EdTech
Personalized Learning
Better organized free stuff
It’s quite phenomenal how many edu-blogs, tweeters, sites, and networks are emerging. Just a few years ago we had to rely on our weekly fix from EdWeek and now our inboxes and twitter boxes are full of news and views—a storm of info. Perhaps next gen tools like…
Personalized Learning
How not to invent the future
eSchool News featured a long piece on the AEI debrief on the rocky start of Philly School of the Future Long story short: some good ideas, sloppy execution.  Microsoft provided useful assistance but ran into the disastrous revolving-door leadership common in urban districts.  Lesson: running a good school is…
Personalized Learning
Social learning: the next platform
I’ve been watching social learning (i.e., Facebook for edu) for a year.  It’s a super saturated solution–a few solutions will explode and achieve widespread adoption by the end of the 09-10 school year.  Check out  this piece on social learning.  It’s the next big wave in learning–the new platform.
Personalized Learning
Where is EdTech making a difference?
A friend asked me where EdTech is making a difference for kids, especially low income kids.  Here’s my quick list.  I’d love to hear more examples. 1. AdvancePath.com runs 9 blended drop out prevention centers, 8 in CA, with good results serving under credited kids.  Decidedly first gen; they use…
Personalized Learning
iTunes U is getting useful for higher/continuing edu
I love my iPod, I toggle between Patty Griffin and Physics. Maybe you received the iTunes U email today featuring engineering courses (or maybe it’s just the podcasts that I subscribe to); just some of the courses: • Stanford: iPhone applications • Open U: Design & Creativity…
Personalized Learning
Don't lock the doors to virtual schools
Read the following important post from Patrick Donaldson about limitations being proposed on online learning in Oregon.  Similar efforts to limit opportunity by placing enrollment caps or geographic boundaries around online learning are underway across the country.  These barriers will slow the development of a new generation of flexible options…
Personalized Learning
2020 Forecast: Last Word (3 of 3)
“You as a pupil will be placed in the centre. Personalised education means that the school and the teachers start from and adapt themselves to your goals, your ambitions and your potentials….The fundamental principle behind our method of learning is the conviction that all pupils are…
Personalized Learning
Good news, bad news
Good news 1.    It’s great news that the Utah State Board approved a pilot of computer adaptive testing. Perhaps it’s another sign of the beginning of the end of the rampant misuse of 1950’s psychometrics. 2.    High performing charter schools seem to have capture the attention of…
Personalized Learning
2020 Forecast: Implications
The KnowledgeWorks Future of Learning map points into the fog with the following identified implications: ·         Resilient School Communities: I’ll buy the need for better connections and more transparency ·         Amplified Educators and Learners: agreed—innovation will emerge from outside the formal…
Personalized Learning
2020 Forecast: Creating the Future of Learning (1 of 2)
As soon as you finish reading this, go to www.FutureOfEd.org and check out the 2020 Forecast: Creating the Future of Learning, a recently released landscape map produced by KnowledgeWorks and the Institute of the Future. My friend Chad Wick flipped his foundation from a focus on…