Digital Learning Now
Personalized Learning
Staff Picks: Hewlett Winners, Blended Universe
Tom says, "Maker Faire have lots of cool exhibits this weekend in San Mateo, but it's more than that for edu--the maker movement is connected to open content, viral adoption, any where anytime, and blended learning. Time to stop asking kids to 'turn in work' and time to help them make/publish/produce/create."
Personalized Learning
SmartTech Roundup
iNACOL is not only the online learning association. Susan Patrick has made the organization the leading advocate for competency-based learning. Susan and unusually competent sidekick Chris Sturgis launched CompetencyWorks yesterday. Check it out and contribute. Here's our summary. (Tom is an iNACOL director.)
Personalized Learning
NSBA Virtual Schools Report & The Questions Of “True Costs”
Overall, it’s nothing new; a rehash of reports from years past. Much of this information has been presented, discussed and debated in state capitols across the country. The report does, however, draw mostly negative conclusions about online schools, which is not a surprise given the policy views of NSBA and aggressive lobbying by its state chapters against charter schools, multi-district online schools, and parent choice.
Personalized Learning
Digital Learning: The Future of Schooling?
Local, state and national experts are gathering this week in Columbus, Ohio to examine digital learning at a national summit entitled, Digital Learning: The Future of Schooling? The event is co-hosted by KnowledgeWorks, the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, and the Nord Family Foundation.
Personalized Learning
ClassDojo: Going Beyond Good Test Scores to Build Good People
What’s the single biggest indicator of lifetime outcomes and success, as early as age three? (I’ll give you a few hints. It’s not IQ. It’s not socioeconomic status. Give up yet?) It’s self control - and a whole slew of other behavioral management skills.
Personalized Learning
Review: Philip Howard on Fixing Education
Philip Howard is a lawyer, author of Life Without Lawyers: Restoring Responsibility in America. In a recent Atlantic piece, Howard pitched a five part bureaucracy busting platform. We appreciate the effort, but it's got a lot of holes in it.
Personalized Learning
Improve School Safety Training With Online Flexibility
In many of today’s schools, staff safety training and management of the process is handled with in-service workshops and pen and paper sign-offs. Besides the frustration associated with manually keeping track of all those who attended, it also requires that administrators hold follow-up sessions to ensure everyone who did not attend receives training.
Personalized Learning
5 Characteristics Connecting Montessori Ed & the Personalized Learning Movement
At first glance, the intersections between Montessori education and high-quality digital learning are not immediately apparent. To those of us with some knowledge about Montessori methods—based on formal training, general awareness or, as in my case, the observations of a parent whose children attend a Montessori school—its natural materials and deep traditions seem to stand in opposition to the vision of a futuristic, technology-rich digital or blended learning environment.
EdTech
Out of Poverty Into Opportunity
Dr. Idit Harel Caperton. At the NewSchools Venture Fund SUMMIT2012 (in collaboration with The Aspen Institute) this May in San Francisco, NewSchools CEO Ted Mitchell gave an inspiring address to one thousand members of America's leading education reform movement.