In this week’s blogpost we explore the Minnesota Partnership for Collaborative Curriculum, a group of Minnesota educators dedicated to creating and disseminating quality, OER-based curriculum. And we have a Q&A with the founder of SABIER, a nonprofit that provides support services to schools who are adopting OER-based courseware, like that produced by the MPCC.
- By Cathie Norris, Elliot Soloway
- 12/12/16
In this week’s blogpost, we examine a new proclamation from the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Educational Technology: in addition to everything else educators already do, educators should now carry out rapid cycles of scientifically valid, classroom-based research. Piling more and more onto the backs of K–12 educators can’t be a strategy for effectively moving K–12 public education into the digital age.
- By Cathie Norris, Elliot Soloway
- 11/28/16
The Chromebooks are coming! The Chromebooks are coming! So, what is a K-12 teacher supposed to do with those Chromebooks? In this week’s blog post we review “The Chromebook Classroom”a recently published book by John Sowash. Our opinion? Sowash has hit a homerun!
- By Cathie Norris, Elliot Soloway
- 11/14/16
- By Vince M. Bertram, Ed.D.
- 11/02/16
Consistent with our blog’s theme of "Reinventing Curricula," we feel that research itself needs reinvention! Straight cognitive research isn’t enough if our goal is to design "effective, scalable and sustainable [educational] policies and programs." In this week’s blog post, then, we explore a new R&D methodology — Design-Based Implementation Research.
- By Cathie Norris, Elliot Soloway
- 10/31/16
We (CN &ES) took a deep dive into a popular "personalized learning" programs for K–8 mathematics instruction. While we have not been particularly supportive of personalized learning in the past, to put it mildly, in this week’s blog we describe what impressed us about this particular math program that used concept-based practice and differentiated instruction.
- By Cathie Norris, Elliot Soloway
- 10/17/16
While the book publishing, music publishing and video publishing industries have transitioned successfully from atoms to bits, not so for K-12. Indeed, in K-12 it is early – and confusing – days in transitioning from atom-based textbooks to bit-based digital curricula.
- By Cathie Norris, Elliot Soloway
- 10/04/16
Get a room full of educators and ask them about digital learning, blended learning, hybrid learning, personalized learning or individualized learning, and you'll likely end up with more definitions than people in the room.
- By Jeff Mao
- 09/21/16
Public education must keep equity front-and-center in all its policies; public education is all about equity. And, innovation must be nurtured; teachers who are willing to try to improve their classrooms must be supported. In this week’s blog post, we tell a story — one that T.H.E. Journal readers will surely recognize — of how equity and innovation can be, unfortunately, in mortal conflict!
- By Cathie Norris, Elliot Soloway
- 09/19/16
Educational technologists: listen to the teachers; they are asking you to help them to be more effective in creating and using digital curricula. In this blog post, then, we define the five functions that a blended learning platform must support — and challenge the ed tech community to build such a platform!
- By Cathie Norris, Elliot Soloway
- 09/06/16