Teachers, materials, students — the big 3 of K–12. Materials (1-to-1, OER-based textbooks) are changing dramatically, but teachers and teaching is about to be disrupted in the Christensen-sense. Machine learning will drive personalized learning into America’s schools. On that you can rely!
- By Cathie Norris, Elliot Soloway
- 07/24/17
In 2016, OER (Open Education Resources) are undergoing a major transformation: rather than educators needing to struggle with searching OER repositories containing millions of OER objects and then trying to stitch together those OER objects into coherent lessons, organizations such as Open Up Resources are producing curriculum-scale, OER-based courses. Finally, OER is coming of age!
- By Cathie Norris, Elliot Soloway
- 07/11/17
The Triple E Framework, developed by Liz Kolb, guides teachers in thinking through how to make effective use of specific technology in their specific classrooms. Available up to now primarily on the Triple E website, ISTE has just published Kolb’s book length treatment of Triple E — which we review in this week’s blog post!
- By Cathie Norris, Elliot Soloway
- 06/19/17
In the "old" paper world, teachers had evolved a comfortable process for managing the life-cycle of a lesson; developing, distributing, enacting, assessing, reflecting, sharing. In this week’s blog post, we argue that in the "new" world of OER-based lessons, teachers again must be supported in managing the full life-cycle of a lesson.
- By Cathie Norris, Elliot Soloway
- 06/05/17
There is always a new new thing in technology. In contrast, in K-12, at the heart of the classroom is — and will be for the foreseeable future — the old old thing: curriculum. But, where is that curriculum, the fuel for the 1-to-1 classroom, going to come from? From the new new thing, of course – as we argue in this week’s blog post.
- By Cathie Norris, Elliot Soloway
- 05/22/17
School climate and student engagement survey data showed a principal that her school's project-based learning efforts are paying off. Here she shares her experiences and lessons learned.
- By Renee Polk Johnson
- 05/18/17
Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest are among the most popular websites and apps on Planet Earth. Those websites support "picting" — using images to communicate. In this week’s blog post, we present a "pro" and a "con" about the value of "picting" — using images — not words — for communication and self-expression.
- By Cathie Norris, Elliot Soloway
- 05/08/17
Schools that implement BYOD programs will choose one or both of two approaches: required BYOD and supplemental BYOD. While supplemental BYOD is a common-sense way to broaden students' and teachers' classroom resources, required BYOD is a problematic choice that will challenge a school district's staff and the community as a whole.
- By Jeff Mao
- 05/09/17
Framing computer science education in a way that interests both teachers and students could help boost the number of teachers seeking computer science certification and increase STEM achievement across K–12.
Today more than ever, education institutions need to step up their network security by implementing strong cyber security tools to protect their schools’ websites, infrastructure and meet the demands of their online learning platforms.