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.
Online — for all things, online — certainly looks like the right side of history. But, as we argue in this week’s blog, face-to-face universities offer undergraduates two unique opportunities that online universities simply can’t!
While "mobile learning" may be overshadowed these days by other tech trends, make no mistake: in the hands of today’s youth, mobile learning is huge! Data to back that claim up — and more like it — are in this week’s blog post, where we interview Dr. Julie Evans, CEO — and Diva Extraordinaire — of Project Tomorrow. Using their "phones" teens are absolutely exploring "socially-based, un-tethered and digitally rich learning."
NGSS – The Next Generation Science Standards – is the hot new way to teach science in K-12. NGSS is a revolution in science education. In our blog, we briefly try to do that revolution justice by explaining its five key terms.
Deeply digital, highly interactive curricula are fast becoming the new normal; such materials are needed in order to take advantage of those newly minted 1-to-1 classrooms. The Collabrify Roadmap Platform at http://roadmap.center is a free resource designed to take the burden out of creating and using this new generation of curricula.
Why don’t techies typically understand how to reach the Holy Grail of ed tech with their apps? In this week’s blog post we look to Kahoot! — a Jeopardy-style game — to better understand the value of making a teacher’s life easier!
In its first decade, 1998-2008, "mobile learning" was all about getting devices into the hands of K-12 students and teachers. Palms initially proliferated; then Pocket PCs. In those early days, there was plenty of excitement and energy — for good reason — amongst the early adopters. Why didn’t mobile learning catch on, then?
TV – live shows (news, documentaries, etc.), not just YouTubes – is now available on all devices as an app. And, TV as an app makes absolutely unique resources readily available in the palm of a learner’s hand. However, as we discuss in this week’s blog post: if only it were that simple!
Personal computing devices are entering the K-12 classroom at a dramatically increased rate. Using those computers to support personalized learning is definitely in the cards. However, we urge those in charge: remember your Dewey — "education is a social process" — and use those computers for social learning as well!
Singer and Ivory, in their Nov. 4 New York Times article, made a major mis-speak: "... there is little rigorous evidence so far to indicate that using computers in class improves educational results." In this week’s blog post we identify research that addresses Singer and Ivory’s concern, as well as documenting the fact that K-12 students write more and write better when using a computer.
Educators typically have mixed views on their school’s IT staff — to put it mildly. In order to better understand IT staff’s priorities, responsibilities and resources, we lunched with them recently. Our eyes were opened by those conversations!