No more forgotten lunch money. Students in one Florida school district pay for school lunches by scanning their palms, which are linked to their accounts. (USA Today)

Can creativity be taught? Respondents to a new survey say yes. And NASA arguably thinks so; the company hosts a monthly class for its employees aimed at boosting creativity. (The Daily Press)

Arne Duncan as SecretaryContinue Reading »

“Hurry, please. We have so much time and so little to see. Wait a minute! Strike that. Reverse it. Thank you.”

No doubt, many state and local educators know exactly how Mr. Wonka felt. Motivated by NCLB’s impending 100% proficiency deadline, adoption of the Common Core, and federal initiatives like Race to the Top and ESEA waivers, states and school districts are embarking on a multi-proContinue Reading »

Back in the day, a prominent education reformer asked me to send him a fax rather than an email. Asked why, he replied, only half jokingly, “if God had wanted us to use email he would not have invented the fax machine!” Reflecting on the remark I always chuckle, but then think: how prophetic. Technology has come slowly to K-12 education. Our schools and classrooms are not all that different froContinue Reading »

Taking ‘the cap off learning.’ Officials at an Ohio school district are hoping iPads will boost their lagging graduation rates. They’ll use the money originally intended for textbooks to supply their new tech program. (Columbus Dispatch)

Classrooms of the future? Starting this fall, one Panama physics classroom will be outfitted with touchscreen desks, compatible with the touchscreens onContinue Reading »

Where a red solo cup proves useful inside a college classroom. The 24-hour Math Emporium, in a former discount department store, now houses computers equipped to teach introductory math to 8,000 students per year. Students come and go as they please, move at their own pace, and when they have a question, they place the red cup on top of their monitor. Education Sector’s Kevin Carey took a look Continue Reading »

Digital learning may finally be reaching lift-off in K-12 education. Venture capital is flooding into education technology start-ups. School districts, strapped for funds in these post-recessionary times, are anxious to increase productivity, and digital appears to hold that promise. Hand-held and tablet devices are falling in price and making student access to the Internet easier and cheaper aContinue Reading »

NCLB waivers lack specifics on ELT. Expanded learning time is often listed as a possible reform strategy among the applications from the 11 first-round states granted waivers last fall to the federal No Child Left Behind law. However, a new report shows that very few, if any, states fully articulate their plans to use the extended time wisely. As Education Sector’s Elena Silva recently pointed Continue Reading »

Too many chefs and only one pot. Mike Petrilli of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute says the problem with education reform is that “there are so many cooks in the education kitchen that nobody is really in charge.” (Flypaper)

Learning from the best. Students from one Indiana elementary school without access to cool technology, like iPads, are getting after-school lessons from tContinue Reading »

Credit: Schoology Blog

Gone are the boring, one-size-fits-all professional development seminars for teachers. And the forever-long staff meetings that take up more time than necessary.

Well, maybe they’re not “gone,” exactly, but they’re being replaced.

Pinterest.com is an online pinboard of sorts, where members can organizeContinue Reading »

BINGO! Don’t have a Bingo card yet for tonight’s State of the Union? The Alliance for Excellent Education has it covered.

For greener pastures. Remember Sebastian Thrun at Stanford University? He’s the professor who taught an Artificial Intelligence course online – for free (albeit no credit). Well, that ended in December (with 160,000 students enrolled around the globe) – anContinue Reading »