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"The best professional-development research shows that teachers need sustained contact hours (between 30 and 100) of training before altering their practices. So, she did a back-of-the envelope calculation about how much time it would take to implement 50 hours of formative-assessment training over the course of a school year...... Teachers would need about six hours a month, for eight months, which amounts to one early-close afternoon a month plus two additional hours. (Good luck with that in this economy.)"

Perhaps this is where technology can play an enabling role. Easy to use and real-time tools like Socrative or technology based learning environments with embedded formative assessments (like my formative assessment design proposal for VPA) could help reduce the time / training barriers for teachers to incorporate formative assessment into the teaching practice. At the very least, new curriculum initiatives aligned with common core standards SHOULD BE REQUIRED to incorporate formative-assessments. Unfortunately on PARCC is. "Of the two assessment consortia, the Partnership for the Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, or PARCC, is not developing formative-assessment resources as part of its federal grant. The other consortium, known as SMARTER Balanced, is."

This article is not directly related to education, but it gives you a sense of how much information youth today might be consuming. An average American consumed 34 gigabytes per day in 2008. From the executive summary: 'In 2008, Americans consumed information for about 1.3 trillion hours, an average of almost 12 hours per day. Consumption totaled 3.6 zettabytes and 10,845 trillion words, corresponding to 100,500 words and 34 gigabytes for an average person on an average day. A zettabyte is 10 to the 21st power bytes, a million million gigabytes. These estimates are from an analysis of more than 20 different sources of information, from very old (newspapers and books) to very new (portable computer games, satellite radio, and Internet video). Information at work is not included.'

This is discussed in the Productivity section of the NETP

Arizona is taking an interesting view on seat-time http://news.yahoo.com/high-school-less-four-years-070000848.html Hundreds of schools in Arizona are being given the chance to opt into an initiative called Move On When Ready where students are allowed to graduate after their sophomore year based on proving academic achievement. Some are arguing that it is the same option as getting a G.E.D. after one turns 16 but I would argue that there is a negative connotation to having a G.E.D. versus a high school diploma and that this program provides a way for students to achieve a diploma without "putting in" four years of high school seat-time.

There has been so much buzz around gamification recently that it can be difficult to separate the hype from the reality. With clients asking the first questions about gamification, in this post I'm attempting to draw some lines around gamification in learning. First off, as I understand it, gamification in learning means attempting to apply the principles that make individuals play games for thousands of hours. Gamification is not 'gaming', we needn't create digital games costing thousands of dollars and hours to benefit.

Neuroscience News brings us a fascinating collection of articles re: artificial intelligence. If you have an hour or three, indulge!

"What accounts for the high attrition rates? Maybe some of it has to do with aptitude, or encouragement, or good role models and mentors. But Philip Babcock, an economist at the University of California, Davis, suggests that a lot of it has to do with homework. Professor Babcock has written extensively about college students' evolving study habits (or lack thereof) over the last 50 years. He found that in 1961, full-time students spent about 40 hours each week in class and studying. By 2003, they were investing about 27 hours a week". But then, we did not have Facebook, Twitter and Videogames in 1961 :-)

Hi Ellen, I think this is an interesting topic. You may be interested in Piskorski's work at HBS. Professor Piskorski's current research examines why and how people use on-line social networks, both in the US and abroad. Using extensive fieldwork and large scale empirical analyses, he constructed theories of social failures and networks as covers which allow us to understand numerous facets of people's on-line behaviors. http://drfd.hbs.edu/fit/public/facultyInfo.do?facInfo=ovr&facId=10663

"When and where does it make sense to institute a longer school day, and how should it be designed?"

I think a case can be made for structuring school hours flexibly, to accommodate those who engage in sports and other extra currlicular activities and also those who desire or need additional academic learning time.

From my own experience, using technology was an effective way to maintain student engagement during a longer day. As a sped teacher, I offered students the opportunity to do an extra online-based reading intervention if they came to school early. I had a surprising number of students come - almost every single day. Additionally, using technology during afternoon tutoring sessions helped my students stay on-task. I think if the standard school day was to be extended, putting a substantial focus on technology would be both an effective learning tool and a good way to help prevent students from burning out by the last bell.

Newest Disney attraction called - Sum of All Thrills where kids get to design their own virtual roller coaster. It uses virtual-reality technology. "Disney hopes the interactive nature of the ride would also help kids learn that math and science can be fun."

While I would not consider this incredibly expensive ride a 'distruptive innovation' or even an emerging ed technology, what Epcot has done by bringing this DIY-VR concept to the masses (if you are one of the masses that can A- afford Disney and B-have the patience to wait in line for `5-6 hours) is very important to future ed tech innovation strategies. The progression/invention of such cost prohibitive entertainment tools will fall squarely on the high-end theme parks and consumer venues. The challenge has been set by Epcot and now others must either compete directly or develop a better or more accessible solution. Off the top of my head, I can think of a few cost saving innovations that might be developed in this 'race'- Artificial G-Force Engline: variable air pressure, smart-chairs, fans

What a novel idea :-) A commendable effort and a pendulum swing that was bound to happen.

Very few virtual schools have worked with students this young, so there are interesting questions about jumping from no virtual schooling all the way to this model.

There is a really fascinating and controversial policy story behind this. Through "legislative sausage-making" the states first virtual school is being run by a single district out in Western Mass., mostly as a result of the entrepreneurial spirit of the superintendent. There are big questions about what will happen as students across the state sign up for the virtual school and their districts are required to pay tuition to Greenfield. And Greenfield isn't really providing a school, they are just enrolling students to be taught by a for-profit company, K-12. There are quite a few very interesting policy issues that would be worth digging into as the state launches this new venture in an unusual way.

When I first read the article, I immediately thought "an idealist gone rogue." I wondered if there was even any research/method behind this decision, and you mentioned there is a fee. Did I understand correctly that the school district will have to pay this fee for the student like some sort of voucher? If I get a chance I'm going to look for more articles out there on this project. Thanks for mentioning it, Justin. Interesting, indeed.

This article makes a pretty bold statement about what's real and what's not; do you agree?

you can become a google certified teacher by attending the Google Teacher Academy

I'm sure some of you are already aware of this certification program offered through Google -- anybody know what's behind it and how it is viewed by academics and learning scientists?

I know a lot of educators are super interested in the program, but it is difficult to get to training center for an 8 hour training (often they are in random cities across the the US), and to get funding because it ain't cheap. However, a lot of teachers are taking on the challenge of training each other rather than having "google certified teacher" title. Since Google Educator apps are free - if someone in a district takes ownership, then you can kind of get around the challenges of PD. I am working with the IT specialist in a middle school in Newton, who has done a lot of trainings on Google apps for educators. I'll ask her for more info :-)

I feel like this is one more instance of expecting schools to be everything to everybody. The filtering issue is there because of the blurring lines between student's home-life and school-life. Student's experience cyberbullying should not expect that the medium in which they are harrassed is also accessible during school hours. I agree with you Chris that filtering is ineffective but the schools are stuck. They are leaving themselves wide open to a lawsuit without it.

Using math to design your own Disney World ride!

Haha! Read this one today. Considered bookmarking it. I don't know how much fun a ride would be after standing in line for two hours than having to think about what it is you are going to ride.

What is lost and gained when schools save money by purchasing netbooks rather than laptops?

Was just going to post this also. The Acer mentioned though is one of the absolute cheapest notebooks one can get. Not sure that it was the best comparison. There are some netbooks that have amazing battery life (8+ hours) in the sub $350 range. If the article's point is about resource intensive apps like video, it should also clearly point out that the acer's battery will die out well before a similarly priced netbook from samsung.