Reinventing Curriculum | Blog
Here you'll find analysis and views on technology, policy and curriculum in elementary and secondary education by two outspoken technology advocates, Elliot Soloway and Cathie Norris. Reinventing Curriculum is published twice per month. Below you will also find the archive for Elliot and Cathie's previous blog, Being Mobile.
Consistent with our blog’s theme of "Reinventing Curricula," we feel that research itself needs reinvention! Straight cognitive research isn’t enough if our goal is to design "effective, scalable and sustainable [educational] policies and programs." In this week’s blog post, then, we explore a new R&D methodology — Design-Based Implementation Research.
- By Cathie Norris, Elliot Soloway
- 10/31/16
We (CN &ES) took a deep dive into a popular "personalized learning" programs for K–8 mathematics instruction. While we have not been particularly supportive of personalized learning in the past, to put it mildly, in this week’s blog we describe what impressed us about this particular math program that used concept-based practice and differentiated instruction.
- By Cathie Norris, Elliot Soloway
- 10/17/16
While the book publishing, music publishing and video publishing industries have transitioned successfully from atoms to bits, not so for K-12. Indeed, in K-12 it is early – and confusing – days in transitioning from atom-based textbooks to bit-based digital curricula.
- By Cathie Norris, Elliot Soloway
- 10/04/16
Public education must keep equity front-and-center in all its policies; public education is all about equity. And, innovation must be nurtured; teachers who are willing to try to improve their classrooms must be supported. In this week’s blog post, we tell a story — one that T.H.E. Journal readers will surely recognize — of how equity and innovation can be, unfortunately, in mortal conflict!
- By Cathie Norris, Elliot Soloway
- 09/19/16
Educational technologists: listen to the teachers; they are asking you to help them to be more effective in creating and using digital curricula. In this blog post, then, we define the five functions that a blended learning platform must support — and challenge the ed tech community to build such a platform!
- By Cathie Norris, Elliot Soloway
- 09/06/16
Gooru.org is an OER marketplace with 5,000,000+ open education resources. But, most excitingly, they are posting "just" 35 full courses that teachers can "copy and customize." We applaud gooru.org for taking this major step in providing support for teachers who are trying to #GoOpen!
- By Cathie Norris, Elliot Soloway
- 08/22/16
Seymour Papert passed away on July 31. He was 88. We share with you, in this week’s blog, what we learned from him: why children should learn to program.
- By Cathie Norris, Elliot Soloway
- 08/08/16
Learners are not just short users. So, software designed from a User-Centered Design perspective is not always appropriate for those short users! This week’s blog, then, outlines a Learner-Centered Design approach to educational software development that should better meet the unique needs of learners.
- By Cathie Norris, Elliot Soloway
- 07/25/16
A transition, quietly but most assuredly, has occurred: Today, in 2016, discussions under the heading "mobile learning" are becoming more about how "all-the-time, everywhere learning" can be supported with "mobile" technology than about mobile devices and apps. That transition has huge pedagogical implications!
- By Cathie Norris, Elliot Soloway
- 07/05/16
OER – open education resources are a boon to K-12. But OER is a start, not an end. As K-12 moves to fully 1-to-1 and blended learning, K-12 needs to go beyond digitized versions of paper-based lessons (and proprietary formats) and develop an open standard for the "deeply digital lesson."
- By Cathie Norris, Elliot Soloway
- 06/20/16