Digital Promise Announces Merger with Edcamp, AI Pilot and New Digital Learning Microcredential
- By Dian Schaffhauser
- 07/20/20
Digital
Promise, the organization that focuses on accelerating innovation in
education, especially through the smart use of technology, hasn't
stopped moving ahead with initiatives, even as schools have had to
slow down some of their operations.
Recently,
Digital Promise announced that it had merged with Edcamp.
The decade-old foundation helps teachers put on education camps,
which are designed by the participants themselves as "unconferences"
to address their own professional development needs.
In
a letter
to its community,
Edcamp Executive Director Hadley Ferguson, wrote: "Our
organizations share very similar missions and are both committed to
powerful learning experiences for educators where they can
collaborate and learn from each other to create inclusive and
meaningful learning experiences for their students."
Ferguson,
who said she was stepping down, added that Digital Promise would
continue supporting the Edcamp programs, "maintaining access to
tools and resources organizers need and a website listing of upcoming
local and virtual Edcamps for participants to attend." An Edcamp
"community team" led by former Director of Operations,
Allison Modica, would handle the process of organizing edcamps,
"including registration, promotion and sending out free resource
kits with supplies and branded materials."
An
Edcamp advisory committee made up of former Edcamp board members and
organizers will help "ensure the integrity of the model and
advance the growth of the community," Ferguson added.
Digital
Promise has announced that it is seeking sixth- through eighth-grade
English language arts teachers to join a fall pilot of "Project
Topeka." This is described as a tool that uses artificial
intelligence to give "instant feedback to students on their
writing" and lend support to teachers in targeting their
instruction. Those who complete the pilot are promised $100. Signups
are being taken through
a Salesforce Pardot website.
Also,
the organization has launched five new microcredentials dedicated to
helping teachers make the move to digital learning. All are freely
available and designed as a "stack" to be earned in
sequence. Those are:
Conducting
a needs assessment for digital learning;
Developing
a virtual desk for digital learning;
Designing
synchronous and asynchronous instruction for digital learning;
Communicating
with learners and families to support digital learning;
and
Engaging
in continuous improvement for digital learning.
The
first one, as an example, helps the educator learn how to create or
adapt an existing technology needs assessment to gather data on their
students' access to and use of technology. Then those results are
used to design the digital learning program. Earning the badge
requires a lot of reading, viewing, writing, reflection and
developing artifacts that can be submitted for evaluation.
Learn
more on
the Digital Promise microcredentials website.
About the Author
Dian Schaffhauser is a former senior contributing editor for 1105 Media's education publications THE Journal, Campus Technology and Spaces4Learning.