Guest Commentary: Fast Company Takes a Look at the Lexicon of EdTech

Sometimes we get so wrapped up in our own world, that we don't realize that we talk a talk that outsiders don't always understand.
That goes for folks involved in the virtual education movement. It took a short list in Fast Company to realize that a new language is growing up around online learning.
Take the term "edtech."
" 'Edtech': the fusion of education-technology. But please: leave out the hyphen," writes the Fast Company blogger.
Click here to read the complete list and take time to look at the blog entry below the list. It give a quick overview of the impact tablets are making in the classroom.

Tom Vander Ark: 10 Things States Should Do Now

The 2012 election season is in full swing. I listened to a great gubernatorial campaign speech this week suggesting that jobs and education where the priorities—and I couldn’t agree more. I spent a day with Policy Innovators in Education (PIE-Net), a great network of state policy groups. The speech and the meeting made me think about the Getting Smart policy agenda.
Click here to find a quick sketch of 10 things state leaders should do over the next four years

Guest Commentary: Forbes Columnist Asks 'Is Personalized Learning Another Education Fad ...?"

Writing for Forbes.com's "Human Ingenuity" column, Adam Garry launches a multi-part series by asking if personalized learning is another education fad, or " can it really happen in our schools."
He summarizes the personalized learning movement as "an approach that will help define a system that assumes that we can use technology and human capacity to figure out what students need to learn and what they want to learn and expose them to opportunities 24/7 formally and informally. So how does this help us transform our education institutions?"
Click here to read his entire blog post and stay tuned for his complete series.

Guest Commentary: A Teacher's View of Online Learning

Tami Caldwell's classroom is a loft that looks out through a bank of windows onto the calm waters of a lake in the state of Washington.
Her days are flexible enough that she can take her daughter to school in the morning, meet a student for a midday coffee or answer the regular buzz of students' text messages, though she tries to maintain a regular schedule.
Usually between 10 a.m. and noon each day, she sits in front of her computer for "lab" time, when students can dial in to a sort of virtual chat room and ask questions. And once a week, she and her students get together online for class.
Caldwell is one of the high school teachers at Insight School of Washington, which offers full-time online schooling.
Click here to read more about her school days and why she believes online teaching beats being in the classroom.

Liberating Learning ranked No. 5 on the '50 Essential Twitter Feeds for Education Reformers'

What an honor. Thank you.
BestCollegesOnline.com says that in this atmosphere of education reformation, the way to "follow education news, reform groups, influential people in education policy, and teachers at the front line, all here in our collection of great Twitter feeds for education reformers."
Click here for the complete list and see who joins Liberating Learning as one of the "50 Essential Twitter Feeds for Education Reformers."

Michael B. Horn: Education Entrepreneurship, Disruption Alive and Well

ImagineK12, an incubator modeled after Y Combinator to help education startups “get it right and get funded,” held its first demo day for its first cohort of 10 companies earlier this month in Palo Alto, Calif., and a week later the companies presented at TechCrunch Disrupt.

The companies’ pitches were crisp and intriguing, and I was struck—and encouraged—by how many of them are attempting disruptive strategies. Who knows how many in the cohort will be successful of course—they are all heading into notoriously choppy waters in a space that, as I’ve written about, feels a bit overheated at the moment—but by going this route, they do improve their odds.
Click here for a rundown of just some of the things that struck me.

Tom Vander Ark: 10 Things I'd Do Right Now if I was a Superintendent

A while back, I was asked a public school superintendent asked me what I'd do right now to bring a blended learning environment to K-12 classrooms.
Basically, to bring the shift to personal digital learning over the next 48 months, start with a high level plan in three phases, support a handful of pilot projects, learn as much as possible, and communicate twice as much as you might think you need to.
Click here to read my Top 10 to-do list.

Guest Commentary: Online Eduction Vital to Improvement

An op-ed article written by Darrel Deide, chairman of Idahoans for Choice in Education, has been getting a lot of traction in that state.
Little wonder.  Idaho has been the scene of one of the most hotly-contested and debated edtech-center reform plan in the nation. And there's no doubt the debate will continue through 2012. A referendum that would repeal most of the education reforms won earlier this year, is on the ballot.
That may be why Deidre's article hit a nerve.
"According to the leaders of the Idaho Education Association, Idaho’s education labor union, online education is wrong for Idaho students. If you have followed the testimony offered at the public hearings recently held around the state, you might have come away with the same belief," he wrote.
"In reality, the union’s objection to digital learning has nothing to do with the quality of education. It has everything to do with the union’s desire to maintain its monopoly," he continued.
"Why should the education union block our kids’ access to technology that they will need to use to be competent, successful and well-rounded for post-secondary education or a career? It simply makes no sense," he added.
Click here to read the complete article.

Guest Commentary: Sec. of Education Arne Duncan and Netflix CEO Reed Hastings on 'A Digital Promise to Our Nation's Children'

In a Wall Street Journal op-ed, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, and Reed Hastings, chief executive of Netflix and a former chairman of the California Board of Education, made a digital pledge to the nation's students.
"It is no secret that advances in educational technology have been hailed as breakthroughs in the past, only to disappoint. Too often, the market for educational technology has been inefficient and fragmented. The nation's 14,000 school districts, more than a few of which have byzantine procurement systems, have been inefficient consumers and have failed to drive consistent demand. And a robust R&D base for improving and refining educational technology has been sadly lacking," the pair writes.
"To help remedy those gaps, the Department of Education is launching a unique public-private partnership called 'Digital Promise,' " they add.
Click here to read the complete post.

Tom Vander Ark: What the Connections Acquistion Means

Pearson is going to acquire Connections Education. I know both companies well and think this is a great combination.

Connections is another success story for Sterling Partners, backers of Laureate, Sylvan. Peter Cohen, President of Pearson’s School Group, came from Sterling/Sylvan and was on the board at Connections before joining Pearson about three years ago.
Connections has been very thoughtful and transparent about the formation and relationship with nonprofit boards and in contracting relationships with district partners.
For Pearson, this transaction signals a more rapid move into school management that was anticipated.
Click here to learn why I believe this transaction is good for Pearson, Connections, and education.

Michael B. Horn: Pearson Goes Bold, Acquires Connections Education

The announcement that Pearson is acquiring Connections Education in a move that should reverberate across the field of online learning and the education world more broadly.
My fellow Liberarting Learning blog contributor Tom Vander Ark wrote an insightful post about the acquisition today that I recommend highly.
In short, I agree with Tom on several parts of this, and, in what shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone who reads our work, agree with him that the shift to digital learning is happening much faster than most realize—and that this transaction should raise that profile.
Click here to read my post and learn why I believe this move should open up more room for education entrepreneurs

Guest Commentary: iPad vs. Engaging Lesson on Percents

Almost every day, you can find an education story about a school introducing the latest technology into a classroom. For example, take a look at this Las Vegas Sun story, "Teachers Give Students Apples, Hope iPads Boost Test Scores."
There's nothing wrong with providing digital natives with the kind of tech tools they naturally turn to as a way to enhance learning.
But in a recent Washington Post column, Karim Khai Ani, founder of Mathalicious, writes that it should surprise anyone when new technology doesn't always lead to new and improved outcomes.
"We in society have a kind of blind faith that technology is able to solve all our problems. Yet while the iPad can and should replace textbooks, it can't replace common sense," Ani writes.
"Unfortunately, that's exactly what's happening in education reform. We're focused so much on the device that we're ignoring what's on it." Ani continued. Click here to read all of Ani's post.
There is a middle ground and Chris Dawson, edtech writer for ZDNet, is trying to carve it out. Dawson believes that more technology in the classroom means finding new ways to measure academic success.
Click here to read more about Dawson's viewpoint.

Guest Commentary: Measuring the Success of EdTech is not all About Test Scores

Christopher Dawson covers the EdTech beat for ZDNet, an online news and information source for the digital community.
"Let me start by saying that I’ve seen too many technology implementations in schools that add no real educational value, but take a nice dent out of taxpayer wallets. There are plenty of ways to go about making a school “technology-rich” that actually take away from the real business of learning," Dawson recently wrote.
"I am not in the give-everyone-computers-and-watch-them-succeed camp.However, I wouldn’t be in the business of Ed Tech if I didn’t think that the potential existed for kids to learn in new, engaging ways that prepared them for real-world challenges and managed to better differentiate instruction so that every student could be better served in our public schools," he continued.
Dawson believes that new ways need to developed to measure success in blended learning and online learning environments.
Click here to read his complete post.

Tom Vander Ark: Why States Should Contract with Multiple Online Learning Providers

The Internet has improved the public provision of services in a variety of ways and it is beginning to transform public education. The power of personal digital learning suggests that it doesn’t make sense to limit our children’s opportunity to learn to a local school or geographically defined school district.
In the 19th century, America developed an idiosyncratic system of public education based on local control. While federal and state governments have aggregated degrees of control, U.S. education is still largely a local issue—an unusual construct in the developed world. The growing potential of learning online requires us to rethink and revise how educational services are provisioned.
Digital Learning Now, the advocacy initiative chaired by former governors Jeb Bush and Bob Wise, released a video in which I try to make the case for multiple statewide providers of educational services. I know the video won’t be a YouTube favorite and that this won’t be my favorite column with my friends working in public school districts. Click here to read my complete post on this topic.
Click here to watch the video and please take time to comment so we can start a dialogue on this issue.
Extending educational options to the course level requires a new approach to school finance, one that is less dependent on local property taxes and is more need-based and performance-oriented (and a subject of future blogs). It will also require new strategies to ensure that every student receives a seamless web of support and, to the extent necessary, is plugged in to youth and family services in their community.
School districts will understandably oppose the idea of a multiple provider system but the opportunity to cost effectively improve services to students and families is worth pursuing.

Guest Commentary: How Digital Learning Can (and must) Help Excellent Teachers Reach More Children

The beginning of an essay written Bryan Hassel and Emily Ayscue Hassel, co-directors of Public Impact, a Chapel Hill, N.C. -based national education policy and management consulting firm, starts with a thank you to Liberating Learning blog contributor Michael B. Horn.

"We want to second his point (in his essay 'Why Digital Learning Will Liberate Teachers') and add another: schools--and nations--that excel in the digital age will be those that use digital tools both to make teaching more manageable for the average teacher, and to give massively more students access to excellent teachers," they wrote.
"And not just in the obvious ways. Yes, directly through digital instruction. But also by freeing excellent teachers to reach more students in-person," they added.
The Hassels continue by describing how digital learning can help to close the achievement gap. Click here to read their entire essay.

Guest Commentary: Gisele Huff on Philanthropy and the Free Market in Education

People in the education technology community know Gisele Huff. She is the executive director of the Jaquelin Hume Foundation in San Francisco. After a decade in the business world, she earned a PhD in political science, with a concentration in political philosophy, at Columbia University. She has taught at Golden Gate University, Dominican College, and San Francisco University High School, where she also served as the director of development for 12 years. Huff is currently chairman of the board of Innosight Institute and treasurer of the board of the State Policy Network.
Huff was recently interviewed by the Center for Social Innovation, which along with the Stanford Graduate School of Business, is sponsoring "Social Innovation Live," a series of interviews with people who are catalysts of change.
Huff talks about the Hume Foundation's focus on education reform and how technology will dramatically shift K-12 education. She also talks about the role the average citizen can play in this reform movement.
Click here to listen to the 25-minute conversation.

Guest Commentary: Competing for the Virtual Student

Competition. That's what's all about. And it seems to be working.
According to Hall Davidson, director of global learning initiatives at Discovery Education, by pioneering online learning and proving its effectiveness, K-12 districts have unwittingly broadened the market for for-profit schools.
"It's very clear that online learning has found its time and place," Davidson says, "and it lies at the heart of some serious competition between traditional brick-and-mortar schools and entrepreneurial proprietary schools that are taking advantage of the charter movement. It's just so easy in many states now for an online entity to come in and take enrollment. Here in California, I can enroll my daughter in an online program through a charter school in another county with a few mouse clicks. Some districts realize how heavy the competition is--that there's competition now for attendance dollars that were safer in the past--and some don't. I think the educational community in general needs a Paul Revere to sound the alarm."
Click here to read more about this new competitive education environment.

Tom Vander Ark: What Will School Look Like in 10 Years?

The digital side of the New York Times asked me, and several other education thought leaders, to describe what we believe school will look like 10 years from now.
Now, that's an easy question.
I told the Times that very idea of school has already begun to shift permanently. The digital revolution is the reason..
I also believe that, in many schools, traditional classrooms will give way to ad hoc and ever-changing groupings of students who are working on similar material on a given day.
Click here to listen to the podcast of my complete answers. Also, take time to listen to the answers from Karen Cator, director of educational technology for the Department of Education, and others.

Guest Commentary: A Wisconsin Principal Tells the Truth About Virtual Schools

Every principal looks forward to the beginning of school, when students return with fresh minds eager to learn and ready to work. But as students began to hit the books in the past couple weeks, some of them didn't have to take the bus to school, wander the halls looking for their classroom or search rows of desks to find their seat.
Virtual schooling allows students to receive a top-notch public education from the comfort of their homes.

As a principal, I know all parents want their children to receive the best education possible. There are many options available for families to consider, which is why it is important to have a complete and accurate picture of virtual schooling

But one thing I know for certain -- all of my students at Wisconsin Connections Academy are receiving a quality education that is second to none.
Click here to read more truths about virtual education.

Guest Commentary: Why Schools Should Stop Banning Cell Phones and Use Them for Learning

Audrey Watters writes about education and technology. In a recent post on Mind/Shift, which explores the future of learning by covering cultural technology trends and innovations, Watters wrote that she was tired of the obstacles prevent cell phones and other mobile devices from being used in K-12 classrooms.
"For man schools, these are formal rules written in school policy or in student handbooks," Watters writes. "But as phones become more like extended appendages in everyone's life, schools are rethinking their policies."
Click here to read the complete post and find out what classroom teachers are saying about using cell phones as learning devices.

Tom Vander Ark: Leading the Shift to Personal Digital Learning

The shift to digital learning is expanding educational opportunity in the United States and even more significantly in emerging countries. The potential to customize learning, to boost engagement, and to extend learning at reduced costs is a set of world-changing opportunities.
The shift is being propelled by expanding broadband, cheap access devices, cloud computing, and improving content. Six trends are propelling the shift in the U.S. K-12 sector:

• Higher expectations of college ready and career-ready standards reflected in the Common Core.


• Most states will help orchestrate improved student Internet access to support a shift to online assessment by 2014.


• An extended "new normal" period of flat or shrinking resources in most states.


• Expanding mobile access and student demands for learning options, both formal and informal.


• Expanding number of states that support choice to the course or multiple suppliers.


• Growing full and part-time enrollment in online learning.

Click here to read my complete post on why I believe we are on the verge of this historic shift in K-12 learning.