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The Michael and Susan Dell Foundation just released their first in a series of case studies about what blended learning can "look like." The cases will break out the schools' instructional, operational, and financial models, which I find very helpful. This first case profiles a K-1 KIPP school in Los Angeles using computer-based stations to make a rotational small-group differentiated instruction model feasible with a smaller budget for instructional staff. As the authors state, "online programs enable [KIPP] Empower's model but do not integrate with teacher-led instruction" (11).

We have read so much about the importance of teachers being prepped to use technology or getting professional development to increase their effectiveness of technology integration - here is one college giving it a try. Local children will learn using iPad tablet technology, thanks to a SUNY Cortland instructor and a group of College students who aspire to become teachers. "Learning About Technology," the final program in a semester-long series, takes place at 10 a.m. on Saturday, Dec.

Ipad app that teaches fractions

I tend to agree with Professor Cuban - "IPads are marvelous tools to engage kids, but then the novelty wears off and you get into hard-core issues of teaching and learning." The real challenge is to convert the initial excitement and performance improvement into sustained progress. The key may be in leveraging the increased self-efficacy of students.

This article makes me wonder about the novelty bump you get when you try anything new. In EcoMuve, they researched the effectiveness of EcoMuve vs a new ecology classroom based activity. This tactic is measuring the effectiveness of the technology. However in these studies, if they had kids using a computer game to practice fractions, did the control group practice fractions using a classroom based activity? 15% growth is not much to get excited about.

Eric Brunsell is Assistant Professor of Science Education @ UW-Oshkosh. He is the facilitator of Edutopia's STEM group, and a regular blogger for Edutopia. You can follow him on Twitter @brunsell. -- This post was co-authored with Elizabeth Alderton. Elizabeth is an Assistant Professor of Literacy Education at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh.

ARTLAB+ is a digital media studio that gives local teens the opportunity to become integral members of a design team. They create new visitor experiences at the Hirshhorn, taking their inspiration from its permanent collection and temporary exhibitions. ARTLAB+ designers hone crucial twenty-first century skills as they make videos, animations, wikis, games, podcasts, and more. By the end of every project session, the design team has created a unique product that enriches the museum experiences of other visitors and showcases each teen's creative growth. After-school, weekend, and weeklong ARTLAB+ workshops are held year-round to accommodate a wide variety of schedules. We welcome all teens, regardless of experience. Looks like a great way to help introduce twenty-first century skills- BB

This is really cool- combining mobile, situated learning in the real world, with creative group projects, and letting kids direct their own active, learning 'flow'.. Can this scale up to schools (or after-school programs), without access to museum artifacts and mobile devices?

Interesting.

Also, I can't imagine that education will make the fear of failure extinct. It may make failing a bit more tolerable with individualized instruction, but I can't image that the pressure on students to succeed will decrease; it seems more likely that it will increase.

I appreciated that they mentioned learning HTML. I wish I learned that in school -- I think basic web design should be a 21st century skill.

The SPINNER project from the Responsive Environments Group at MIT Media Lab is the first research platform designed to investigate the world of ubiquitous video devices. The Spinner can automatically edit video to fit a narrative structure. It uses video from cameras installed at the Media Lab and sensor data from people generated by wearable smart badges to track their activity and location. The system then creates a video using the characteristics detected from the sensor data with the video captured by the cameras.

A Stanford University group tracked students in eight virtual schools and found that "in every subgroup, with significant effects, cyber charter performance is lower." K12 Inc. made large profit, but at what cost?

It is sad that every good idea gets hijacked for 'profit-maximizing'

Georgia's Hall County partnered with Dell and transforming the classrooms "one student at a time", using 1) personalized 2) blended 3) data collection and 4) results. Sounds familiar? "wouldn't believe that these types of classrooms existed if I hadn't seen it for myself. When you get a group of dedicated educators together with a shared vision that is designed to remove the business-as-usual stigma and support total transformation you can achieve amazing things."

Check out nb a very cool, collaborative note taking tool developed by MIT's Haystack Group. Last night I got into a discussion with Sanjoy Mahajan, an Olin College professor who got his Phd at MIT.  We were talking about Eriz Mazur's Peer Instruction technique when he began describing how in his flipped-classroom courses he uses the MIT Haystack Group's "nb" software to enable his student's to collaboratively discuss the course readings (online in pdf form) through shared, online annotations & notes.   Sanjoy's students are required to participate in the online annotation discussion, making their own annotations and responding to others, the night before his class.  He then reviews the annotations to prepare the next day's discussion and peer-instruction lesson plan.

Interesting that some publishers are in favor of this, because it means big changes for them...

Describes a group looking at the role of technology in both formal and informal educational settings.

Dueling opinions on what the Net offers us.

About 16 mins in to this mostly political conversation about economic pressures and the political changes expected this fall, Matt Miller calls out higher education as a place likely to see major disruption in coming years, saying that like the medical establishment, it's a sector "where the costs of delivering services are much higher in the US than anywhere else in the world, [which has] been able...essentially through interest group politics...to keep the income flowing to their sector at the expense of the average consumer... You've got all these new...small firms...that will deliver, like, freshman year for a thousand dollars...and they're being blocked by the...status quo establishment that likes to keep the cost of higher education at 15, 20, 35 thousand dollars a year. If you've got this kind of economic pressure across the board, I think it's only a matter of time before the boom really falls on these sectors."

Some really interesting stuff here. Vander Ark's prediction about traditional classrooms being replaced by ever-changing groupings of students working on the same thing at the same time sounds feasible to me for some reason. It makes sense to take advantage of computers' ability to foster independent learning as a way to group students who might not share the same classroom location. I also found it interesting that Silversnail believed that the classrooms who used the technology the most in Maine were not necessarily the most successful or educationally sound. It shows you that, with technology, the how and the why are much more important than the what.

This is a captivating video made by a group called Iowa Future that was premiered at the 2011 School Administrators of Iowa Conference. Though it is aimed at Iowans in particular it is applicable to all of us as it highlights the staggering pace that the world has progressed to our current state of technological overload. It features shocking statistics about digital media use that are quite fascinating and applicable to the entire world.

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."

Thanks for this, Anna. I saw this group as part of an interview on ABC about iPads. Their data really gets me thinking about the educational and home space and how we need to design content to leverage the technology that is most accessible to them - and the iPad isn't the "golden ticket" (at least in this age span).

CommonSense is a strong organization - they have a comprehensive database of reviews of content, so if you are a parent looking for the low down on a media product (whether it be a TV show, video game, movie, etc.), commonsense is a good place to get an overview of the product. I have heard arguments, however, that their tendency is to be more conservative in their reviews. May not work for every parent, but definitely a good resource! For other groups like this one, check out the following: Temple's Media Education Lab, http://mediaeducationlab.com/ ; Children Now, http://www.childrennow.org/index.php/learn/talking_with_kids//television.html ; The LAMP http://www.thelampnyc.org/ ; and Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood http://www.commercialfreechildhood.org/