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A California superintendent of schools writing a letter advocating the use of blended learning to help close her county's achievement gap. Interesting reader comments from folks about how back in their day, people did just fine without technology....

This article attempts to balance the 'rah-rah tech is a panacea' view with a reminder that it might not be essential or desirable in all classrooms. Other than citing some studies that show how tech can distract students during class, I don't think her argument is that convincing. I'm curious what people think about this view.

One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) implementation in Australia seems to bring positive results. In remote, largely indigenous northwest Queensland, Doomadgee, 3rd grade students' numeracy improved from 31 per cent last year to a staggering 95 per cent in 2011.

Opinion in Edutopia

Opinion on Educationnext

ruggedized and fairly cheap make it cater to students, but still seems bulky for frequent carrying in a backpack

Opinion in EducationNext

Opinion in the Albert Shanker Institute web-page

In the US, 250000 students are enrolled in full-time public virtual schools in 30 states, according to Susan Patrick of the International Association for K-12 Online Learning, a trade association. Although that's just a fraction of the country's 50 million students, it has grown 30% each year. Some schools in Michigan already shown the advantage of digital learning.

This is an interesting article. I am just concerned that it is not unbiased or driven by an agenda other than improving education. I found this information about the Mackinac Center online: http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/mackinac-center-public-policy I am starting to realize that a lot of the technology in schools rhetoric is driven by corporate and political interests, and as the industry becomes ever more profitable, I'm worried that companies are going to jump in and try to influence policy, rushing through the movement toward the wrong kind of technology in schools- i.e. sacking half of the teaching staff and replacing them with cheap computers. I think one of our most important jobs as Harvard TIE students is to education the public about the right ways to adapt technology in the classroom, and the important role that teachers will continue to play in this movement.

The headline promises more than the article delivers. It mainly identifies the limited effectiveness that the federal government can have. There are no specific "how to's" here and no mention of technology whatsoever, perhaps because that would be too specific a focus for the scope of the article. These are prominent figures in a prominent publication having a conversation that could have taken place in 1980. How do we change that? The absence of real civic engagement on issues about education is the missing link in education reform. I wonder if we can organize public discourse on the internet more effectively to have formal impact on civic activism and administration.

Hits some familiar themes but from a perspective we haven't heard much.

Nice article on the challenges in school reform - An excerpt from the article - " you simply cannot fix America's schools by "scaling" charter schools. ...... Charter schools offer proof of the concept that great teaching is a huge difference-maker, but charters can only absorb a tiny fraction of the nation's 50 million public schoolchildren. Real reform has to go beyond charters - and it has to include the unions."

This article makes interesting references not only to our resistance to change (disruption), but also our inability to control media and not the other way around. "Human beings are creatures of habit and the introduction of anything new typically raises an eyebrow (at least) or pitchforks (more often). It's a somewhat common theme that is tiresome to me, but one that provokes debate throughout the times." And "There's a macro lesson here: If you think your kid is spending too much time on their iPad and not enough time outside getting some exercise, don't blame the iPad."

Opinion

This is the link to the NYT article "You Love Your iPhone. Literally"  Lindstrom is infamous for his "pseudo-neuroscience" claims.

This articles featuring various stances on technology in the classroom. Arguments are made for technology-heavy curriculum, classrooms free of technology and responsible and effective technology use with thorough professional development and teacher facilitation. Another voice adding their two cents to the technology in the classroom conversation. I think that the most well informed angle expressed in the article is the opinion that we need better teachers and careful use of technology when it's inclusion will improve the learning potential more than if it weren't used.

Iowa goes for full-time for-profit online school.

"The performance advantage among students whose parents read to them in their early school years is evident regardless of the family's socioeconomic background. Parents' engagement with their 15-year-olds is strongly associated with better performance in PISA."

When we think about education reform, we usually focus on teacher quality. The big battleground in education revolves around holding teachers accountable for their performance. With all the focus on teachers, however, one group that is often forgotten as a key learning resource are the students themselves.

An argument against MOOCs..