Getting Smart Staff

EdTech 10: Leading the Way

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It’s out, it’s official, Preparing Leaders for Deeper Learning has dropped!

The new paper written jointly with Digital Promise makes the case that if we want more students to experience powerful learning, we need to develop pathways for teachers and EdLeaders to benefit from the same blended, competency-based and deeper learning experiences that they seek to create for students.

As we celebrate the launch of the paper with a blog from Tom and Digital Promise’s Karen Cator, we’re equally excited to share this week’s top news from leaders in EdTech. Here’s this week’s top 10 EdTech news stories.

Blended Schools & Tools

NewGrants. Launching a new school by 2018? Innovating on key dimensions of an existing, high-performing school? NewSchools is building a national portfolio of Innovative Schools. Take the pre-application survey here.

Boost for Blending. A new suite of blended learning implementation consulting, coaching and professional resources for schools and districts, dubbed the Blended Learning Services Portal, is now available from Edgenuity. For additional implementation strategies, check out our Blended Learning Implementation Guide 2.0.  

An Interview With Al. As part of a series where Matchbook Learning’s Chief Technology Officer Al Motley is examining the process his team is using to design, develop, and launch Spark 2.0, NGLC’s Next-Gen Learning blog featured the latest in the series, When Schools Design Their Own EdTech Platform.

Blended Buzz. Despite the buzz surrounding the implementation of blended learning by charters, other traditional public schools have been innovating with these new approaches as well. The Christensen Institute’s Michael Horn pointed to two reasons why charters keep getting the extra attention.

Digital Developments

Hallmark Moment. On Edutopia, John Sole, CEO of Guerilla Educators shared 10 hallmarks of 21st century learning. It turns out that nearly all are topics we’ve recently covered in papers, reports, and infographics.

Yearbook Signing. Communities in Schools launched a national campaign to celebrate the millions of high school graduates and students who have overcome the odds to succeed in learning with a national online yearbook. President of Communities in School, Dan Cardinali, recently shared tips to hacking the traditional high school experience.  

Smart Parents

Staying Positive. As we continue to explore the many perspectives of parents with our Smart Parents project, a national online survey by Marketplace found that parents feel good about the growing use of tech in ed. Additionally, most think it’s improving the quality of education.  

Stem Gems

EdTechWomen. blink blink, creators of creative circuit kit built with girls, for girls and recent 4.0 Schools Launch program participants launched their KickStarter to raise support for their STEM, hands on learning tools.

STEM Cred. Project Lead the Way and College Board have teamed up. Together they will award a new “credential” to high school students who complete integrated AP and Project Lead The Way coursework in engineering, biomed science or computer science.  

Policy Pieces

CompetencyEd. As the case for competency-based models grows stronger, a new American Enterprise Institute report suggests ways to support the failing examples of competency-based models. Easing or modifying credit hour thresholds, and establishing an independent advisory body are among the suggestions.

For more EdTech 10s, check out:

 

Getting Smart Staff

The Getting Smart Staff believes in learning out loud and always being an advocate for things that we are excited about. As a result, we write a lot. Do you have a story we should cover? Email [email protected]

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