Voice from the Field RSS Feed
Solving the “Big Hairy” Technology Problems in K-12
Keith Krueger, CEO, Consortium for School Networking (CoSN) — Friday, July 13, 2012
As a corporate leader, you have probably taken part in some strategic planning process where you have been asked to identify the “big hairy problem” that impedes achieving your goal. What would that mean if we tried to define the big problems around technology in K-12? From my perspective, I believe we need to rethink the “big hairy” problems of technology in K-12 education. I lump the problems into three big hairy buckets: Ubiquity, Access, and Human Capacity. Read More »
A Sobering Look at the Economic Recession and Its Impact on Our Nation’s Schools
Daniel A. Domenech, Ph.D., AASA Executive Director — Friday, June 08, 2012
During my 27-year tenure as a superintendent of schools, I always complained about insufficient funds to provide for the needs of our students, but I never had a year where my school budget was actually less than the previous year. That situation has changed dramatically in the past four years. At a recent meeting with school superintendents from around the country, I asked for a showing of hands for districts operating with budgets below 2008 levels. Half the hands in the room went up. Read More »
Common Core Assessment: An Exciting Opportunity—and a Looming Challenge
A BLEgroup Blog — Friday, May 11, 2012
Race to the Top has funded two consortia—PARCC (Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers) and SBAC (SMARTER Balanced Assessment Consortium)—to develop “next-generation” K–12 Common Core assessment systems to replace the individual state standards and assessments that currently exist. What do educators think about Common Core assessments and the impact they’ll have on schools and districts? The reactions are mixed and complicated. They are both positive and wary, but they suggest a major upheaval in the near future that too many school systems are unprepared to deal with. First, the good news. Assessment will be narrower but deeper. The emphasis is not on student recall of information; rather students must interpret and apply knowledge and skills to new settings and situations. It’s about transfer, rather than simple acquisition of knowledge and skills. Read More »
We Can’t Wait Another Year for a New ESEA
Mary Broderick, 2011-2012 President, National School Boards Association (NSBA), and the former chair of Connecticut’s East Lyme Board of Education — Friday, April 13, 2012
For nearly five years, school leaders around the country have urged Congress to make dramatic changes to the No Child Left Behind law. We’re now reaching a critical point where too many schools are being unfairly penalized, community support is undermined, and we’re forced to sacrifice vital subjects that engage students to focus on state tests. Read More »
The Transition to Digital Content and Textbooks
Karen Cator, Director, Office of Educational Technology, U.S. Department of Education — Friday, March 16, 2012
As you no doubt know, we have been working over the past three years to create a space for education technology that is both integrated and expanded. One key to our success is for all of us to share in the articulation of the potential and the challenges of the transition to digital. Embedded in this article are some key messages that we can continue to fine-tune in order to increase understanding and inspire action. Read More »
The Gateway to 21st Century Skills
Joann Wasik and Peggy James — Friday, February 17, 2012
About The Gateway to 21st Century Skills - The JES & Co. team has launched a revamped Gateway to 21st Century Skills (Gateway), one of the oldest digital libraries containing thousands of educational resources ranging from activities to online projects. Improvements to the Gateway include Facebook integration, rating and commenting, and correlation to the Common Core State Standards. The Gateway’s resources have been contributed by 700 quality organizations and serve educators in 178 countries, and its use continues to be free of charge. Originally funded by the U.S. Department of Education, the Gateway is now sponsored by the National Education Association. Read More »
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 »
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
