EdTech
Personalized Learning
ESEA + ARRA = Big Lever
I spent most of the last 48 hours thinking about ESEA and ARRA. If NCLB is any precedent, we can assume that new and improved ESEA will frame most of the next decade. ARRA is a potent package of grants reflecting a core theory of change: common standards, measurement, strong…
Personalized Learning
How will digital learning replace print?
A consultant working for an instructional materials vendor called today to discuss market dynamics around the shift from print to digital. We discussed eight forces of change: 1. Cheap access devices. When I was a superintendent, laptops were $2500; now you can get a more powerful netbook for a…
Personalized Learning
Rocketship takes off
Rocketship Education was a prize winner at CSGF‘s Innovation Competition last month (I served as ajudge). My friend Gisele Huff has been trying to get me to visit them for years because of their interesting blended model that incorporates online learning. The first school of San Jose nonprofit is in the…
Personalized Learning
The disruptive power of learning technology
Had a little sidebar in the NYTimes Magazine this morning. There were supposed to be a dozen short responses to “What is the most important – or hardest – thing to change in education today and how would you change it?” Sounds like the piece got axed…
Personalized Learning
Pressure for more RttT winners
Eduflack reflects on pressure to expand the number of RttT winners. To his observations I’d add growing White House and Congressional pressure to spread the peanut butter and to make more awards in phase 1. Patrick’s post made me re-read the application and eligibility requirements and the selection criteria (…
Personalized Learning
The education bubble
Marketplace economics correspondent Chris Ferrell suggested that we’re nearing the end of an “education bubble” where college is not worth what families are spending. Ferrell suggested that the hyperinflation in higher ed costs is mainly because of widely available inexpensive student loans. Ferrell suggests that…
Personalized Learning
EdNet (and Chicago) reflections
With the biggest crowd ever, the mood at EdNet was much different than last year. There were lots of start-ups and more funders and investment bankers than ever. The agenda was all about digital learning (we may finally be moving past thinking about EdTech on the periphery and…
Personalized Learning
Education Needs to be Turned on Its Head
A Leo Babauta post (via Milton Ramirez tweet) recites the failings of the age cohort-batch process-compliance rewarding system knows worldwide. The system fails to prepare about two-thirds of American kids–all but the compliant and well supported. And, as Leo points out, while we talk about innovation and creativity, we still have…
Personalized Learning
Paul O'Neill, Stanley Kaplan, and USED staff
1. Paul O’Neill may be the best charter school attorney in the US, certainly the best east of the Mississippi, by virtue of handling a high volume of charter contracts for more than decade. Paul’s Charter School Law Deskbook is the definitive book on the subject. He…
Personalized Learning
$3.5B for school improvement will benefit charters/services
This EdWeek blog is a good summary of the USED guidance $3.5B Title 1 school improvement fund. Each state will receive an allotment and will distribute it to districts that agree to enact one or more of the four prescribed strategies: · Turnaround: replacing at least…