Group items tagged

Entrepreneurs

disrupting an industry

K-12 isn’t working

The people who concentrate wealth don't do things just out of the goodness of their hearts for the most part, but in order to maintain their position of dominance and then extend their power.

One can at least be suspicious that skyrocketing student debt is a device of indoctrination. It's very hard to imagine that there's any economic reason for it. Other countries' education is free, like Mexico's, and that is a poor country.

There are a lot of factors. And one of them, probably, is just that students are trapped.

On the other hand, I work with teachers now that are often running scared – very scared at times. They are blocked from using much technology, teachers that use drill and skills based software are praised, those that ask about doing anything online are scoffed at … they have to go out of their way and jump through 5 hoops all the time knowing that if things aren’t 100% smooth they will be questioned about safety, educational value, whether they have their students best interest and safety in mind and on and on. They are told (in error) that they will lose the district their e-Rate funding by having student work online or even have students working online … COPA laws will be broken, … in some schools and districts its not about making teachers integrate technology, its making administration, politicians and others see it as having value and creating an environment where it is at least OK and at best encouraged and supported. I never thought I would write such a comment, but believe me it is very ugly in places … I support 6 school districts, about 100,000 students and 8-10,000 teachers … some districts and some schools are very open and supportive of tech integration, others are extremely scared of all the things that they’ve heard of, more so than I would have thought. Good news is we are starting to make real progress … much too slowly, but progress. Yes, tech integration should not be an option, but there are still many places where it is not an option really. That’s the thinking we still need to overcome.

SnapChat is publicity ... with privacy

SnapChat isn’t really ephemeral – and the likelihood that SnapChat photos will get captured and stored permanently is growing each day.

Snaps for a time, contrary to its stated policy of deleting them once they have been opened

e need to build environments that allow our students to get messy and build things. Places where students learn how to learn, and know how they learn best. Where students engage in significant research, and learn how to identify credible resources amidst a plethora of information that, at times, may seem overwhelming.

They need to be able to communicate powerfully using the mediums of print, photography and video.

“It says: ‘This person is not a drone. They can use this skill set and apply themselves in other parts of the job.’ ”

everyone is creative, and can learn to be more so.

clarifying, ideating, developing and implementing

Rather than building instructional technology into regular budgets, schools and districts seem to constantly fall into this kind of big burst, headline-making, "special occasion" spending. Why do they do it that way? Simple. Administrators, along with many teachers, parents, and other voting members of the community continue to view computers as a nice-to-have extra, something to play with after we finish all that regular school stuff.

We don’t help kids at all by teaching them specific software, except for the few in specific vocational certification programs. Instead, how about helping kids understand how to use and be productive with any technology they might encounter? The flexibility to adapt to whatever new tools enter that workplace is a far more valuable skill than learning PowerPoint inside and out.

It’s multitasking while learning that has the biggest potential downside

80 percent of college students admit to texting during class; 15 percent say they send 11 or more texts in a single class period.

Texting, emailing, and posting on Facebook and other social media sites are by far the most common digital activities students undertake while learnin

Technology celebrates connectedness, but encourages retreat.

The phone didn’t make me avoid the human connection, but it did make ignoring her easier in that moment, and more likely, by comfortably encouraging me to forget my choice to do so.

The more distracted we become, and the more emphasis we place on speed at the expense of depth, the less likely and able we are to care.

“Spaced repetition” is one example of the kind of evidence-based techniques that researchers have found have a positive impact on learning.

Eighth-grade history students who relied on a spaced approach to learning had nearly double the retention rate

“retrieval practice,”

Policies, programs, protocols, etc., can be useful tools for people to use, but they don’t change people — only people can change people. Bullying prevention must also start from the ground up — the ground of changing people’s hearts and minds towards greater respect and caring. Bullying prevention should not just be about stopping a negative behavior; it should be about how the members of the school community treat each other.

Compliance is a poor, ineffective substitute for a community’s commitment to creating the type culture and climate needed for learning — one that is incompatible will all types of bullying.

If people can’t see their culture, they will not be able to change it. Unfortunately, people can become easily habituated to ways of interacting that are often not respectful.

“The over-filtering that occurs today affects not only what teachers can teach but also how they teach,”

“creates barriers to learning and acquiring digital literacy skills that are vital for college and career readiness, as well as for full participation in 21st-century society.”

“It’s not a magazine, we’re not just consumers, we’re creators, we’re users.”