Getting Smart Staff

EdTech 10: Seizing Opportunity, Propelling our Game

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For professional athletes, time put in during the off season, training, learning new strategies, honing weathered skills, can make all the difference. The same goes for teachers and schools during summer (especially when it comes to recruitment). This week’s EdTech news focuses on new opportunities for teacher-leaders, startups, and schools to skill up, improve strategies, and propel their game.

Blended Schools & Tools

Connecting in Connecticut. Leaders in blended implementation, Meriden Public Schools, is launching their “Take Charge of Your Learning” campaign with teacher-leaders facilitating model learning with teaching sites for local districts and in-district educators.

Schools they are a-changin’. From the leaders in online and blended learning, iNACOL (where Tom is a Director), is a new report that shares the evolution of blended learning including implementation strategies and the use of digital curricula to engage students in higher levels of academic success. The report is titled, Blended Learning: The Evolution of Online and Face-to-Face Education from 2008-2015.

Digital Developments

Catapulting new school progress. NewSchools Venture Fund announced the launch of NewSchools Catapult with the goal of propelling the work of entrepreneurs launching new schools. NSVF is supporting teams of educators who are rethinking time, talent and technology.

Want to teach online? Register by July 17 for The Online Learning Consortium’s Advanced Online Teaching Certificate. The course is comprised of three 1-hour live synchronous sessions and a final presentation. Great opportunity for teachers preparing for deeper learning.  

Dollars & Deals

Nippon news. Japan-based Recruit Holdings acquired learning platform Quipper for $32 million. With a reach of 1.5 million students in nine countries, this looks to be a strategic move to enhance and expand Recruit’s K-12 products globally.

Stem Gems

Stemming Success. Grants of up to $300K are now available from the National Science Foundation for projects that engage teacher-leaders in STEM. The deadline is July 22. We’ve recently featured teacher-leader Lindsey Own who shared how she’s leading her school in developing a makerspace.

Filling the gap. With voters in Greece taking a stand on financial woes in the Eurozone, young people are feeling the brunt of the economic situation as nearly 50% of Greeks under 25 years old remain unemployed (1 million IT jobs will be created in Europe in 2015). Seizing the opportunity do something about this is CareerFoundry who is calling on those on the sidelines to help skill up young Greeks with the Europe Greek Tech Leaders Scholarship. The scholarship will sponsor students to enroll in CareerFoundry’s Web Development and UX Design programs.

Teachers & Tech-ers

That’s a wrap. Last week’s EdTech 10 was focused on all things ISTE. Since, we’ve been hard at work sharing featured maker products from the event, the importance of people amidst the emphasis in tech, and what ISTE meant when it comes to procurement and implementation.

The Big “D”

Personalization + Privacy = Data Backpack. The potential for student data to personalize learning is huge, and the Student Data Backpack concept is a way to realize that potential while simultaneously addressing legitimate student privacy concerns. A lot has happened since we originally described a vision for an expanded learner profile in 2012. That’s why in partnership with The Foundation for Excellence in Education’s Digital Learning Now initiative and the Data Quality Campaign, we published the first blog of a Student Data Backpack blog series in the upcoming “Getting Smart on Personalization and Privacy” Smart Bundle.

Free 99. Located in SoCal? Thrive Public Schools is hosting a free PD event for educators dubbed, Next Generation Teaching and Learning Symposium. To be held in San Diego, the event is scheduled for August 12. Can’t make it the symposium? Here are some resources to slow the summer brain drain.

For more EdTech 10’s, 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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