Voice from the Field RSS Feed
Addressing the Digital Divide Within
Fred Carr, Chief Operating Officer, Metropolitan Nashville (TN) Public Schools — Friday, January 20, 2012
Recently, our district distributed iPads to our principals to support the new Tennessee teacher evaluation program. The iPads will allow our principals and other administrators who conduct teacher evaluations to input data and remarks and record the lesson with pictures and video clips as they conduct classroom observations. During the process of distributing the iPads to administrators, we were surprised to find that some of our principals and administrators said they do not have personal email accounts and some did not even know how to log in to their work accounts—their administrative assistants manage the task of reviewing and answering daily emails. Read More »
What Is the Right Test?<br>Toward Individualized Instruction: The Evolving Nature of Assessment
A BLEgroup Blog — Friday, December 09, 2011
More than 50% of students entering high school are two or more years behind in at least one subject on meeting the academic grade-level standards, less than 40% are proficient, and only 5% are advanced. What do we do about the more than 50% of students who are missing the necessary prerequisite skills to master their current standards? Good instructional leaders have a vision of individualizing instruction to meet the needs of individual students. Unfortunately, they lack the assessment and diagnostic tools to make this vision a reality. Assessments are the tools used to address student improvement. They range from “thermometers” that tell us what standards a student has mastered or not mastered to diagnostic tools that identify skill strengths and deficiencies, and they provide materials to teach missing skills so that standards can be mastered. Read More »
The Promise of the Common Core…
Lissa Pijanowski, Associate Superintendent for Academics and Accountability, Forsyth County Schools, Cumming, Georgia — Friday, November 04, 2011
Common Core State Standards are anything but common. Never in our nation’s history have we had a set of common learning expectations for English Language Arts/Literacy and Mathematics—K-12 articulated standards that have now been adopted by 47 states. These standards represent a readiness for college and careers that we must ensure all students graduating from our high schools attain to be successful. This is powerful and has the potential to move public education off the dime and student learning to new heights. The promise of Common Core will be realized only if … Read More »
LMS: The Delivery Platform for Digital Education<br><i> What Is It and How Many Are There?</i>
Eliot Levinson, CEO, BLEgroup; Debbie Karcher, CIO Miami–Dade Public Schools; Gordon Knopp, CIO, Cheyenne (WY) Public Schools — Friday, October 07, 2011
LMSs, learning management systems, are the platforms that deliver digital content, which makes them a very critical app in the transformation from print to digital delivery. Still in their early stages, they offer the potential for individualized learning plans and customized instruction for all students based on need, learning style, and ability. The biggest problem with LMS is that the term means different things to different people. As the market matured, LMS technology changed and new functions were added, but the term remained the same. “LMS” is now used to describe a very broad range of functionality. Read More »
Mobile Devices: The New Education Backpack
Rob Dickson, CIO, Andover Kansas, Eliot Levinson, CEO, BLEgroup — Friday, September 02, 2011
Is this the 80s all over again? Are mobile devices a silver bullet that will fail to support education results, or are they the platform for a disruptive breakthrough in education improvement? The use of mobile devices is changing so rapidly that it is hard for education decision makers to know what to purchase or for publishers to know what to produce. In this blog posting, we provide a perspective for decision makers in schools, technology, and publishing on the current state of devices and what they can expect in the coming year. Read More »
Happy New Year!
Jana Frieler, Principal on Special Assignment, Cherry Creek (CO) School District, and President, NASSP Board of Directors — Friday, August 05, 2011
Happy New Year! No, you have not lost track of time. New Year’s Day is still celebrated on January 1—unless you work in education. Then the “New Year” begins in August with most students returning in August or September. Students come to school with renewed energy and a determination to make this year be their best year, and educators return fresh from training, vacations, and planning in order to make this year their best year as well. Just like during New Year’s celebrations, educators make New Year’s Resolutions, things that will determine their focus for the year to come. As our “New Year” kicks off, and we in education hope to make this our best year ever, here is a list of New Year’s Resolutions for the 2011-2012 school year. Read More »
Tech Ideal vs. the Real Classroom
Frank Catalano, Principal, Intrinsic Strategy — Friday, July 08, 2011
We’ve all seen wish lists of what teachers want in digital resources and technology. We’ve all read the increasingly voluminous studies of what educators, in aggregate, have in their classrooms, schools, and districts. But what, though, are they actually doing? Read More »
Ed Tech Trends 2011
Eliot Levinson, CEO of the BLEgroup — Friday, June 10, 2011
This blog article, reprinted from the BLEgroup’s internal web community, describes the trends that were seen in the group’s panels at the Texas Computer Education Association (TCEA) Annual Convention and Exposition, which was held in Austin, Texas last February. Read on for some interesting insights on emerging trends and products that embody these trends from the perspective of practicing ed tech professionals. Read More »
Lest We Forget the Littlest Learners…
Barbara A. Chester, Principal, David Douglas School District , Portland, Oregon, and President, National Association of Elementary School Principals (NAESP) Board of Directors — Friday, May 13, 2011
The age of accountability is in full bloom, and the success or failure of K-12 public schools everywhere is often established by a single assessment score or graduation rate. Educators are continually working to seek ways to support both the professional development of teachers as well as the implementation of strategies to support student learners. Meanwhile, the era of slashing budgets is an ongoing story across the country. The reality of growing deficits, larger classrooms, and limited resources—all with unchanging expectations—wreaks havoc in many schools and districts. Read More »
What Should the Education Industry Advise Regarding the Re-authorization of ESEA, Title I? <br>One Research Finding That Can Make a Difference
Jeanne Hayes, Co-Author, Project RED and President, The Hayes Connection, Inc. — Friday, March 18, 2011
On March 2, 2011, Arne Duncan joined a group of moderate Democratic Senators at Walker Jones Education Campus in Washington, D.C., to tour the K-8 school and call for education reform through the re-authorization of ESEA, Title I. One of the visitors, Senator Michael Bennet (D. Colorado), former Superintendent of Schools in Denver, Colorado, said, “We know the results of doing nothing, and they are catastrophic. The time for bold action is now.” Read More »
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