1. Ask Why? There are millions of connected educators around the world who would be delighted to answer that question for you. You must answer it for your own education context. Best not to try doing so alone. Which leads to… 2. Engage a Diverse Array of Stakeholders from the Beginning. Moving teachers and students to […]
So This is Democracy – Edcamp, the Unconference
It is easy for a middle-class, Washington outsider to become skeptical about our political system that, by some metrics, operates more like a polarized plutocracy than a socialistic democracy. However, in the same week, three members of a Russian girl punk band got two years in prison for playing protest songs in the face of […]
Government Study of Online Learning Revisited
Below are my notes from a DOE commissioned meta-study of the effects that online and blended learning have on student learning. This study was published in 2009 and is frequently referenced in the edtech community as evidence that there is value added in moving instruction out of the classroom and into the cloud. As the […]
Blended Learning, Merit Pay, and My Wife
I am ready to jump in. For fifteen years I have been employing educational technologies in my high school science classes to increase student engagement and improve student performance. I have documented increases in both of these with my most recent foray into Peer Instruction with clickers over the last three years. Before that I […]
Ca Student Bill of Rights Act – Friend or Foe to Public Education?
This topic will probably get more action from me in coming months. This post will be a quick informational one to start a conversation so that I can get more information. The California Student Bill of Rights Initiative (link to .pdf of initiative text) seeks to allow students anywhere in California access to UC approved […]
Independent EdTech Research – Untethered Mad Science
No one would deny that education research is difficult to do well. Humans don’t behave like frictionless carts in perfectly elastic collisions. The gold standard of a double-blind study with randomly assigned subjects is impossible to accomplish in a school setting. Education institutions would like to use data-rooted studies to effect positive change, but the […]
Beginning of end for ETS? Notes from the SF EduTech @Meetup #EdTech #k12
One thing is for sure. There will be no dearth of choices for adaptive learning math-in-the-box tools. This was my fourth SF EdTech Meetup, and included my 13th, 14th, and 15th encounters, respectively, with young, bright-eyed founders developing cloud-based learning environments for basic math instruction. Why wouldn’t they do this? Math instruction, at the lower […]
Lock cell service, maintain wireless capability in the classroom @lightspeed #EdTech #mlearning
Went to the Edutech meetup (Meetup.com) at Parisoma last night. This was my third time attending, and the size of the gathering seems to double every time. A mix of edupreneurs, educators, and investors mingled in a small, hot room with poor acoustics and unflagging enthusiasm. I spoke with three technical founders, each working on […]
The Future of Crowd Sourced Education #EdTech #Education @Quora
My response to a Quora question.
Khan is good, but you are probably better. #EdTech #k12 #Education
Something struck me the wrong way the fifth time that I was asked if I use Sal Khan’s videos in my physics classes. Why the fifth time? Because after the fourth time, I actually went and watched a few of them myself. I was shocked. Really? That was what everyone is excited about? I was, […]
Who Does Online Education Serve?
Another data point (well, 23 data points actually) to confirm my suspicion that online education in high school is being used primarily for at-risk students. The International Association for K-12 Online Learning – INACOL – published the results of a recent study of their membership. The study was a survey that asked technology coordinators how […]
Question Tank 