Using video games to enhance teaching and learning
There’s a question caroming off the walls of many teacher lounges, company boardrooms and research centers alike: Do video games belong in America’s classrooms? For game designers, the answer is clear....
View ArticleInterview: Jill Barshay on business and common core, video games in...
Hechinger Report contributing editor Jill Barshay took part in a podcast with Bloomberg radio last week, talking about technology and education and answering some burning questions. Barshay teamed up...
View ArticleOnline learning, teaching and misleading opinions
A couple of pieces in the New York Times and Washington Post have attracted some attention over the past couple of weeks for their descriptions of online and blended-learning environments—and both have...
View ArticlePoll: Parents and teachers support spending for classroom technology
Parents and teachers are generally united in the belief that the United States should spend more money on technology in classrooms, according to the results of an August poll conducted by the LEAD...
View ArticleWhat are the right schools of experience for teachers in new schools?
I spent a few hours recently with the head of a brand new blended-learning school. The school is pushing the bounds of blended learning with a Flex model that is competency-based. Students move on when...
View ArticleHow are smartphones being used in class?
Heard about smartphones being used in class, but still have no idea how they’re actually being put to work? One teacher has an interesting post up at the Making the Shift blog looking at some of the...
View ArticleCould competency-based learning save the Common Core?
After spending last week in Washington, D.C., I was struck by how nervous folks in education circles are about whether states will stick with the Common Core state standards once the Common Core...
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My first MOOC: Online class about how to create online classes failed miserably
This story also appeared at: At a recent event, a bigwig at McGraw-Hill, the textbook publisher, urged the audience to take an online course so that we’d have a sense of the future. As a journalist...
View ArticleAddendum to MOOC crash
An hour after I posted about the MOOC crash, a spokesman for Georgia Tech, Matt Nagel, emailed a response. Nagel made clear it was a Georgia Tech’s decision to kill the class because of both quality...
View ArticleA wonk’s take on the MOOC crash
There’s a vibrant discussion in the blogosphere about the lessons learned from the MOOC crash that I’ve been writing about. Slate’s Will Oremus wrote about how the debacle may be heralding an anti-MOOC...
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Big data and schools: Education nirvana or privacy nightmare?
InBloom, a nonprofit start-up founded with funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Carnegie Corporation, is taking center stage and spreading around some significant funds as an...
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The five most important ed-tech trends at SXSWedu
I’ve been on the ground in Austin for the South By Southwest Education Conference & Festival for 22 hours. In that time, I’ve interviewed six people, chatted with many more, and hit the Java Jive...
View ArticleBill Gates greeted by standing ovation from…teachers?
Patti Freudenberg works for the Clear Creek Independent School District in the Houston-Galveston area, where she is the “Teaching American History Grant Specialist,” currently leading groups of history...
View ArticleWhat technology can (and can’t) do for education
As I reflect on the excitement of South By Southwest Education conference last week, a fundamental question keeps coming up: What proportion of the challenges facing the education system can actually...
View ArticleBig bucks for blended learning in K-12: Where’s the evidence?
A Bay Area nonprofit called the Learning Accelerator (TLA), started with funds from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, has just scored a $5 million grant to expand its operations greatly and get...
View ArticleCan open educational resources rise again?
“I haven’t heard any other journalists use the term OER,” Anant Agarwal of the MOOC platform EdX told me recently. This is a shame, to put it mildly. OER, or open educational resources, just means any...
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Special K: Don’t sleep on Khan Academy, Knewton
Listening to Sal Khan, founder of the Khan Academy, speak on stage to several hundred attendees at the 5th Anniversary Gala last week for Innosight Institute—the non-profit that I co-founded—I thought...
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“Bring Your Own Device” and the digital divide
It was at the South By Southwest Edu conference in Austin earlier this month that I first heard the term B.Y.O.D. or B.Y.O.T.–”Bring Your Own Device” or “Bring Your Own Technology.” The idea is...
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Five unexpected benefits of a wired school
Eric Sheninger, principal of New Milford High School in Bergen County, NJ is an unabashed ed-tech evangelist who has wrought some significant transformations in his “traditional blue-collar,” yet...
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Can a computer pass the “teacher Turing test”?
Have you ever spent any time with Eliza? You can reach her at this link. Eliza was one of the earliest attempts at artificial intelligence and natural language processing: building a computer program...
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