From the Editor RSS Feed
Teacher Access to Technology
Anne Wujcik — Friday, January 27, 2012
Where did January go? You'll see that there are lots of headlines this week, many coming out of announcements made at the Florida Educational Technology Conference. I didn't make it to FETC this year, though I've been at more of the shows 32 annual events than I care to admit. I have not had the chance to talk to anyone who did attend, but the show's 500 or so exhibitors were enough to keep anyone busy. This would be a good week to be sure you click though to the News Alert web site. When there is so much news, I only feature one headline from a company. Multiple releases from the same company, stories I typically post in the Announcements section and some releases about product updates are posted at the web site, so you will want to check to be sure you don't miss anything. Inside, a few thoughts on the latest survey from PBS LearningMedia about teachers and technology and the continuing stir around teacher evaluation. Read More »
RTTT for District, Apple's iBooks Textbooks
Anne Wujcik — Friday, January 20, 2012
It looks like one of the next things to anticipate at the federal level will be the roll out of Race to the Top redesigned for districts. In an interview with Education Week, Secretary Duncan indicated that the bulk of the $500 million RTTT appropriation in the FY 2012 budget would go directly to districts. Details, such as the focus of the program or what the districts would be required to do, remain to be worked out. While many districts are likely to find the opportunity to compete for RTTT funding attractive, it might prove of particular interest to districts in states that decided not to participate in RTTT at all. Of course, it could be that districts that have had some experience in planning for their particular roles in the earlier statewide application process will have an edge in this new competition. It is also possible, depending on how stringent the requirements that districts will be expected to meet are, that a number of LEAs decide it's just too much work to apply or to doubt their ability to actually deliver on proposed plans. Read More »
House Reauthorization Bills, Other Resources
Anne Wujcik — Friday, January 13, 2012
On Jan 6, Rep. John Kline (R-MN), Chairman of the Committee on Education and the Workforce, released the final two pieces of House's ESEA reauthorization package. These last two bills are a Republican effort, finalized and released after talks with Democrats on the Committee broke down. Two major studies related to teacher evaluation have also been released, one from the Gates Foundation's Measures of Effective Teaching (MET) project and the second from the National Bureau of Economic Research study on the long-term effects of high value-added teachers. Education Week released the 16th edition of it's annual Quality Counts report, focused on the nation's international standing in education, and lessons to be drawn from high-performing countries. And more information is also surfacing about states' implementation of the Common Core State Standards. Read More »
A Calm 2012?
Anne Wujcik — Friday, January 06, 2012
Happy New Year everyone! It's hard to believe that we are already a week into 2012. It is possible that the first part of this year will be relatively calm, with the school finishing out the 2011-12 school year without too much more disruption. There was a flurry of activity in Washington at the end of the year. Congress passed an omnibus appropriations bill that finalized the FY 2012 federal budget. The Department of Education also announced its Round III Race to the Top awards, along with Promise Neighborhoods grants and the 23 highest rated projects in the 2011 Investing in Innovation (i3) Fund competition secured their required private funding, qualifying them to receive their i3 grants. Much of ED's energy in 2012 will be devoted to monitoring the progress of the various RTTT grantees, applying pressure where needed and help where requested and managing the ongoing NCLB waivers process. Read More »
Keeping Up With the News
Anne Wujcik — Friday, December 16, 2011
Just a few quick notes this week. It looks like Congress has decided to step back from the brink, working toward agreeing to a set of bills that will fund the operation of the U.S. government for the rest of FY 2012. The current Continuing Resolution is set to expire at midnight tonight. Congressional leaders on both sides of the aisle had been quietly working towards this agreement in a largely bi-partisan effort for the past several weeks, but as the deadline drew near, the impulse to self-immolation kicked in and arguments broke out around all sorts of issues. (For you political junkies, there's an interesting story at Politico (http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1211/70471.html) that details some of the intricacies of the potential budget agreement.) In the end, however, political realities took over and it looks like something moderately acceptable will be worked out, possibly as soon as Saturday. It's still not clear how the Department of Education's money will be parceled out, but it appears that the overall cut to the Department's budget will be pretty minimal. Read More »
Hall of Fame
Anne Wujcik — Friday, December 09, 2011
First an apology to a number of companies whose news got left out of last week's issue. I forgot to adjust dates to account for our Thanksgiving publishing break. Their stories are included this week. I also want to look back a week myself. Many of us make the trip to New York City the week after Thanksgiving to participate in a series of education industry events starting with the Ed Tech Business Forum, sponsored by the Education Division of the Software & Information Industry Association, and wrapping up with the Association of Educational Publisher's Hall of Fame Awards. It's a great time to learn about industry trends, catch up with long-time friends, meet industry newcomers and celebrate the hard work and dedication that keeps the industry growing. Read More »
Award Program Lessons
Anne Wujcik — Friday, December 02, 2011
I've been inundated with news about companies who have been recognized in any one of several industry award programs. I don't pick up those various announcements for inclusion in the News Alert; there are just too many. I do recommend that you check out the award sites of the various organizations. The EdTech Digest awards (http://edtechdigest.wordpress.com/etd-awards/winners/), District Administration's Readers' Choice Top 100 Products (http://www.districtadministration.com/article/district-administration-readers-choice-top-100-products) and Tech & Learning magazine's Award of Excellence (http://www.techlearning.com/portals/0/PRESSrelease_AOE_2011_FINAL_v3.pdf ) provide a quick look at which products educators find useful in their classrooms and districts. The Readers' Choice Top 100 Products winners were selected by the editors of District Administration from hundreds of nominations submitted by readers, including school superintendents and district-level directors in districts across the United States. T&L uses a panel of more than 30 educators who test all of the award program entries in several rounds of judging and select the winners. Read More »
ESEA Flexibility, RTTT Round Three
Anne Wujcik — Friday, November 18, 2011
The Department of Education continues to move forward on a number of fronts. Eleven states, (CO, FL, GA, IN, KY, MA, MN, NJ, NM, OK, TN) submitted requests for ESEA flexibility by the November 14 deadline. The Department also announced that the nine states that are eligible (AZ, CA, CO, IL, KY, LA, NJ, PA, SC) to apply for a share of the remaining $200 million in Race to the Top funds have until November 22 to submit the first part of their application. Even though these states will be retooling their Round Two Race to the Top proposals, it will be a big job. The same was true for states applying for ESEA flexibility. Most states needed more time to get their requests together. Thirty-nine states have submitted non-binding intents to request ESEA flexibility, so if everyone follows through, at least 28 states will be submitting flexibility requests. Read More »
Head Start, the Learning Registry, Potential i3 Grantees
Anne Wujcik — Friday, November 11, 2011
It was a busy week in Washington, as the Department of Education made a flurry of announcements, seemingly intent on pushing ahead on a number of fronts in the face of Congressional inaction. Monday, the Departments of Education and Defense launched the Learning Registry, a tool that facilitates sharing educational resources. On Wednesday the President and Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services announced new rules for Head Start. Thursday the Department of Education announced the potential grantees for the second round of investing in Innovation - i3 - grants. Read More »
Technology in Higher Education
Anne Wujcik — Friday, November 04, 2011
I received two e-mails from long-time colleagues this past week, both dealing with the higher ed market. The first came from Casey Green, director of The Campus Computing Project (www.campuscomputing.net), the largest continuing study of computing, eLearning and information technology in American higher education. Casey is one of the leading experts on higher ed information technology and when I actively covered higher ed was always high on my list of people to consult when I needed to understand campus technology trends or policies. The second message came from Peter Grunwald, founder and President of Grunwald Associates. Many of you know Peter from various aspects of the work his firm does on media and technology, including the annual PBS K-12 Education Technology Survey. Peter wanted to alert me that EDUCAUSE had just released a report and infographic that his company developed based on a survey of student technology use and attitudes. The infographic (http://www.grunwald.com/pdfs/InfoGraphic-EDUCAUSE-GRUNWALD-survey-results.pdf) is a great visual depiction of the research highlights. Read More »
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