future of learning
Personalized Learning
Early hybrids show the way: the PLC story
Clay Christensen talks about innovation occuring at the margin–often the choice between something and nothing. That’s certainly true in education where we’ve seen innovation start in alternative or special education. Neil Shorthouse co-founded Communities in Schools, the most respected dropout prevention network in America. After three decades of working…
Personalized Learning
Reflections on Excellence in Action: 2009
Gov. Bush puts on a good conference. As you can see from the text of his keynote (Wednesday’s blog) he’s on fire about the transformative power of learning technology. Michelle Rhee rocked the house with an honest assessment of performance in DC schools and her plans…
Personalized Learning
Jeb Bush was great at his national summit
Gov Bush keynoted the Excellence in Action 2009 summit. While moderating a conversation with the Governor, I had the opportunity to tell the audience that he was the best education governor of the last decade. His leadership on data,…
Personalized Learning
Stop dumb stuff, start smart stuff
I’m stuck on a comment in Bill Maher’s closing commentary last week. He said something like, “In America, we can’t stop doing dumb stuff and we can’t start anything big and important.” Once a government program gets started, we can’t kill it after it has served its…
Personalized Learning
New tools bring new roles
New tools and formats will not only increase options for students, they are creating a much more diverse range of employment options for learning professionals including: · content development of lessons, units and courses · platform development of social learning platforms, recommendation engines, learning management applications ·…
Personalized Learning
Platforms for change
It's time to look at platforms that will change education, especially blended learning models that increase peer-to-peer learning and a good mix of online and tech.
Personalized Learning
Platform deal flow
Seeing more platform plays these days including social learning, adaptive content, and blogging. Powerful application development platforms are making it so much easier to develop new apps–you can see the difference in 09 code compared to older vintage. Guaranteach was incubated by Christensen-inspired Innosight. They have more than…
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
Transitional times
We’re in between times—in between print and digital and in between age cohorts and personalized learning. I visited with two very different groups today, both making the best of the old model. The first group writes software for smartboards—they automated the overhead. I’m not a fan…