This may be the first generation of educators whose students know more about their literacy tools than their teachers. When monks taught writing, they were also the experts on the quill, but today's teachers are more likely to be taught by their students on how to set up a blog.
- By Therese Mageau
- 03/21/11
If we start with the premise that online education is not only inevitable but desirable, the involvement of for-profit and charter entities in the e-learning marketplace could be a symbiotic relationship that benefits all involved.
- By Therese Mageau
- 08/01/11
I'd like to suggest a little restraint--or perhaps more effective communication--around what appears to be a buying craze among our nation's schools.
- By Therese Mageau
- 10/09/12
We need a new educational model that makes learning personal and motivating, and helps secure our students’ future in the knowledge economy. Mobile technology opens the door to it.
- By Mary McCaffrey
- 02/08/11
Podcasts are becoming popular for educational purposes. Increasingly students in K-12 and in higher education are creating podcasts to demonstrate what they are learning. The technology is becoming so important that online course management systems, such as Angel Learning, are now incorporating features enabling content providers to include podcasting. However, many of those I've heard appear to be created by individuals experimenting with the technology and suffer from poor quality in the audio, content, and speaker presentation.
- By Patricia Deubel
- 06/07/07
Teacher turnover (also known to some as "teachers quitting their jobs") is becoming a critical concern for school and district administrators. Not only can it have a negative impact on student learning, especially in troubled districts, but it's emerging as a fairly major financial drain on districts in all regions, according to findings released last month by the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future (NCTAF). So is there anything school and district technology leaders can do about it? According to the NCTAF report, there is.
As educators, we are called upon to challenge the way students already think and guide them into new patterns or ways of thinking as required, in order for them to grasp central concepts and applications of learning. Collaborative technologies, while not central to the process, can help facilitate this core function of education.
In the fourth installment of their monthly column, blended learning experts Michael B. Horn and Heather Staker discuss the growth of open online resources and their impact on blended learning.
- By Michael Horn, Heather Staker
- 06/07/12
The idea of using chat as a communication tool with students is widely accepted in education. Using the same tool to progress critical thinking is not often discussed. That is, the question might be asked, "Why use an online tool when I can discuss with my students face to face?"
Speculation is as indigenous to Washington, DC as the national monuments; part of the game is trying to understand which rumors, leaks, and parcels of inside information are worth heeding and which are not. I think one bit of speculation now circulating through the Beltway warrants following: Dedicated funding for technology may not be included in the next reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.
- By Geoffrey H. Fletcher
- 11/09/09