Department of Education
How to Foster Grit, Tenacity and Perseverance: An Educator’s Guide
How can we best prepare children and adolescents to thrive in the 21st century? This question is at the heart of what every educator attempts to do on a daily basis. Apart from imparting content of knowledge and facts, however, it’s becoming clear that the “noncognitive competencies” known as grit, perseverance, and tenacity are just [...]
What’s Worth Investing In? How to Decide What Technology You Need
Lenny Gonzalez The promise of technology in the pursuit of learning is vast — and so are the profits. The SIIA valued the ed-tech market at $7.5 billion. With daily launches of new products promising to solve all manner of problems — from managing classrooms to engaging bored students with interactive content to capturing and [...]
What To Do If Your School Bans Useful Websites
Today is Banned Website Awareness Day, and all across the country, educators are doing their part to raise awareness of how overly restrictive blocking of educational websites affects student learning. The dialogue around filtering must also include bring-your-own-device policies, appropriate use of social media in schools, and overall responsible use of technology in school. Each [...]
Three Goals to Spark Innovation and Collaboration
Flickr: Spacepleb It’s been roughly two months since the launch of the Department of Education’s Digital Promise, and though it’s still very early in the process, a few pointed goals are emerging. The main premise behind Digital Promise is to serve as a national center for research to spur innovation that will improve learning through [...]
Should a New Tech-Innovation Agency Be Created?
Matt Biddulph Today, most of the education world is focusing on how No Child Left Behind might change with the reauthorization of ESEA — the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. But as the Senate Education committee prepares to mark up ESEA, another under-the-radar amendment is also being considered — one that has historical ties to [...]
School Will Change, With or Without Following Rules
Flickr:CrunchyFootsteps Public education is, by its very nature, tangled with policy, dependent on rules and regulations set by federal, state, and district mandates. What most students do in school at any given moment has been prescribed by legislation passed years before they — or their parents — entered kindergarten. But things are changing — and [...]
Four New Initiatives from the Department of Education
“Now is the time,” said Karen Cator, director of education technology at the Department of Education. “We’re at this incredible inflection point as we go from print to digital.” Cator enumerated the ways in which the D.O.E. is helping to make the shift between the print and digital world at the ISTE conference yesterday. 1. [...]
What’s the New Narrative in the Education Revolution?
To Will Richardson, the word “reform” is inadequate in describing what needs to happen in education. “Transformation” is more accurate, and for years, he’s been actively proselytizing the need for a complete restructuring of the public education system. Richardson is now galvanizing his educator peers to send a loud — and just as importantly, clear [...]
Teachers: Do You Have a Question for Arne Duncan?
Following last night’s State of the Union address by President Obama, the White House will host a State of the Union Education Roundtable on Thursday, Jan. 27. PBS Teachers has been asked to solicit questions from teachers about the education issues the President raised. A sampling of popular questions will be posed to Secretary of [...]
Students’ Own Interests Will Drive the School Day of the Future
The U.S. Department of Education has a clear vision of what the future school day should be. That’s apparent from my interviews with Karen Cator, the director of education technology. It’s also clearly outlined by the department’s deputy director Steve Midgley. I asked Midgley to spell out his thoughts about the topic. I think if [...]
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