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Students who complete an Open Educational Resources University course will be able to pay a fee to have their work assessed for academic credit, which would then be recognised by all the universities participating in the OERu. In theory, the students could approach any of the partner institutions with evidence of the credits they have amassed and apply for degrees.

Technology literacy is projected to arrive in k-12 schools in 2012.

Article reviews a study discussing the actual effects of online quizzes on student performance. "However, Steenhuis and colleagues have found that this approach does not necessarily work and despite the fact that students perceive such quizzes as helpful, they may not be as useful to learning as both students and educators believe."

"What would digitized classrooms look like, and how could technology improve pupil engagement and mastery of concepts? How might educators scale up successful pilot projects? On October 6, the Center for Technology Innovation at Brookings will host a forum on education technology and its potential to transform the modern American classroom." Looks like it could be a pretty good conversation for students like us to participate in!

This is an editorial discussing how emerging technologies can help eliminate the need for annual standardized testing of students by tracking their progress constantly throughout the year through technology use. IPads, Khan Academy, data analysis, KIPP schools, the achievement gap, online courses and their innovations through emerging technologies are discussed.

Really proud of the P2PU/Mozilla badges team that's going into public beta soon. Check it out: http://badges.p2pu.org/users/77/vanessagennarell/

One teacher claims that "The idea is to invert the normal rhythms of school, so that lectures are viewed on the kids' own time and homework is done at school." - Do you agree that this is a good solution? 

I too am intrigued by this "inverting" of time spent in the classroom and at home. My idealized model would be to introduce learners to new material at their own pace out of the classroom (allowing for pausing, note taking, reflecting and/or rewinding) and focus classroom time on face to face guiding and coaching of clusters of students or individual students engaged in applying or exploring the current material. To help facilitate this (and assist with accountability) some brief form of pre-assessment before class or at the start of class could illuminate for student and teacher alike what material has been mastered and what needs more attention. The research report from the TIE Foundations summer reading appears to support this type of hybrid approach. => Marsha Lovett, Oded Meyer, and Candace Thille (2008). The Open Learning Initiative: Measuring the effectiveness of the OLI statistics course in accelerating student learning.

An added benefit of tools such as Khan Academy is the option for reinforcement. In a traditional K-12 school environment students do not have the option to watch a video of their class or spend personalized time reviewing a concept they need more time with during class time due to the required pace of school curriculum. An online learning tool allows a student to watch a lesson as many times as needed and to learn from an expert. Often if a student needs help outside the classroom the only people they turn to is parents, who may or may not know about the content themselves.

Speaking of being wary of marketers pitching 'magical digital products'...this study found "no discernible effects" on high school students standardized test scores - of course, we must ask how the effects were measured (what the test actually tests) and measure in what ways software has a meaningful effect on student's learning...

I think Karen Cator makes a good point in the article when she talks about standardized tests being the sole gauge for assessing the effectiveness of the programs. While the programs may be used with the intent to improve test scores, I'd also argue it's important for digital literacy to be valued as a skill in its own right. Thus while test scores may not reflect the sought-after results, other important skills may still have been developed by using the programs.

Company called "Knewton" making software similar to what we discussed with School of One - ongoing assessments (short quizzes), online tutoring, etc.

Article about a district's efforts to alleviate anxiety and stress on student performance. Interesting when we discussing assessment...