It’s tragic that our country — home of Silicon Valley and countless technology innovations — lags in broadband penetration and speed. The new National Broadband Plan, released today, tries to offer solutions. Importantly, the plan focuses not just on technology, but the actual uses of that technology. It includes an entire section for education-related recommendations, [...]
All Posts Tagged: 'Technology'
Smarter Data Systems: The New York City Experience
Part VIII of the Five Principles for Smarter Data Systems series–a guest post from Arthur VanderVeen, Chief of Innovation, New York City Department of Education:
… it is astoundingly difficult to impact day-to-day classroom practices. And unless we design data systems with a primary goal of improving classroom teaching and learning, our investments will show little [...]
Smarter Data Systems: Urban Districts Lead the Way
Part VII of the Five Principles for Smarter Data Systems series–a guest post from Lori Fey, Director Policy Initiatives, Michael & Susan Dell Foundation:
Bill Tucker and the Education Sector make important and relevant points about next-generation data systems in Five Design Principles for Smarter Data Systems to Support Student Learning. We should [...]
In Search of a Theory of Action: A Letter to Race to the Top Finalists
Part VI of this week’s Five Principles for Smarter Data Systems series–a guest post from Laurence Holt, EVP and Chief Product Officer for Wireless Generation, and an author of And Now For Something Completely Different, a guide to Instructional Improvement Systems from which the post below is adapted:
Dear Finalist,
First, congratulations! I assume you are busy [...]
Smarter Data Systems: The Data-Assessment Partnership
Part V of this week’s Five Principles for Smarter Data Systems series–a guest post from Ben Boer, Senior Policy Associate at Advance Illinois:
Education Sector’s five principles for use of data re-imagine the relationship between data and education. Today, too much good data lives in silos — in state agencies, in districts, in schools, even at [...]
Five Big Ideas for Data Rigor….Without Mortis
Part IV of this week’s Five Principles for Smarter Data Systems series–a guest post from Dr. Heather Weiss, Founder and Director of the Harvard Family Research Project (HFRP):
Education Sector’s five design principles powerfully reframe the conversation about how, when and where to use data to support student learning so that it will not die in [...]
What Do Bicycles and Copiers Have to Do With Student Data Systems?
Part III of this week’s Five Principles for Smarter Data Systems series–a guest post from Vincent Cho, M.Ed., former teacher and assistant principal, now a PhD student and researcher on educational data use at The University of Texas at Austin:
Education Sector’s Five Design Principles raises important questions about the technology tools we provide to schools. [...]
Smarter Data Systems: The Classroom View
Part II of this week’s Five Principles for Smarter Data Systems series–a guest post from Norton Gusky, Coordinator of Educational Technology, Fox Chapel Area School District (PA):
We began a concentrated focus on using data about six years ago. We made the common mistake of purchasing an administrative system that really did nothing for teachers–and more [...]
Five Design Principles for Smarter Data Systems
Part I of this week’s Five Principles for Smarter Data Systems series:
In the past decade, school districts and states have spent more than a billion dollars to build and implement data systems. Data about student learning—and the systems that collect, organize, and report on this data—are what U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan calls “the [...]
Teacher Video Clubs
An interesting article in the February, 2010, technology-focused JSD ($$, see list of contents) from the National Staff Development Council. Viewer Discussion is Advised describes video clubs that focus teacher discussion on student learning:
Each month, these seven teachers get together and watch video clips from their classrooms on computer monitors or television screens….A video club [...]
Bricks-and-Mortar Money for Virtual Schools?
It’s worth keeping an eye on what’s happening to virtual schools in Georgia. Last week, a group of charter schools bypassed the traditional route to charter authorization and sought to be funded exactly like any other public school in the state. (For the record, Georgia has 122 charter schools but only one virtual charter school.)
We’ve [...]
Act Now to Comment on the National Broadband Plan for Education
Open educational resources, online learning, technology-enhanced assessments, better data to inform instruction, online professional teaching communities, and a whole host of promising initiatives rest on the assumption of adequate and fully accessible Internet connections. Getting education right in the National Broadband Plan, now under development by the FCC, is essential.
There are a whole host of [...]
First Take: $350m Assessment Competition Guidelines
Last week, the U.S. Department of Education released its initial overview of the competition process for the $350 million in stimulus funding set aside to improve student assessment (see Education Week’s helpful summary).
What We’ve Learned
It’s All About Accountability: Not surprising, but important to distinguish that ED’s plans are for assessments related to current NCLB mandates–reading [...]
Assault on Online Learning? Not Really.
“A largely unnoticed assault upon the nation’s vibrant market in online learning” is how Rick Hess, writing for the National Review Online, characterizes the Obama Administration’s proposal to spend $500 million over ten years to develop online high school and college courses. Hess argues that there is already a robust private market and invokes the [...]
Open Thread: Radical Choice?
Our fascinating discussion on the future of educational choice winds up today (read the transcript). In the discussion, a couple of different threads are coming together.
The first is that there is enormous potential for more personalized learning and the educational landscape is changing—rapidly. Tom Vander Ark opened up the discussion with his prediction that [...]
Crossing the Assessment Innovation Chasm
The announcement of a new National Science Foundation grant to the University of Wisconsin to further develop a game-based science and math learning program, along with an associated assessment system, caught my eye. It’s the exact type of promising technology-enabled assessment system that I wrote about in “Beyond the Bubble.” It’s also a good opportunity [...]
More on Open Content, Digital Textbooks
Here’s a nice primer from the Education Commission of the States that outlines various state initiatives and explains the differences among traditional, digital, and open textbooks. This is an important and emerging trend that we should embrace, rather than fear.
Improving Assessment: Getting from Here to There
In our op-ed earlier this week, my colleague Elena Silva and I reflected on Secretary Duncan’s Race to the Top “moon shot:”
The secretary wisely prods states to expand public charter school options, improve the quality of teaching, and address failing schools. But, unless his plans for improving our underlying navigational instruments—the tests that generate the [...]
Don’t Fear Open Content, Eduwonk
It sounds like my colleague Andy really wants to believe in open educational resources. But, his usually healthy skepticism has him equivocating instead:
The risk here is quality. There is something to be said for a formal editorial process in news-reporting and in education publishing and media. I’m not one of those who thinks that all things open-source are unreliable, but [...]
Will Race to the Top Spur a New Generation of Assessment?
Perhaps. Significantly improving student assessment is the real “moon shot” for the stimulus funds.
A new Education Week article highlights the potential impact of these funds:
What now seems to be an intractable choice between richer tasks and reliable data, though, could be mediated by advancements in technology that could improve access, cost, and reliability of performance-based [...]
Lowering Student Loan Default Rates: What One Consortium of Historically Black Institutions Did to Succeed 
College and Career-Ready: Using Outcomes Data to Hold High Schools Accountable for Student Success
03/19/10 | Ben Miller is quoted on college graduation rates and the NCAA Tournament in the Detroit Free Press.
03/19/10 | Linda Perlstein links to Education Sector's "College- and Career-Ready" event.
03/17/10 | Ben Miller's column on graduation rates and NCAA Tournament eligibility is mentioned on The Wall Street Journal's The Daily Fix.
03/17/10 | Kevin Carey's critique of Diane Ravitch's latest book is quoted in Doublethink's Conventional Folly blog.
03/15/10 | Ben Miller pens an op-ed for US News & World Report on using graduation rates to determine NCAA Tournament eligibility.