Category: schoolreform
-
Reflecting on school 2.0
Chris Lehmann and Marcie Hull created the ten minute video, “Planning the 21st Century School” for the 2006 K-12 Online Conference. I resonate with Chris’ observations that we need to restructure the school schedule and environment as a whole if we are going to effectively prepare students for the 21st century economy and workforce. It…
-
Education leaders propose more useless and counterproductive ideas
I definitely think our educational system needs important reforms, but I continue to be disappointed and saddened by the lack of national leadership we have for the sorts of education reforms we need. US Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings’ announcement on Tuesday that US colleges and universities need to face similar accountability to K-12 schools…
-
Promising high school schedule changes
The best thing about the “Microsoft-designed school of the future,” detailed in the September 20th article “No more teachers, no more books” may be the schedule and the school’s overall approach to learning. According to the article: Because some studies have shown students do better with a later start to the school day, classes run…
-
Podcast84: Inertia, Teaching and Change
Physics professor Lou Bloomfield defines mass as how hard something is to shake, and observes that human beings generally go through life trying to avoid momentum transfers. This podcast includes several reflections on these ideas as they relate to the contexts of school reform and educational change. Program Length: 20 min, 01 sec File size:…
-
More key ingredients for successful 1:1 initiatives
Mark van’t Hooft has added some on-target suggestions to the list of ingredients I blogged about earlier this week for successful 1:1 laptop learning initiatives. He adds: Tech people who believe that technology does not just exist in schools for them. I have seen too many instances in which digital tools in schools are so…
-
School reform vision needed
The Wall Street Journal syndicated article from August 31st, “Saying No to School Laptops,” reveals the dire need we have throughout the United States and likely around the globe for EDUCATIONAL VISION concerning constructive school reform focused on student engagement and digital literacy. The following is a quotation from the article from a Dell education…
-
Podcast79: Reject Rigor: Embrace Differentiation, Flexibility, and High Expectations
We hear voices in the context of education and school reform today calling for “rigor and relevance,” yet how many of us have really stopped to analyze what is meant, implied, and required if “rigor” is a defining characteristic of our educational system? The synonyms for rigor are inflexibility, stringency, and cruelty. Rigor should NOT…
-
1:1 projects, test scores, and sea change
Mike Muir has posted some good thoughts to his blog in “The Problems with Pilot Programs” that relate to the Texas Technology Immersion Pilot (TIP) project’s initial evaluation by TCER and results from Maine’s longer-running 1:1 project (MLTI). I’ve been involved with TIP since it’s inception, and blogged fairly frequently about it and other 1:1…
-
Podcast77: Learning As Conversation and Messy Assessment
This presentation was shared at the Mid-America Technology Institute in Winfield, Kansas on July 28, 2006. Truly educative experiences are often in short supply in schools today. Interactive experiences become engaging when they are meaningful for the learner. To help students authentically learn both the content and the process skills of the curriculum, educators should…
-
Who and What of School Reform
We hear a lot about school reform today: the need for it, and the latest suggestions for bringing it about. But who are these political “school reformers,” and what is their true agenda? Well, the answer to this question (if it is a reasonably accurate one) is sure to be complex– and I am the…