Over the past year or so, I’ve been working with a consortium of four districts in New Mexico on a project to foster online and blended learning. It’s been a great experience that has benefited teachers and students and left me more convinced than ever of the power of technology to help differentiate instruction.
Here’s a short video that summarizes our work.
This weekend I was a part of a panel presentation at NSBA called “New Opportunities Presented by the Common Core: Deeper Learning, Open Educational Resources, and Increases in Long-Term Student Success.”
Among the main points of this presentation were:
This doesn't tell you much about what students really know.
Are we preparing students for this type of assessment?
I feel a certain amount of sadness that most educators seem to view Common Core as yet another worthless series of hoops they are being asked to jump through, rather than as an opportunity to do the kind of deeper learning that many of us feel is missing from classrooms.
One of my concerns about Common Core is that many districts seem to be implementing the new standards very quickly, possibly without considering all the opportunities and ramifications. New instructional materials are being purchased hastily. Professional development and planning is inadequate.
In the audience of school board members I spoke with, approximately two-thirds said that they have already implemented or are well into implementing these new standards. Many are doing this without being aware of the forthcoming new assessments and without thorough thought about related curriculum and instructional materials issues.
For example, at a time in which many districts are making large curriculum purchases, might it be a good time to think about digital content? New ways to involve teachers? Etc.
As we discussed these issues, there was a fair amount of discontent in the audience about the current state of assessment. Teachers are not afforded the professionalism to do what they know is best for students. Charter schools are often lauded without being held to the same standards. Deeper learning is not happening in many classrooms. Many new mandates are unfunded. There was plenty of unhappiness and blame to go around.
But perhaps it is time to put aside the blame and start doing some things that we all believe are best for our students.
This point in time might be the best opportunity in decades to look deeply at standards, curriculum, assessment, and the professional role of our teachers — it is simply too important to rush through or not do to the best of our abilities.
I have been excited about the potential of the Common Core standards. Fewer standards, deeper coverage, more higher order thinking skills and process orientation, better assessment — it all sounds like an improvement.
Yet, as I’ve seen the beginning of Common Core implementations, they don’t seem to be living up to that potential. And the outcry from teachers about the problems with Common Core have surprised me. They largely seem to view it as the millionth change imposed on them by the powers that be. “This too shall pass” is what I’m hearing. This passive resistance has surprised me because I saw Common Core as a part of the solution to the curriculum and assessment problems that everyone sees.
I talked to someone from an organization involved in Common Core who said “If a school is implementing Common Core, and it doesn’t look radically different from how it looked before, they aren’t really implementing the Common Core.” Again, what I see so far isn’t radically different curriculum or classroom practice.
So why the disconnect?
I think the answer lies in part in how schools are implementing the standards, which looks something like this:
I think that process misses the spirit of the Common Core.
In business, we do something called zero-based budgeting. The idea is that instead taking last year’s plan and adding a bunch of incremental stuff to it, you start from zero. This forces a hard look at every decision and its relation to the overall mission.
What if a curriculum were designed from scratch using Common Core? I venture to say it would look quite a bit different than one taken from previous years with cross-walk items added. Probably a lot more like what those of us who were hopeful about Common Core were thinking. And what a wonderful opportunity for some collaborative professional exploration around standards unpacking and curriculum mapping.
Anyone doing this?
This is a part of a series on mobile devices available for learning.
Category:
It seems like nearly everyone has a cell phone these days. There are “smart phones,” like the iPhone and Android phones, that are full featured handheld multimedia devices, but even regular cell phones with cameras and text messaging can be very useful educational tools.
Credit: Ian Kennedy
Manufacturers and models:
Pricing:
The range of prices for cell phones ranges from free to $500+, depending not only on the features of the phone, but also on what service plan you sign up for with the carrier.
Strengths:
Weaknesses:
Killer applications:
Things to consider and some opinions:
Next week March 5-10 is the first annual Open Education Week!
Open Education Week is a global event that seeks to raise awareness about the benefits of free and open sharing in education, especially Open Educational Resources (OER). OER are materials, tools, and media used for teaching and learning that are licensed for anyone to use, modify, and redistribute.
The event will take place online and in different locations around the world, with opportunities to participate in webinars, discussions and live events. Participation is free and open to all. Visit www.openeducationweek.org for more information.
How can you participate?
Also, if you’ll be at SXSWedu, come to one of my sessions there about OER. I’ll have some great Open Ed week t-shirts to give away there as well
Sharing is good!
This is a part of a series on mobile devices available for learning.
Category:
These basic devices are intended for reading ebooks and not much more. (We’ve included the more sophisticated devices from the same manufacturers in our post on tablets.)
Credit: Corey Harris
Manufacturers and models:
Pricing:
$79-199
Strengths:
Weaknesses:
Killer applications:
Things to consider and some opinions:
The P2PU School of Ed is happy to announce a new round of free, open-licensed professional learning groups for educators that will start March 5. These courses are available for sign-up now:
Student Grant Writing – A group for high school teachers and students interested in writing a grant to fund a local school project
Empower Your Personal Learning — Taking control of your personal learning is an important 21st century skill — for students and for educators. In this group, we’ll explore new ways to empower your own professional learning and how to get started.
Writing and Inquiry in the Digital Age — Join a National Writing Project study group seminar as we explore these questions together and share our work and inquiries with the NWP Digital Is community.
Effective Use of Multimedia and Graphics — Participants will explore and apply techniques and strategies to foster deeper learning using multimedia and graphics.
Global Classroom Collaborations – Elementary — Elementary teachers from around the world will discuss, design, and establish collaborations between their classrooms.
Global Classroom Collaborations – Secondary — Secondary teachers from around the world will discuss, design, and establish collaborations between their classrooms.
School of Ed is about hands-on learning driven by each educator’s particular needs and classroom situations. It’s about connecting, collaborating, and creating, not just reading or studying. You can sign up for occasional updates on the School of Ed here.
This is a part of a series on mobile devices available for learning.
Category:
These are very small touch screen devices — smaller than a tablet but not a cell phone!
(These devices have the capability to install a variety of apps. There are many other devices that support audio and video playback, but not other interactive uses.)
Manufacturers and models:
These devices used to be more plentiful with Palm and Windows mobile handhelds, but now there are just a few.
Pricing:
$200+
Strengths:
Weaknesses:
Killer applications:
Things to consider and some opinions:
In today’s world, one of the biggest challenges is keeping up with the fire hose of information and being able to access what you want when you want it.
Most of us take notes as a way to track information (and those who don’t might if it were easy). Some do this in a systematized, sometimes online way, while others have a flurry of sticky notes, scrawls in margins, and napkin scraps surrounding them.
Credit: Garrett Coakley
I personally tend to more of organized, file-folder methods. I’ve used various notetaking schemes over time – spiral notebooks (before computers), Palm handhelds, wikis, etc. Now I use Evernote, and I can say without qualification that it is the best notetaking tool I’ve ever used.
At its most basic, Evernote is a word processor. Beyond that, it is much more. I’m still learning all the things you can do with it. Here are some of my favorite features:
Here are some of the things I use Evernote for:
Work/School Uses
Obviously, there are many student uses for this as well.
Personal Uses
Another great thing about Evernote is that it’s very easy to get started using it. If you could use some organization in your life, give it a try, and before you know it, you might be singing the praises of Evernote.
This is a part of a series on mobile devices available for learning.
Category: Tablets
These computing devices have touch screens and are typically operated through touch rather than a keyboard. They come in a variety of sizes but are generally smaller than a laptop but larger than a mobile phone.
Credit: Sucello Leilões Virtuais
Manufacturers and models:
Pricing: $199 – $800+
Strengths:
Weaknesses:
Killer applications:
Things to consider and some opinions:
