Ed Leadership. Dec 2009. When students track their progress. by Robert Marzano; "Fuchs and Fuchs1 found that providing teachers with graphic displays of students' scores on formative assessments was associated with a 26 percentile point gain in achievement."
We started LearnZillion at E.L. Haynes Public Charter School in Washington, D.C. because we wanted to solve a problem. We knew what lessons our students needed but we didn't have enough time to teach each student the right lesson. To create more time, and to share best practices across classrooms, E.L. Haynes' teachers began to capture their expertise on screencasts. We posted them on a homemade website and coupled them with a short quiz to help us track student progress.
Soon the idea grew.
What if teachers from across the country could contribute to the site? What if new teachers could learn the new Common Core standards from the wisdom of experienced teachers? What if students could get a playlist of lessons that matched their needs? What if, over time, the video lessons got stronger and stronger, as more teachers contributed and the data showed which lessons had the biggest impact? Thanks to funding from the Next Generation Learning Challenge, NewSchools Venture Fund, Achievement Network, and others, we are about to find out!
Emerging Technologies for Online Learning Symposium, a joint Symposium of Sloan Consortium and MERLOT with MoodleMoot, is designed to bring together individuals interested in the technological aspects of online learning. The symposium, focusing on the technologies that drive online learning effectiveness, will continue to highlight research, applications, and best practices of important emerging technological tools.
Experts, intermediate users and novices are welcome to participate in Symposium activities that will include face-to-face and virtual components.
Symposium tracks highlight and demonstrate research, application and best practices of important emerging technological tools related to social networking, assessment, open educational resources, new media and support services.
The Symposium is brought to you by the partnership of the Sloan Consortium, MERLOT, and MoodleMoot.
Language Arts / Study Skills: (free) vocabulary learning toolset tracks progress, weeds out words you already know, creates mp3 files of word lists, and has a program for students to earn cash rewards on a pre-paid debit cards as they study