Tom Vander Ark: Edtech (hearts) Common Core Standards

Lifting the lowest 30 state standards to real college and career readiness levels isn’t the only benefit of the Common Core.  The new standards unleashed a timely wave of investment in digital content.
In addition to the passing of textbooks, we’re watching the end of the first generation of flat and sequential digital content.  The timely introduction of the Core is accelerating the introduction of engaging and standards-aligned adaptive content.
Click here to read about some of the edtech start ups who are betting on Common Core to help them grow.

Tom Vander Ark: An Arizona Online Success Story

Last week I visited Arizona’s largest school, Primavera Online.  Headquartered in Chandler, Primavera serves primarily upper division students seeking an alternative pathway to graduation.  Half are juniors and seniors.  A quarter who have left school are classified as ‘grade 13’, what my friends in New York would call over-aged and under-credited
Primavera is powered by American Virtual Academy curriculum and learning platform (more on AVA in a later post).
In a few months, more than 500 graduates will gather (most physically, some virtually) at Grand Canyon University for a graduation ceremony.  Primavera has been helping Arizona students graduate for a decade.  It’s a homegrown academic success story. Click here to read more about my visit.

Tom Vander Ark: A Turning Point for Personal Digital Learning

It appears that 2012 will be the year where five mostly disconnected streams of tech-rich K-12 learning are finally connecting.
Districts and networks are beginning to mix and match innovations from these strands in new blended models that extend the day, personalize learning, and combine the best of online and onsite learning.
In the U.S., this confluence is being driven by the adoption of the Common Core State Standards and the planned shift to online testing in most states in 2014.
Click here to read more on why I believe we are at the turning point for digital learning.

Tom Vander Ark: 10 Things School Leaders Should Do to Boost Blended Learning

During a couple breakout sessions at a Rhode Island conference on Innovation Powered by Technology (#iptrideconf) I spent time with teachers and principals thinking about next steps as they prepare for the shift to personal digital learning.
Click here to read the 10 steps we discussed.

Tom Vander Ark: Flex Schools Personalize, Enhance & Accelerate Learning

Innosight Institute’s seminal report The Rise of Blended Learning outlines several emerging school models that combine the best of onsite and online learning. Besides students taking online courses when possible, there are basically two emerging school models.

• Rotation: Students spend 20 to 50 percent of their time online. The Bay Area’s Rocketship Education is a high-performing elementary network where students spend two hours per day in a computer lab.
• Flex: Core instruction is conducted online with on-site academic support and guidance, integration and application opportunities, and extracurricular activities. Students in flex schools progress as they demonstrate mastery in most courses. In some courses, particularly those with teachers at a distance, they may remain part of a virtual cohort.

In short, rotation schools add some online learning to what otherwise may look like a traditional school while flex schools start with online learning and add physical supports and connections where valuable. As a result, the potential for innovation is higher in flex schools.
Click here to read my complete post and find out why I believe there are four big benefits of flex models.

Tom Vander Ark: Why States Should Require Online Learning

Question: What do algebra and online learning have in common?
Answer: Most kids would not experience either if not required.
Graduation requirements translate society's expectations to the young. It's our collective best guess at the knowledge and skills they will need to participate in the society they will inherit. If we did not require algebra, not many students would take it. Low-income, minority, and struggling students would be steered away from advanced math. Setting minimum education requirements promotes equity and participation.
All high school students should take at least one course online while in high school, according to Digital Learning Now!, the state policy project co-chaired by former governors Jeb Bush and Bob Wise. This recommendation, and all 10 Elements of High Quality Digital Learning, resulted from the vigorous discourse of 100 experts.
The recommendation is based on the fact that nearly all young people will learn online after high school, whether it's in college, corporate, or military training. Online and blended learning is rapidly becoming the dominant mode of formal and informal post-secondary learning. High school is a great place to discover learning online.
Click here to read more on why I believe this is a necessary graduation requirement in the 21st century.

Guest Commentary: NYT's Online Debate 'The Frontier of Classroom Technology'

If you are part of the virtual education community, there is no doubt that the New York Times ongoing series of stories "Grading the Digital School" has come up as a subject of conversations.
Proponents of the series say the Times is shining a light fair on issues in online learning world. From for-profit companies that are entering the arena to where some of the children of Silicon Valley's Tech elite go to school (a Waldorf school that frowns on even letting the kids of the tech-savvy watch TV.)
Critics of the series aren't so kind. In a recent blog post titled "NY Times Declares War on the Future," Liberating Learning Blog contributor Tom Vander Ark wrote, "The New York Times has launched a full on war on education technology—except for when it’s in their own benefit."
"I cancelled my subscription to the Times. It was the paper of record but it’s just another pandering tabloid," Vander Ark concluded.
In an online opinion forum called "The Frontier of Classroom Technology," the Times takes a 360-degree look at edtech. Six "debaters" represent a variety of views on the intersection of education and technology. For example, Paul Thomas of Furman University calls a lot of edtech "a misguided use of money." Will Richardson, author of "Personal Learning Networks: Using the Power of Connections to Transform Education" writes, "Our kids are stuck in a paper-based, local-learning system that doesn't acknowledge the global, networked, always-on opportunities that mobile access affords.
Click here to read the forum and the more than 140 responses to debaters.

Tom Vander Ark: How Edtech will Benefit Low-Income Students

Digital learning will benefit all students—particularly students from low income families where education leaders are proactive.  In light of the ‘OER exacerbates the gap’ flap  launched by Justin Reich’s blog and Audrey Watter’s response (see the post below this one for links), I thought it would be worth expanding on the ways in which Edtech, blended learning, and open education resources (OER) will benefit low income kids. Click here to see my 10 ways that digital learning will benefit low income students.

Tom Vander Ark: A Kentucky Blend

Recently, I met with Kentucky Commissioner of Education Terry Holliday and the Kentucky Board of Education. Kentucky was the first state to adopt the Common Core and will soon it will shift to online assessment.
With Kentucky Virtual, the state was an early leader in providing virtual learning options.  But now, through intra-district arrangements, Jefferson County eSchool and Barren Bavel Academy serve far more students statewide.  In keeping with Digital Learning Now recommendations, I’ve been recommending that the state shift from provider to authorizer and invite more providers to expand student options.
Like other states, the Kentucky board is beginning to think about how encourage quality digital learning. Click here to learn more about my discussions with Kentucky education officials and why I believe Kentucky will be a state to watch in 2012.

Tom Vander Ark: How Will the Shift to Digital Learning Happen?

I visited Wireless Generation last week and received so many great questions, I’ve been answering a few at a time.
Click here to read the Q & A and to learn about my 10 change strategies that build on trends and may accelerate the transition to personal digital learning.

Tom Vander Ark: Questions About Digital Learning

I visited Wireless Generation, a leading education technology company, in Brooklyn this week.  In a discussion about my new book "Getting Smart," a couple dozen employees including teachers and technologists asked great questions about the future of learning.

Question: Your book includes a lot of “in 5-10 years” predictions, but online learning has been around for over 10 years and it still hasn’t been widely adopted by schools.  So why now?  Why haven’t we already seen the digital learning revolution, and what’s different about today that makes schools ready to accept these new forms of learning?
Click here to read the answer to this question, and the others that made for a lively debate.

Tom Vander Ark: 10 Big Advance in the Past 12 Months

Fifteen years ago when I was a superintendent, online learning was a new idea in K-12.  Six years ago when Susan Patrick joined iNACOL as Executive Director, it represented a small but growing fringe.  And now, while many reform groups continue to fight old battles, iNACOL is front and center helping to invent the future of learning.
My year as board chair for the International Association for K-12 Online Learning (iNACOL) concluded today.  It has been a year of great progress in online and blended learning.  Click here to read what I believe are 10 big advances over the last 12 months.

Tom Vander Ark: My Tedx Manhattan Beach Talk

In October, I made a presentation at the Tedx Conference in Manhattan Beach, Calif.
In front of a big screen, I talked about the power of personal digital learning.
You know, about one-third of our kids don't graduate from high school. Another third don't graduate ready for college.
That's about two-thirds of our kids who are not ready for the idea economy.
We can do better.
Take a look at this short video and see why I believe digital learning will bring customization, motivation and equalization to education.

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Tom Vander Ark: 10 Reasons the Shift May be Happening Faster Than You Think

At the State EdTech Directors Association (SETDA) annual conference I talked about a dozen of the factors accelerating the shift to digital learning:
The old system is being enveloped by new capabilities and the pace of tech development continues to accelerate.  We’re living on an exponential curve.  The warning on your rear view mirror may say: Objects may be closer than they appear. But in this case, objects (and events) straight in front of us are closer than they appear
Click here to read my top 10 and find out why I believe the shift to digital learning is happening faster than some anticipated.

Tom Vander Ark vs. the National Education Policy Center

These days the  big dust up in the virtual education community is over a report that critical of virtual education as a replacement for the kind of education so commonplace inside bricks-and-mortar schools.
“There’s zero high-quality research evidence that full-time virtual schooling at the K-12 level is an adequate replacement for traditional face-to-face teaching and learning,” according to the National Education Policy Center (NEPC) report Online K-12 Schooling in the U.S.: Uncertain Private Ventures in Need of Public Regulation.
Adds Justin Bathon, University of Kentucky education professor and attorney, who, as a companion piece to the NEPC report,  has created model legislation language for regulation of online schools: "Virtual schooling is a good idea. Over the past decade or so, online education has proven itself a valuable component of the learning system, from elementary to post-secondary. I personally use a lot of online learning in my own teaching, so I am a tried and true advocate for online learning.
"But, it needs to grow up. And fast. As online learning approaches the knee of the exponential curve, we can’t ignore it as just a small tangential sandbox. With 200,000 full-time virtual students nationwide and growing, it is core to the system now and we need to treat it that way."
Liberating Learning Blog contributor Tom Vander Ark sees this situation--and the report--in another light. In a post headlined "Union Policy Shop Wants to Stop Online Learning," Vander Ark called the report a "hit piece on online learning."
"The real purpose of this hit piece is to block K12, Connections, and other private organizations from serving students," Vander Ark added.
Click here for all of Vander Ark's post.
Click here for the National Education Policy report.
Click here for Bathon's view and here for his model legislation outline.

Tom Vander Ark: Personal Digital Learning is Changing the World

About a decade ago, the launch of Wikipedia was symbolic of an important threshold in human history -- anyone with a broadband connection could learn almost anything for free or cheap.
This year inexpensive tablet computers and free resources like Khan Academy are extending the learning revolution. The teachers and students that grew up as digital natives are bringing new tools to school. The promise of personal digital learning is finally rippling through educational institutions of developed economies and creating new opportunities for getting smart in emerging economies. The outcome will be more students in the U.S. will be prepared for college and careers and more young people in developing economies will
connect to the idea economy.
Personal digital learning is providing three primary benefits, as outlined in my new book, Getting Smart: How Digital Learning is Changing the World.
Click here to learn more about my new book and to find out why I believe the first benefit of this changing world is is customized learning.

Tom Vander Ark: 6 Reasons Kids Should be Allowed to Use Mobile Devices in School

Bans on student use of mobile devices exist for some good reasons—kids use them inappropriately at school and there are safety and security concerns. So why bother considering a change?
Click here to learn my six reasons for allowing kids to BYOD (Bring Your Own Device).
Click here to read my colleague Sarah Cargill's post "10 Unique Lesson Ideas for BYOD and BYOT (Bring Your Own Technology)."

Tom Vander Ark: Marching Orders to Make California More EdTech Friendly

Computers, then smart phones, then tablets changed how we engaged the world. Medical technology extended and entertainment technology enriched our lives. Energy saving technology made our lifestyles more sustainable. Entrepreneurs in California's San Francisco Bay Area developed many of these disruptive technologies.
New York and Boston are home to the publishers; metro D.C. is home to the giants of learning online. But the San Francisco Bay Area is poised to lead the learning revolution.
That said, on many dimensions, California education is also behind most states. California should follow the road map and remove barriers to digital learning. Given the concentration of talent and resources, there is no reason that the Bay Area shouldn’t lead the global learning revolution.
Click here to read more on my view of California and why I believe it is ready to become even more of a leader in the edtech revolution.

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

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.