blended learning

Personalized Learning

Virtual Classrooms Supersize Hunger to Learn

Guest Author

With more organizations looking for more innovative approaches than traditional teaching methods, blended learning is becoming increasingly popular. With the ‘perfect blend,’ companies can combine self-based learning, assignment tasks and classes, which can be attended virtually or over the phone. These learning tools can then be customized to suit staff learning needs and level of skill.

Personalized Learning

3 Market Observations of Virtual Classrooms Today

Guest Author

You’ve heard about them—your friend, your friend’s mom, your friend’s cousin’s neighbour—people who you’ve heard graduated from online courses. There were some who used to laugh at the idea of online courses before, given the concept’s relative new-ness as well as the unproven quality of the academic institutions behind them. Does the same still hold true today? How have virtual classrooms improved?
Leadership

Staff Picks: EdTech, Blended Learning, Summer Learning

Getting Smart Staff

Karen Picks “Book Review: Born to Rise“ Karen says, “Deborah’s heart warming story of turning a painful life event into a chance to make a difference is powerful. She was relentless in her pursuit to open schools in tough neighborhoods for students that needed them most. She built schools…
EdTech

SMARTtech Roundup: STEM, Core and More

Getting Smart Staff

Blended Schools & Tools Learn Now, Lecture Later. A new survey called “Learn Now, Lecture Later” from CDW-G found that high schoolers want more hands-on projects, independent study and virtual learning. The report is based on a spring 2012 survey of 1,015 public high school and higher education students,…
Personalized Learning

An Inside View of Blended Integration at Rocketship Education

Guest Author

At Rocketship Education our mission is to close the achievement gap within our lifetimes. The three pillars of our model are: parent and community engagement, rich professional development for our teachers and school leaders, and individualized learning for our students. Toward the end of individualized learning, we utilize a blended learning model in our K-5 elementary schools. Students use technology and small group tutoring in our Learning Lab for individualized basic skills practice, allowing our teachers to focus on higher-order thinking skills in the classroom.

Personalized Learning

Christensen’s Curve & The Digital Learning Revolution

Guest Author

In the prophetic Disrupting Class: How Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns (2008, 2011), Clayton Christensen argued that innovations in technology will proliferate in the 21st century, generate “student-centric” forms of digital learning, create customized learning for the individual, and provide innovative alternatives to traditional teaching and learning tools.
Personalized Learning

Lease vs. Buy

Tom Vander Ark

Schools considering 1:1 use of $500 laptops can make the full shift using leasing or phase in a purchase plan over three years. Here’s the key—if your school or district has the discipline to phase in a tech plan and manage an annual refresh program that is clearly going to be cheaper than leasing. On the other hand, if you want to shift the whole school (or district) simultaneously and want some certainty on your refresh schedule, then leasing is the way to go.
Personalized Learning

The Crisis in the Education of Boys

Tom Vander Ark

However you slice the numbers, boys are underperforming girls. Online and blended learning is making it easier and more affordable to offer engaging, challenging, and affordable pathways. The potential to personalize learning for groups and individual students holds promise for addressing the crisis in educating boys.
EdTech

SmartTech Roundup: From Blended Learning to Justin Bieber

Getting Smart Staff

Three minute foray into the future. Intel’s three minute video provides a peek into the blended classroom of the future. In response to the video, Tom noted on Getting Smart that the video shows a good partial picture of blended learning but leaves out some of the more compelling reasons for the shift such leveraging teaching talent with technology.