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"Putting kids to work on meaningful projects can transform classrooms into beehives of inquiry and discovery, but relatively few rigorous studies have examined how well this teaching method actually works. An encouraging new report describes preliminary, first-year outcomes from a study of 3,000 middle school students that shows kids can, in fact, learn more in science classrooms that adopt a well-designed, project-focused curriculum. "

"There's been a lot of discussion recently on what schools should be teaching kids. Just this month, the United Kingdom announced the addition of cybersecurity to its curriculum in response to a lack of education in the field and the rising industry skills gap. I believe U.S. schools have been hesitant and even neglectful when it comes to how they discuss social media with students, and it's time for this to change. Social media is a very real and ongoing aspect of our everyday lives: It no longer makes sense that, in 2014, several states still teach cursive writing when many students can text much faster on their smart devices. We need to be educating students on applicable skills for the world that they will interact with, and that means providing them with an understanding of how social media can affect their future. The gaping generational chasm between teachers who grew up before smartphones existed and students who were raised on them has resulted in a trial-and-error model of internet education and exploration, which could potentially wreak havoc on a student's future. The internet is written in pen, not pencil."

"Game-based learning, and the developers who identify with it today, have come a long way since then and gotten much closer to closing the gap. And there's still a need to communicate core content through games, a need that the consumer market just doesn't have incentive to fill. Yet at Common Sense Graphite, when we evaluate games for learning, what we find is that many of the highest scoring 'learning' games aren't aimed at the educational market. They're more at-home, consumer-oriented games. Because these games are free from the constraints of school standards and traditional curriculum, they flourish, featuring rich cross-disciplinary and truly 21st century learning experiences. Here are just a few favorites that reviewed well on Graphite this year:"

"A new tool developed by Disney Research and Carnegie Mellon University could let you 3D print your very own walking robot. "Progress in rapid manufacturing technology is making it easier and easier to build customised robots, but designing a functioning robot remains a difficult challenge that requires an experienced engineer," said Markus Gross, vice president at Disney Research. "Our new design system can bridge this gap and should be of great interest to technology enthusiasts and the maker community at large.""

"What strategy can double student learning gains? According to 250 empirical studies, the answer is formative assessment, defined by Bill Younglove as "the frequent, interactive checking of student progress and understanding in order to identify learning needs and adjust teaching appropriately." Unlike summative assessment, which evaluates student learning according to a benchmark, formative assessment monitors student understanding so that kids are always aware of their academic strengths and learning gaps. Meanwhile, teachers can improve the effectiveness of their instruction, re-teaching if necessary. "When the cook tastes the soup," writes Robert E. Stake, "that's formative; when the guests taste the soup, that's summative." Formative assessment can be administered as an exam. But if the assessment is not a traditional quiz, it falls within the category of alternative assessment. Alternative formative assessment (AFA) strategies can be as simple (and important) as checking the oil in your car -- hence the name "dipsticks." They're especially effective when students are given tactical feedback, immediately followed by time to practice the skill. My favorite techniques are those with simple directions, like The 60 Second Paper, which asks students to describe the most important thing they learned and identify any areas of confusion in under a minute. You can find another 53 ways to check for understanding toward the end of this post, also available as a downloadable document."

"Drexel University's ExCITe Center released Making Culture, the first in-depth examination of K-12 education makerspaces nationwide, revealing the significance of cultural aspects of making that enable learning. The research highlights how makerspaces foster a range of positive student learning outcomes, but also reflect some of the gaps in inclusion common in the STEM fields. Credit: ExCITe Center, Drexel University"

"As I am coaching teachers in learning how to learn and teach FOR the 22nd century, I realize that the gap between being able to read traditional forms of information, communications materials in geneal and reading on new platforms, in new genres and in general new digital forms is widening drastically. Not too long ago, I wrote a post titled, Our Notion of Literacy and Iliteracy Calls for an Update.  I define literacy as the ability to read and write and being able to express and communicate our ideas to others. So, in our world, which is BOTH analog AND digital, we need to be literate in both. Especially if we are educators, in charge of teaching our students to be literate for THEIR future. The digital world is not going away, nor can it be ignored in terms of being and staying (critically) informed, lifelong learning, communicating, connecting, collaborating and contributing. One realisation for me was that new forms of reading and writing did not ONLY have to do with the skillset of learning the logistics of how to read and write on digital platforms, but had EVERYTHING to do with a new mindset that allows for new forms of reading and writing versus merely substituting the way we have done it in analog form before."

"The British Columbia Institute of Technology (BCIT) - the post-secondary institution recognized for integrating education and industry - is announcing a partnership with Microsoft Corp. and its Technology Education and Literacy in Schools (TEALS) program to teach foundation computational skills for BC high-school students. This partnership recognizes the value of exposing young learners to the jobs of the future while equipping them with the appropriate knowledge and skills for success in the future tech workforce. With support from the BC Ministry of Education and BCIT, the BC branch of TEALS has already educated more than 400 students across four BC high schools. Credit: Microsoft Microsoft TEALS exists because many high schools want to offer computer science courses but often don't have teachers who are trained on the subject. To fill this gap, TEALS volunteers work with classroom teachers to team-teach students, and to equip instructors with the knowledge to teach students on their own."

"In this series we explore Powerful Learning, a set of principles to guide educators designing learning experiences that engage the hearts and minds of learners and incorporate technology in ways that contribute to closing the Digital Learning Gap. In this second post, we explore how Powerful Learning is authentic and challenging, share research that grounds these two principles, and provide resources to support your own learning and teaching practices."

"For the most part, American children aren't great at math. But Chinese children tend to be excellent. Testing half a million students worldwide, the Program for International Student Assessment is one of the most widely cited measurements of global education, and it's consistently found Chinese students at the top of the academic pile ... and Americans much nearer the bottom. Some experts argue that the PISA assessment, like any standardized tests, primarily measures a student's ability to take the test, not their knowledge, but hardly anyone disputes that the American education has some work to do when it comes to math.  In Lenora Chu's new book "Little Soldiers: An American Boy, a Chinese School, and the Global Race to Achieve," she begins to unearth the cultural differences that lead to this gap - and it's not just about what happens at school."

"Dating from 1991, the Python programming language was considered a gap-filler, a way to write scripts that "automate the boring stuff" (as one popular book on learning Python put it) or to rapidly prototype applications that will be implemented in other languages. However, over the past few years, Python has emerged as a first-class citizen in modern software development, infrastructure management, and data analysis. It is no longer a back-room utility language, but a major force in web application creation and systems management, and a key driver of the explosion in big data analytics and machine intelligence."

"As some of you may have realized by now, Dean Shareski and I have a new book out. Titled Different Schools for a Different World, it describes 6 key relevancy gaps between today's schools and what students and society need from them:"

"While teachers may always be the best line of defense for students falling behind, busy schedules don't always permit the special attention and feedback that students need. That's where artificial intelligence-powered teaching assistants might come in handy. "These intelligent tools can adapt pacing based on the student's ability … and provide targeted, corrective feedback in case the student makes mistakes, so that the student can learn from them," states an eSchool News report released earlier this year. "These tools also gather actionable insights and information about a student's progress and report the data back to the teacher." Understandably, there is still some hesitation at the idea of using this technology, as education professionals fear the day robots will replace teachers. However, as Thomas Arnett, a writer at the Christensen Institute, explains in his report, Teaching in the Machine Age, these advances are not meant to replace teachers but help them bring students to new heights. "Innovations that commoditize some elements of teacher expertise also supply the tools to raise the effectiveness of both non-experts and expert teachers to new heights and to adapt to the new priorities of a 21st-century workforce and education system," writes Arnett. Schools have already begun to adopt machine learning initiatives to help teachers and students fill learning gaps, and the results have been received well so far."

""Nothing could be more absurd than an experiment in which computers are placed in a classroom where nothing else is changed." - Seymour Papert When it comes to improving outcomes in the digital age, efficacy matters more than ever.  Billions of dollars are spent across the world on technology with the hopes that it will lead to better results.  Tom Murray and I shared this thought in Learning Transformed: Educational technology is not a silver bullet. Yet year after year, districts purchase large quantities of devices, deploy them on a large scale, and are left hoping the technology will have an impact. Quite often, they're left wondering why there was no change in student engagement or achievement after large financial investments in devices. Today's devices are powerful tools. At the cost of only a few hundred dollars, it's almost possible to get more technological capacity than was required to put people on the moon. Nevertheless, the devices in tomorrow's schools will be even more robust. With that in mind, it's important to understand that the technology our students are currently using in their classrooms is the worst technology they will ever use moving forward. As the technology continues to evolve, the conversation must remain focused on learning and pedagogy-not on devices. Unfortunately, technology is not a magic wand that will automatically empower learners to think critically, solve complex problems, or close achievement gaps.  These outcomes rely on taking a critical lens to pedagogical techniques to ensure that they evolve so that technology can begin to support and ultimately enhance instruction.  If the former (pedagogy) isn't solid, then all the technology in the world won't make a difference.  As William Horton states, "Unless you get the instructional design right, technology can only increase the speed and certainty of failure.""

"Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been around for decades; however, with the introduction of generative AI, such as ChatGPT, there has been a newfound focus on how technology tools can impact the educational landscape. The AI revolution in industry is upon us and is beginning to establish itself as a permanent part of educational practice as evidenced by Lucarillo, Nagel, Hardman, and others. Therefore, it is crucial to equip teachers with the skills to use AI in ways that ensure a high-quality education for the students in classrooms across the globe. The urgency to upskill teachers is highlighted by the gap in skills that already exists in classrooms today, underscoring the digital divide. Just as in any content area, students come to classrooms with varying readiness levels and educational needs; using AI is no different. For example, there are preschoolers who play games on an iPad with empowered intelligent tutors. My prereading granddaughter uses AI predictive text programs, dictation technology, and iconography to text me from her mother's phone and to locate videos and programs she wants to watch. Some children, like her, have access, while there are many others who have no exposure or use of AI. Educators are encountering students at different AI literacy levels, and this divide will continue to grow. Therefore, teachers need to build the skillsets to increase their AI literacy and integration to develop more digital equity, serving students who are at a low readiness level, as well as those who are using AI as a writing partner."

"Today, MakerBot has unveiled their guide aimed at teachers and students alike, titled, 'MakerBot in the Classroom: An Introduction to 3D Printing and Design', with hopes of bringing 3D printing into more classrooms around the world. The guide is broken down into three chapters which focus on all the important and vital aspects of 3D printing."

The Educational and Video Games industries may seem like completely different worlds, but they have one very important thing in common: They both share the same audience.