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West Virginia Offers Engaging 24/7 Learning Online

December 9, 2010 | 11:20 AM | By

Learn21

It may have been conceived as a way to keep kids busy during snow days (staying home from school), but West Virginia’s Learn21 online educational game program is turning into a legitimate step toward learning outside school boundaries.

From the Register-Herald:

“West Virginia Deputy Superintendent Jorea Marple sees this new initiative as another step along “a journey to transform public education so that it is not only school-based” by creating and offering more resources online.”

The site offers interactive online games for kids from preschool all the way through 12th grade in subjects like math, science, and social studies. Best part could be that it’s available for anyone to use.

FILED UNDER: Teaching With Tech, online learning

School of One Revolutionizes Traditional Classroom Model

December 8, 2010 | 9:10 AM | By

School of One

“There are things we hold near and dear about what school is, but we’re asking people to reimainge it,” said Christopher Rush, co-founder of a revolutionary new learning system called School of One.

So imagine this: A student arrives in school in the morning and answers five questions that will be calculated in a customized algorithm to figure out what she’ll be doing that day. That algorithm will decide which teacher she’ll work with, her level of learning based on what she learned the previous day, and her specific activities.

The system completely subverts the traditional classroom model of one teacher for 25- 30 students per classroom. And each student learns in different modalities throughout the day: individually with computer software, with groups, with a virtual tutor, with a live tutor, and so on.

“There are so many ways that kids can learn,” Rush said. “It could be the best way is with a teacher, but that’s not the only way. There have to be choices.”

Based in three public schools in New York, the School of One system is ripe for scaling — but only when the algorithm is as smart as it could possibly be, Rush says.

“We have to build in time to try new things,” he said. “Some will work and some won’t, and that’s okay.”

When it comes to creating a models of schools for the future, this could very well be it. It combines much of what forward-thinking education reformers say is key: individualized learning, the best of technology, and a flexible learning system that adapts to what students learn day by day.

Check out the video to see more of how it works.

http://www.vimeo.com/17373025

FILED UNDER: Learning Methods, individualized learning, School of One

Preventing Dropout Effort Starts in Kindergarten

December 1, 2010 | 11:51 AM | By

Flickr:Moyersphoto

San Francisco Unified School District is putting more money into reducing the city’s 15.8% dropout rate with a $1 million federal grant that comes from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

Part of the fund will go to a program called Plan Ahead, a mandatory ninth-grade class devised by the district along with Gap and Pearson Foundation, which builds college-readiness into the school curriculum. Beginning with the class of 2014, all students are required to complete the class.

“The curriculum in the class would deal with everything from, how are you going to select a college, how are you going to select a career, to what are good habits for you to develop to not only survive in high school but to do well in high school and to do well in college,” says Bill Sanderson, SFUSD’s executive director for 21st century learning and accountability.

In conjunction with Plan Ahead, the school will also pilot the new Dropout Prevention Early Warning System, which targets students as early as kindergarten, based on the premise that attendance behavior is borne very early. Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Learning Methods, achievement gap

Garage Band: Not Just for Music

November 24, 2010 | 11:00 AM | By

Teacher HadleyJF is trying a new strategy to help her students develop ideas for writing.

She uses Garage Band.

“When I explained that the goal was to use their laptops in a new way to develop their thinking, and most importantly that no one was going to hear their recordings but them, they began to loosen up and enjoy the process. As they started to experience it as a different means of identifying what they wanted to say, they got really excited. There was no “product,” except their deeper understanding of the material and of how to put together an effective answer to the question.”

Excellent.

Students Learn in Class, Think and Discuss at Home

November 19, 2010 | 2:45 PM | By

Frustrated with not having enough time to teach everything she needs to and carry on meaningful discussions in class, educator Catlin Tucker has found a solution.

She uses blended learning technique with an online tool called Collaborize Classroom, allotting time in class to teach the content, then assigning thoughtful questions online to spur discussions that students can dig deep into.

On her blog, the Honors English teacher details all the benefits from using online time at home with instructional time in class.

The online discussions have made my in-class discussions more inclusive, engaging, and dynamic. Because students have been given a question to discuss online, they have had the time to articulate a response, bounce ideas around with their peers, ask questions, make connections, etc. Then when we revisit these discussions in the classroom, students have a plethora of ideas to share. They are no longer scared to speak out because they have a confidence born from their online discussions and the validation of their peers. They have already presented ideas and read other perspectives on a topic. Many students directly reference their peers’ ideas during in class discussions. They discuss comments that impressed and surprised them as well as those postings which caused them to reconsider their own view points.

Here’s the most important part: weaving in those online discussions into the next day’s class. She’s able to create colorful pie charts on the site, and bring that information back to class to discuss how students weighed in on different ideas and choices.

Smart thinking.

Getting E-Readers into Schools, One Class at a Time

November 16, 2010 | 11:57 AM | By

Cheryl Davis

Everyday, rolling carts full of laptops and mobile devices are wheeled through the halls of four high schools in the Acalanes Unified School District, delivering gadgets to students who use them to study science, English, and foreign language, among other subjects.

The mobile devices — whether it’s the iPod Touch, the iPad, the Kindle or the Sony — were purchased through funds that came from a local city measure and various grants from parent organizations.

With computer labs over-scheduled beyond student capacity, the devices have become integrated into the curriculum and as supplements to existing laptops and computers, according to Cheryl Davis, District Curriculum & Instruction Technology Specialist.

“We’re looking to get more into the hands of students so it’s more flexible in the classroom and gives students access to the Internet and to a lot of the wealth of the resources that are out there,” Davis said. “Right now, we certainly aren’t close to having all the students have the technology in their hands. The goal is to increase student access, to have the one-to-one-ratio.”

The district began piloting the mobile devices last year and like a lot of districts, is in the process of figuring out what works best under individual circumstances. A ninth-grade English class used the iPad to study Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and a science teacher is trying out Inkling, the interactive textbook app for iPads. [We'll hear more from English teacher Liz Pagano later this week.] Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: digital textbooks