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He decided to conduct an experiment using a convenient sample: Harrisburg's student body

There is, at least, growing support for experimentation: in March, Arne Duncan, the secretary of education, released a draft National Educational Technology Plan that reads a bit like a manifesto for change, proposing among other things that the full force of technology be leveraged to meet “aggressive goals” and “grand” challenges, including increasing the percentage of the population that graduates from college to 60 percent from 39 percent in the next 10 years. What it takes to get there, the report suggests, is a “new kind of R.& D. for education” that encourages bold ideas and “high risk/high gain” endeavors — possibly even a school built around aliens, villains and video games.

ant time building their own games. Sometimes they design

miniworld, a dynamic system governed by a set of rules, complete with challenges, obstacles and goals. At its best, game design can be an interdisciplinary exercise involving math, writing, art, c

The use of smarter technology in assessments,” Mr. Duncan said, “makes it possible to assess students by asking them to design products of experiments, to manipulate parameters, run tests and record data.

not only end-of-year tests similar to those in use now but also formative tests that teachers will administer several times a year to help guide instruction

In performance-based tasks, which are increasingly common in tests administered by the military and in other fields, students are given a problem — they could be told, for example, to pretend they are a mayor who needs to reduce a city’s pollution — and must sift through a portfolio of tools and write analytically about how they would use them to solve the problem.

Students live on Facebook. So study tools that act like social networks should be student magnets—and maybe even have an academic benefit.

"Our mission is to make the world one big study group,"

some of their business plans rely on a controversial practice: paying students for their notes.

the team plans to use the grant money to develop 35 new simulations specifically geared to middle school physical science education. The existing library of simulations targets concepts and applications generally used in high school- and college-level physics courses.

The PhET simulations allow us to conduct experiments, with students at the helm, that we wouldn't otherwise be able to stage or model in the classroom."

was recently at a conference led by Reeves and he mentioned that we must shift our emphasis in this regard and recommended a 90/10 plan: 90% formative assessment and 10% summative assessment.

Each day, students in the School of One are given a unique lesson plan — a "daily playlist" — tailored to their learning style and rate of progress that includes a mix of virtual tutoring, in-class instruction and educational video games. It's learning for the Xbox generation.