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.
Rev Up Your Mobile Learning Lab On a Bus
Today's Smart Teachers post is by Adam Renfro, a consultant for Open Education Solutions. Adam's article covers a play-by-play on how the daily school bus ride could be improved to promote learning through mobile devices.
Jeb Bush: A Real Shot at Quality at Scale
Jeb Bush supports digital learning “Because it’s the best chance we have to promote rising student achievement at the most rapid rate possible.” Bush delivered a rousing lunch speech at Philanthropy Roundtable’s Technology & the Shift to Student-Centric Learning conference. Former Florida Governor Bush enumerated the unacceptable…
Review: Mindjet Releases Mindjet Connect
About two weeks ago Mindjet, Inc. a leader in the field of mind mapping and knowledge mapping released Mindjet Connect a free online mind mapping tool. Now anyone with a browser and a connection to the web can take advantage of the power of mind mapping for free, using this unique service.
Taking Stock, Moving Forward
Jiji from ST Math It seems odd that after a NYTimes event called Schools for Tomorrow, they’d put another pandering Richtel potshot A1 above the fold on Sunday. It follows a week of bad news about online learning from Colorado but Sarah suggests you Take Another Look…
Jobs’ passing: Who will bring our 1984 moment to learning?
Steve Jobs passing and the outflow of feelings says this is more than a mere corporate titan's death. In the flood of remembrances, we can see how different he was from many technology-industry peers. Although he never turned his relentless design sensibility on the building of full learning environments, there are lessons we can take away for what a “Jobs-like” focus in learning would be like.
Good Assessment Key to Strong Accountability
Some #EdReform, #EdEquality, and #EdPolicy colleagues thought my blog Assessment Will Advance When it Moves Into the Background suggested that I didn’t support the idea of summative assessments and their associated use in school accountability systems. This section may have begged the question: We’ll need to invent our way out of…
Communication Barriers: Keeping the Walls Down in the Online Classroom
The Wall Street Journal recently discussed communication difficulties between foreign doctors and patients in Iowa. The article emphasized the communication barriers that can exist between doctors and patients who come from different cultures. It made me think about communication between online students. Distance learning peers rarely live in the same geographic area (and become quite excited when they discover someone who does live in the same region), but generally communicate quite well.
Pocket Tales Wins Global Education Challenge
Houghton Mifflin announced the winners of the Global Education Challenge last night in Washington DC. I kicked off the event with a quick recap of the promise of personal digital learning: customization, motivation, and equalization (as outlined in Getting Smart, available online this week). It just so…
Critiquing Diane Ravitch’s Parent Trigger Critique
[Sigh]...Diane Ravitch launched another attack on the Parent Trigger. One of America's best known reformers is now an apologist for an overpriced and failing education bureaucracy.
Customization is to Fracking as Persistence is to Horizontal Drilling
Innovation changes our assumptions. It makes possible what was previously impossible. It changes the math in our mental models.