate, including sports, futuristic vehicles, and various machines. They develop sophisticated strategies and tactics they can use to accomplish goals and win the game.
Online Learning is the Parent Trigger
Despite the inefficient way things are set up here in America, learning is no longer place-bound, it's an anywhere, anytime service. Even where choice-to-the-course is limited, access to informal learning resources is exploding--a simmering Khan Mutiny. There will be a long difficult struggle over the stream of public funding that supports education, but it will inevitably follow students to the best option--and that's a big parent trigger.
What I’m Seeing: Apps Reinventing Learning Experiences
There are apps that are reinventing the learning experiences. Here's a few examples of how video is revolutionizing teaching, how apps are making science more engaging, and how mobile technology helps students navigate higher ed.
College Bound Data
Combining big data sets and building and utilizing new applications will likely take philanthropic support, some app developers, and some guys like Don Munce that have been around the block a few times. Some incentive engineering like a prize could help focus and accelerate progress that would boost college completion rates and improve connections with the labor market
How Formative Assessment Supports Writing to Learn
One MIT prof thinks he can game one engine and the New York Times and NPR do stories on his anecdotal claims and miss the evidence of many large scientific studies including the study released this month. ASAP was designed to create evidence that supports the use of automated essay scoring to affordably incorporate more writing on their annual tests and avoid tests limited to multiple choice items. ASAP has provided sufficient evidence to support widespread use of automated scoring.
Better Tests, More Writing, Deeper Learning
In a recent private vendor demonstration, nine testing companies showed that “Machine scoring engines did as well or better than the human graders,” as reported by Dr. Mark Shermis. In an open competition, top engines will share $100,000 prize purse to be awarded May 9 in Washington DC.