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"Simply put, computing drives innovation in all fields. Our society needs professionals with the ability to solve problems across multiple disciplines. And the rewards for doing so are huge."

AR not ready for prime time because of inaccurate GPS data and apps that only provide information about locations within the user's line of sight.

I thought that this project was a very interesting way of combining leadership, problem solving and engineering. I found it particularly interesting that the older students were working with third graders.

"School of One uses technology to develop a unique learning path for each student and to provide a significant portion of the instruction that is both individualized and differentiated." I liked the definitions of individualized (pacing), differentiated (learning preferences/methods), and personalized (pacing, preferences, and content/objectives).

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.

The idea of "showing what you know" and earning badges instead of degrees? In this economic downswing, could something like this become the new emergent way of learning and of assessing? Thoughts?

Sounds like the digital badge is more lke a digital portfolio- which I would more likely support. I find it interesting that our education system (which strives and struggles to provide consistent, high quality education from coast to coast) is seen as deficient but this badge proposal will be the answer? It's like the flood of support for home-schooling after a home-schooler wins a national competition but no one knows about the tens of homescholers I had to remediate in rural NH. Standardization is the key for any system to be integrated into another system. The variety of education models we have in our country makes it difficult for employers to integrate employees. If this digital badge concept relies on a variety of models, they will have the same problem.

The prospect of digital badges to show what you know is both exciting with its potential affordances and worrisome with some of its limitations and ambiguity. It'd be great if the ideal came to pass that digital badges would allow valid demonstration of super-specific skills and knowledge over a greater range of fields and topics than what having a B.A. or B.S. currently does. Digital badges could represent the most particular concepts or skills at a granular level even-- those that are essential in the real-world (whether that be desired by employers or otherwise). If the task or test or challenge, or whatever else would be the means of assessment for earning a badge, was carefully designed and evaluated to be a truly valid measure of proficiency, then earning a badge for something would be a clear indication that you know something. But like Allison said, standardization would be key. What would these assessments/ badge challenges be- so that they would be truly valid indicators of proficiency? Who would be the purveyors or authorities to determine the assessments or challenges to accomplish a badge? Given the medium (completing badge assessments on one's own computer or mobile device - from any site they're at potentially) - what's to stop a user from going "open book" or "opening another tab" in order to look up answers to questions or tutorials on how to do a task, in order to complete the assessment? Doing this would allow a user to ace the assessment and earn the badge- but would defeat any value of the badge in truly demonstrating knowledge or skill. By imagining if digital badges did reach mass-acceptance and use in the real world, and we were to ultimately find them all over the internet like we're now finding social media widgets, it made me realize that the "prove proficiency anywhere I am in any way I want" won't work. I changed fields and career paths from what I studied in college, so I definitely appreciate the value in being able to truly show e

Here is another $35 tablet from Singapore called the I-slate. Every great solution has got to address a real pain - this learning tablet tackles the lack of electric power in several locations around the globe. There is some mention of what it can and cannot do on the technology front. The learning programs embedded are not elaborated.

"From the point-of-view of teacher education, I think it's absolutely critical that we teach our teachers how to think and communicate from a global perspective, so they can teach students how to look at the problems the world faces through a different prism."

In order to get around the clunkiness of the LMS my school uses I am always looking for tools like this one. The problem with doing this is that sometimes they cost money, they usually expose students to advertising (which I think is an ethical issue when you're dealing with a captured audience), and they all require a time commitment to familiarize myself and my students. I'm not sure what it is about systems like Blackboard (which charges incredible amounts of money) that hamper its visual appeal and design for intuitive use.

Three long-time Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, veterans from Yahoo, Sun Microsystems, and Google, started funding education start-ups last Spring. Their incubator, Imagine K12, has now "graduated" its first group of startups. If accepted, Imagine K12 give $15k to $20k to startups and empower them with "dazzling network of connections."

Isabel, Chris M., Stephen B., and I are at MassCUE today watching Yong Zhao's keynote.  You can find a copy of his presentation here at this website.

I saw Zhao speak yesterday at the MassCUE conference (with James, Chris McEnroe and Isabel Schwartzman). His message was provocative: the United States did not do well on the TIMSS test, but the US has never done well on this type of testing even way back to the 1950s. Therefore, Zhao thinks that these tests are not good indicators of educational quality, but that the things that the US does right are fostering creativity, building in tolerance and forgiveness into the educational system, and stressing problem-solving and collaborative learning.

This relates to part of the discussion in class today. I've seen him speak about the irony that Chinese schools, which are outperforming US schools on PISA and TIMMS, are actually trying to model their systems more on US pedagogy. See his latest book or look for him on TED.