Assessment
EdTech
MasteryConnect Receives $1 Million to Expand Common Core Efforts
NewSchools Venture Fund announced today that MasteryConnect, an online assessment sharing community around Common Core Standards, received more than $1 million in seed funding to scale the organization and reach of its platform among teachers. NewSchools led the round of funding in support with Learn Capital, Imagine K12 and others.
EdTech
ETS Advice on Automated Scoring
ETS assessment scientist Randy Bennett recently released seven recommendations on automated scoring. Race to the Top funding of state assessment consortia triggered Dr. Bennett's paper.
EdTech
The old deal, the new deal, and the metrics
I don’t know about you, but I’m not paying much attention to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) debates in Washington. NCLB, flawed as it was, represented a bipartisan commitment to equity and an end to the toleration of chronic failure. What’s going on now (this weird local…
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…
Personalized Learning
6 Reasons EdLeaders Should Let Kids Bring Devices to School
Bans on student use of mobile devices exist for some good reasons—kids use them inappropriately at school and there are safety and security concerns. So why bother considering a change? There are six reasons to consider BYOD. Digital natives learn and live with technology. Most have and bring devices…
Leadership
Staff Picks: Longer School Days, Steve Jobs, & Assessment
This week, Karen picked an article about long school days, Caroline honored Steve Jobs with an article pick and Sarah highlighted an inspiring article by Wesley Fryer. Tom picked assessment as the hot topic of the week.
Personalized Learning
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…
Personalized Learning
States Need to Plan the Shift & Close the Divide
Bob Wise, DLNCo-Chair Over the last ten weeks this blog and video series has featured the Digital Learning Now state policy framework. Co-chair Gov. Bob Wise explains in the final video the importance of infrastructure to deliver on the promise of digital learning. Element #10…
Personalized Learning
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…
Uncategorized
Digital Media & Learning Competition Leverages Open Badges
A new game-based strategy called Digital Media and Learning Competition, hosted by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, HASTAC, and Mozilla, plans to leverage badges and badge systems to help people learn and demonstrate skills and knowledge.