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“Today, if I were to lose the devices (iPads) that that my students have,” writes Shawn, “I would mourn the loss not of the technology but of the voices that my students have gained through having them.”

“Innovation shouldn’t look like a tablet or a laptop. It should look like a learning environment where students—with teachers at their side— choose their learning targets and aim to hit them.” writes Grant Lichtman (@GrantLichtman)

Clearly, MIT BLOSSOMS (the name stands for Blended Learning Open Source Science Or Math Studies) isn’t gaining fans by virtue of its whiz-bang technology. Rather, it exerts its appeal through an unassuming but remarkably sophisticated understanding of what it is that students and teachers actually need. It’s an understanding that is directly at odds with the assumptions of most of the edtech universe.

For example: BLOSSOMS is not “student-centered.” In its Twitter profile, the program is described as “teacher-centric”—heresy at a moment when teachers are supposed to be the “guide on the side,” not the “sage on the stage.” The attention of students engaged in a BLOSSOMS lesson, it’s expected, will be directed at the “guest teacher” on the video or at the classroom teacher leading the interactive session.

All this is blasphemy in view of the hardening orthodoxy of the edtech establishment. And all this is perfectly aligned with what research in psychology and cognitive science tells us about how students learn. We know that students do not make optimal choices when directing their own learning; especially when they’re new to a subject, they need guidance from an experienced teacher. We know that students do not learn deeply or lastingly when they have a world of distractions at their fingertips. And we know that students learn best not as isolated units but as part of a socially connected group. Modest as it is from a technological perspective, MIT BLOSSOMS is ideally designed for learning—a reminder that more and better technology does not always lead to more and better education.

Any app that supports uploading to Google Drive as an export option can then be turned in as a completed assignment. A few of these apps include, but are not limited to: Explain Everything iMovie (send to camera roll first & then upload to Google Drive) Book Creator Creative Book Builder Notability

Multiple file types can be selected and uploaded as assignments. This means that teachers can create templates and curate resources to guide student creation. ePub (Book Creator & Creative Book Builder) PDF (Notability & Book Creator) XPL (Explain Everything Project) MOV (iMovie) MP4 (Explain Everything video export) Google Document

Connected Educator Month 2014 Calendar Use the search box and filters at right to help you find events & activities of interest. To find events/activities just for you, roll over “primary audience” at right. To find events/activities on a specific topic of interest, roll over each of the event types at right. By default, events are displayed in Eastern Daylight (New York) time. Learn how to view events in your local time here. Register as an attendee or organization to create a profile, make your customized calendar, interact with other attendees, and more. Click here for tutorial videos. Add your customized calendar to Google Calendar, iCal, and more here. Or add an event to the calendar by clicking here.

In my mind, a solid 4 rating means that your adult professional embraces feedback, both formal and informal and has strong systems and processes in place that encourage feedback - things like annual faculty,  parent, and board surveys, intentionally designed evaluation processes for students, faculty, staff and leadership that happen at minimum annually, but even better quarterly, regular audits of programs, curriculum, pedagogy, time and space.  Other good signs that your culture supports feedback might be meetings that end with questions like, "How are we working together as a team/department?" and "What can we do to get better at this work?"  and school leaders who ask their reports with genuine curiosity,  "What can I do to better support your work?"  "What do you think about this idea?" or "How did this meeting go for you?"

What if you spent a week "playing anthropologist" with the following question in mind: "What evidence do I see that our adult community has a strong culture of feedback?" 

Do students recognize that they have a need or dearth that you are trying to fill or address? If there is a way to address that need, will students buy into it? Knowing what you know, can you fill that need?

These answers should help you decide on a hypothesis—which is eerily similar to a lesson objective, or a SWBAT (Students Will Be Able To) statement. Except, in this case, you’re adding an action (A) before the objective (B), in the form of “If I do A, then the student will be able to B.”

They unplug at family dinner and before bed. They have a family movie night on Fridays, which is an example of the principle Radesky touts in her research, of “joint media engagement,” or simply sharing screen time.

But more than just limiting time, says Radesky, “I try to help my older son be aware of the way he reacts to video games or how to interpret information we find online.” For example, she tries to explain how he is being manipulated by games that ask him to make purchases while playing.

She sums up her findings from over a decade of research: “As kids and adults watch or use screens, with light shining in their eyes and close to their face, bedtime gets delayed. It takes longer to fall asleep, sleep quality is reduced and total sleep time is decreased.”