Digital Academics

If we drill down, it appears that 2012 will be the year where five mostly disconnected streams of tech-rich K-12 learning are finally connecting:

Digital learning:

Online learning:

With the rise of standards-based instruction, districts and schools have been seeking out the best tools to foster it. Standards-Based grade books have been created is response to this need. As with educational changes, there are exciting potentials and pitfalls. First of all, here is what works when using the standards-based grade book:

1)     Ensures targeted Assessment and Rubrics

2)     Continuity across Classes and Teacher

Children born in the 1990s, dubbed the “iGeneration” by Rosen, live in a time of rapidly changing technology, in which they are constantly connected to a number of mobile technologies. Rosen said the “i” stands for both the technologies these students use—such as the iPod, iPhone, and Wii—and the individualized ways in which students use these tools.

the experiment was a great success. Students did indeed develop some skill in finding and using sources, and they put great effort into learning about their chosen topics. They also did a wonderful job of running class discussions focused around those topics.

I started off by selecting a few myself (e.g., technology and privacy, technology and civic discourse, immigration), and showing students the kinds of resources they might be able to find. Then, for the latter part of the course, they chose the issues, found sources, and shared them in the class Zotero library. Working in teams or as individuals (depending on which section they were in), they were then responsible for running a class session and assigning readings for that session.