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.
10 Ways I Use Technology to Learn
Talking to smart people at Startup Weekend SFO During the NYTimes conference this week a tweeter got frustrated with the old white men on the stage, “One last time: Would the panel mind talking about how they themselves use technology to learn?” So I thought I’d respond. Write…
Get out the blender, kids
I think I have just glimpsed the future, or at least what could be the future, of public education. I’m talking about the effective use of today’s technology to enhance learning, or what insiders are calling ‘blended education.’ Michael Horn, a co-author of Disrupting Class, provided a definition: Blended learning is any time a student learns at least in part at a supervised brick-and-mortar location away from home and at least in part through online delivery with some element of student control over time, place, path, and/or pace.
Neural Gawkiness
Adults' enduring perplexity about teenagers are captured in quotes by Aristotle and Shakespeare in The New Science of the Teenage Brain, the cover story of the October National Geographic. The article by David Dobbs explains how young people's lives are shaped by the mind-blowing reorganization occurring in the brains of adolescents between the ages of 12-25. The article is fascinating and worth reading the entire piece. It's also a fabulous tool for us to use to get policymakers attention to why so many policies and programs like Scared Straight, lock them up, and zero tolerance don't work. So after reading the article, spend a few minutes sending an email or two or a letter to the editor in your local paper.
Kansas City: A Great Education Improvement Story
In what may be the most improved urban American district, Kansas City, Kansas achieved results by a sustained focus on rigor and relationships. They started with a new goal—college and career readiness (a novel idea ten years ago). They got to know their students, they got them in the right courses, and the teachers got on the same page about good teaching.
Change Your School’s Culture and Save the World
Adam Renfro, an innovative educator, talks about how we should create campuses that inspire students to learn and environments that students actually want to dwell in. Campuses should mimic or resemble prisons, he says. Renfro's first suggestion: create a gaming room.
Assessment Will Advance When It Moves Into the Background
Digital Learning Now is a framework for state education policy for the digital age. Key to quality is Element #8, Assessment and Accountability. On assessment, DLN suggests that states should administer testing online: Administering tests digitally has multiple benefits. Tests can be administered and scored quickly and…
10 Things I’d Do Right Now As a Superintendent
A public school superintendent asked me last week what I’d do right now. Here’s a list of ten projects for fall 2011: Plan for the shift to personal digital learning in three phases over the next 3-5 years. You need six coordinated plans considering content and instruction, assessment and data,…
Authorizing High Performance
Paul Hill's Reinventing Public Education Good measures, clear targets, transparent results, and strong authorizing are all key to improving educational outcomes. Effective authorizing is the quality lynchpin to the Digital Learning Now framework which suggests that “States should hold schools and online providers accountable using student learning…
Desmos Graphing Calculator
Several new features have been added to the Desmos Graphing Calculator. Colleen Young uses it in the classroom as a powerful resource and particularly likes the sliders feature.
Partnerships Will Unlock Digital Promise
Newt Minnow proposed Digital Promise a decade ago While launching an over due edtech center, Duncan gave a great speech on the power of personal digital learning (I suspect Karen Cator gets most of the credit there). DigitalPromise is supposed to “identify breakthrough technologies, learn faster what’s…