EdNET Insight - From the Editor

The Games Have It

Friday, May 17, 2013

Last week, the U.S. Department of Education announced the winners of this year's Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) contract awards. ED's SBIR awards program is run by the Institute of Education Sciences (IES), providing up to $1.05 million to entrepreneurial small businesses for the R&D of commercially viable education technology products. This year more than half of the awards - 12 in all - went to games and game-related projects. According to the IES website, this year's game winners display several common elements:

Most include an adaptive component that auto-adjusts the game difficulty to the competency level of the player.
Most include rewards and competition to drive game play.
Several use story-based narratives to engage students.
Most include a teaching component that supports the implementation of the game as a supplement to or replacement for standard instructional practice.
Several include teacher dashboards, where formative assessment results are provided to the teacher in real-time to inform them of player status for further instruction and remediation.

Mobile Device Research

Friday, May 10, 2013

In case you had any doubts, mobility is a hot topic in the K-12 Market. Three major surveys have been released recently that look at various aspects around the use of mobile devices in education. One focuses on parents' expectations around mobile device use, another on student device ownership and use and the third on classroom use of tablets.

Grunwald Associates and the Learning First Alliance, with underwriting from AT&T, released The Living and Learning with Mobile Devices Study.
The Pearson Student Mobile Device Survey was conducted online reaching a national sample of K-12 and college students.
Project Tomorrow has begun releasing data from the 2012 Speak Up! survey, starting with From Chalkboards to Tablets: The Digital Conversion of the K-12 Classroom.

Nation at Risk Anniversary, Common Core Under Attack

Friday, May 03, 2013

Last week marked the 30th anniversary of the release of A Nation at Risk. The report was issued by the National Commission on Excellence in Education, formed by U.S. Secretary of Education Terrel H. Bell. The report was controversial then and something of a surprise, the report pointed to flagging test scores and a weakened curriculum and questioned the ability of American schools to deliver a world class education. A nation at Risk initiated the ongoing national dialog about American education. It laid the foundation for the standards and accountability movements. It's possible to argue that we've never answered the serious questions the report raised. Certainly American education has changed a lot since 1983, but we continue to struggle with persistent achievement gaps and questions about the rigor of the curriculum and the preparedness of our teachers. Education Week published a series of articles on A Nation at Risk, including commentaries from five education thought leaders on what kind of progress we have made as a nation, and where work still needs to be done. And the Thomas B. Fordham Institute and the American Enterprise Institute created a video retrospective that features both people directly involved in the includes commentary from features includes comments from Lamar Alexander, Bill Bennett, Milton Goldberg, Margaret Spellings, Michelle Rhee, Diane Ravitch and Arne Duncan among others.

STEM, States and Assessments, Start Ups

Friday, April 26, 2013

The White House Science Fair was held this week. Here are some fun videos. The President also used the occasion to announce some expansions and new efforts under his Educate to Innovate Campaign. A new STEM AmeriCorps effort will place national service members in nonprofits that mobilize STEM professionals to inspire young people to excel in STEM education. This summer the Maker Education Initiative will launch the first-ever MakerCorps. These volunteers will give more young people the opportunity to design and build something that is personally meaningfully to them. As part of its $100 million commitment to the Educate to Innovate initiative, Time Warner Cable will launch a new effort in May 2013 to get kids and parents excited about STEM by highlighting the role these subjects play in sports. Discovery Communications is launching a new science-focused series to inspire the next generation of students, "The Big Brain Theory: Pure Genius." More than 150 organizations have now come together in a coalition called 100Kin10. These organizations have made over 150 measurable commitments to increasing the supply of excellent STEM teachers; hiring, developing, and retaining excellent STEM teachers; and building the 100Kin10 movement. A new multi-year STEM mentoring campaign - US2020 - is being launched to get many more private companies to commit their science and technology workforce to STEM volunteering. You'll note that much of this STEM effort relies on the efforts of the private sector, with the President using the bully pulpit of the White House to focus attention and drum up interest.

Broadband Petition, E-Rate, Digital Promise

Friday, April 19, 2013

The International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) is asking for support for its White House petition to invest in classroom broadband connectivity to ensure that all students are ready for college and 21st century careers. The We the People platform at WhiteHouse.gov allows groups to post petitions seeking public support. If a petition garners 100,000 signatures within a 30 day window, it is guaranteed review by the White House. ISTE's petition argues that investment in K-12 school broadband infrastructure has lagged; even the successful E-Rate program cannot meet rapidly escalating school needs for increased bandwidth. ISTE asks for a national investment in school broadband connectivity to ensure that American students graduate equipped for success. This petition will expire on May 1 and there are a lot of signatures still to be gathered. If you agree with ISTE, go to the White House site (https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/invest-classroom-broadband-connectivity-ensure-all-students-are-ready-college-and-21st-century/KFD2gCRj) and sign on.

FY 2014 Budget Request

Friday, April 12, 2013

If you sell digital resources to the education market, the Software and Information Industry Association (SIIA) is looking for you. SIIA is in the final phase of data collection for its 2012 US Educational Technology Industry Market reports. SIIA fields two surveys, one for PreK-12 and the other Higher Education. Based on responses to those two surveys, SIIA aggregates numbers to project the relative size of each market segment. Submitted information is held in strict confidence and no company-specific data is published. The survey is open to SIIA members and non-member alike and is designed to be as comprehensive as possible. The real prize is that participating companies will receive a report free of charge! Simply spend 10 minutes filling out the survey and SIIA will send you a FREE copy of the $1500 report when it is published. If the requests I get for market size information are any measure, there is a real thirst for this kind of information. We all benefit when we are able to look at our own results and compare them to timely, reliable data on the size and direction of the US educational technology software market, to say nothing about the value of being able to document the growing importance of ed tech among American schools. Find more information and a link to both the K-12 and higher ed survey at http://www.siia.net/education/marketsurvey/ To preview and purchase the last report visit: http://www.siia.net/estore/10Expand.asp?ProductCode=EMRK-11

SBAC Pilot Test

Friday, April 05, 2013

Last week Chicago-based Urban Prep Academies, which operate three all-boy charter high schools, held an assembly to honor its senior class, 100% of whom had been accepted at four-year colleges all across the country. Mayor Rahm Emanuel attended the celebration and was visibly moved (which is unusual for our ultra-self-possessed mayor) as he delivered a short address praising the group's accomplishment. I tend to be skeptical about our nation's generally silver-bullet approach to charters, but this is an example of a charter that is accomplishing its mission. (And I am aware of the advantage that charters have in terms of admission and discipline policies.)

FY13 Budget Settled, FY14 Looms

Friday, March 29, 2013

Well, some progress is being made. This week Congress passed and the President signed a long-term continuing resolution that will fund the operations of the Federal government - at levels equal to FY2012 - through the remainder of FY 2013. Though many people hoped otherwise, for the most part Congress let the sequester stand, though it did provide some flexibility for selected programs. That means that all Federally appropriated programs, including most education programs, will see a 5.1% reduction in their FY2013 budgets. Not great, but not as bad as it might have been. Now it's on to FY 2014. I'll expand a bit more on that in a minute, but in the end, unless the economy suddenly goes into overdrive or we see fairly substantial tax increases, the federal budget is a zero sum game. I advise focusing your attention and energy at the state level. Though state economies are recovering slowly and unevenly, education remains a state priority; in FY 2013, 36 states enacted general fund spending increases for K-12 education totaling $4.9 billion. In states where your company does a significant amount of business it may be worth lobbying a bit in support of increased education funding.

ASCD, Digital Learning Report Card

Friday, March 22, 2013

I spent some time this weekend at the ASCD Conference which was here in Chicago. It wasn't one of the city's prettier weekends, cold and blustery, but that didn't dampen the enthusiasm of the nearly 11,000 educators in attendance. This is a very well-run meeting, with more than 40 concurrent sessions running in every time slot not dedicated to a keynote or Exhibit Hall time. Featured speakers included Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, Charlotte Danielson, Michael Fullan, Andy Hargreaves and Maya Angelou. There were the expected sessions on the Common Core Standards and assessment, but the ASCD crowd is as interested in social-emotional learning, civic education, multiple intelligences and project-based learning. ASCD promotes a whole child approach to education, an effort to change the conversation about education from a focus on narrowly defined academic achievement to one that promotes the long term development and success of children.

Deferred Maintenance Bill, Charter Studies

Friday, March 15, 2013

This week the Center for Green Schools released its first "State of our Schools" report focused on the need to modernize school facilities to meet current health, safety and educational standards. The report states that schools are currently facing a $271 billion deferred maintenance bill just to bring the buildings up to working order - approximately $5,450 per student. It would take another $542 billion to modernize schools to be sure that they meet current education, safety and health standards. The numbers were arrived at by extrapolating from a number of secondary sources. The last comprehensive report on American school facilities was conducted by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) in 1995. The Center calls on the GAO to conduct an updated survey on the condition of America's schools in order to paint a more complete picture of the scale and scope of today's needs.

Amplify Tablet, inBloom Gets Real

Friday, March 08, 2013

It's been a busy week. Amplify Learning took the stage at SXSWedu to introduce its new tablet, claiming it to be the first of its kind, the only tablet designed for K-12 education. There are a few people that might dispute that claim, including Jeff Cameron at Brainchild and the people behind the ER LearnPad. Amplify describes the tablet as "similar to ASUS Transformer Pad TF300TL." It features a 10-inch display, an NVIDA Tegra 3 quad-core CPU, a 5MP auto-focus camera with back-illuminated CMOS sensor, a lithium-polymer battery providing up to 8.5 hours of battery life on a single charge and runs on the latest version of the Android Jelly Bean OS.

The SAT and College- and Career-Ready Issues

Friday, March 01, 2013

Well, at least one shoe appears to have dropped as the sequester goes into effect today. Clearly, if allowed to stand unmitigated for any length of time, people and programs will be deeply affected, though the political posturing on both sides this last week makes it hard to judge how quickly cuts will be implemented and how much intra-departmental discretion there might be. The numbers being thrown around about potential teacher layoffs are highly suspect. Since many Federal education programs are forward funded, schools will not face major cuts until next school year. And we're not through. The opportunities for continued fiscal wrangling abound. Congress still has to authorize an increase in the debt ceiling just to keep the government operating and the Continuing Resolution that has been substituted for a real FY 2013 budget through the first half of the year expires at the end of March. The President's FY 2014 budget request, which was due on February 4, has been delayed. It's hard to develop a budget when you don't have a baseline or much real hope of raising additional revenue.

Value in Higher Ed; Met Life Teacher Survey

Friday, February 22, 2013

A reader pointed out that in focusing on early childhood education last week I had covered only part of what the president had to say about education in his State of the Union Address. The President also talked about the other end of the spectrum - higher education. For the second State of the Union in a row, the President told institutions of higher education that they had to hold down tuition or suffer the consequences. Details were sparse, even in the follow-up fact sheet released after the speech. Noting that the federal government provides more than $150 billion each year in direct loan and grant aid for America's students, the President argued for better allocating the federal investment in student aid to promote opportunity in higher education and ensure the best return on investment.

Preschool for All

Friday, February 15, 2013

President Obama called for universal preschool during his State of the Union address, calling on Congress to help expand access to high quality preschool for all American children. And he has since taken his show on the road to begin to drum up support, spending part of Thursday visiting a preschool program in suburban Atlanta. Using a cost sharing model with the states, the President wants to guarantee preschool for all four-year olds from low- or moderate-income families, while also expanding these programs to reach additional children from middle class families and incentivizing full-day kindergarten policies. The President's plan also calls for a significant investment in a new Early Head Start-Child Care partnership. Competitive grants will support communities that expand the availability of Early Head Start and child care providers that can meet the highest standards of quality for infants and toddlers, serving children from birth through age 3. A final component of the plan calls for expanding home visiting programs, allowing nurses, social workers, and other professionals to work directly with families, connecting them to additional services and educational support that will improve a child's health, development, and ability to learn.

TCEA Wrap

Friday, February 08, 2013

Finishing up a long day at TCEA, so this will be a brief note. All I have at this point is first impressions. The Texas educators who attend TCEA are technology enthusiasts and advocates and typically pretty savvy about technology. The Exhibit Hall was often quite busy, though there were slow times as teachers attended the myriad workshops and sessions for their own professional learning and with the mission of bringing what they learned back to their colleagues at schools across the state. Lots of exhibits with tablets in prominent positions, lots of tablet and IPad-specific sessions featured in the conference program. The exhibit floor itself had every flavor of tablet imaginable present, including ER's LearnPad, which they describe as purpose-built for education.

Graduation Rates

Friday, February 01, 2013

There appears to be some good news on the graduation/dropout front, though beyond the headline number, the good news is nuanced. The National Center for Education Statistics released a First Look (http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2013/2013309.pdf) report on graduates and drop outs for the 2009-10 school year. The good news number is a calculated Averaged Freshman Graduation Rate (AFGR) of 78.2%, the highest rate since 1974. Even better, high school graduation rates are up for all ethnic groups in 2010 -- especially for Hispanics, whose graduation rate has jumped almost 10 points since 2006. The more nuanced news is that there are still significant differences in terms of graduation rate among ethnic groups and significant variance from state to state.

Implementation and Teacher Evaluation

Friday, January 25, 2013

The week began with a glorious celebration of America. No matter where you fall on the political spectrum, you had to watch with pride as the Inauguration unfolded - orderly, stately, looking both backwards to honor cherished traditions and forward to the future that is in our power to build. There's been a ton of speculation on what the President intends to do during his second term. On the education front, the Administration is rumored to be contemplating a push in early childhood education. But no one is talking, so I guess we'll have to wait and see what the President has to say in his State of the Union address. Improving access to and the quality of early education programs could have a big payoff down the road. For the rest, I think much of The Department of Education's energy will be focused on implementation and monitoring. The administration used programs like Race to the Top and the ESEA Waivers and to some extent School Improvement Grants to push its reform and innovation agenda. There is now an extraordinarily complex and interlaced set of priorities, implementation plans and evaluation requirements impacting instruction, assessment, teacher evaluation, data reporting and analysis that it's hard to see how the Department will help states address compliance issues much less asses each program's overall performance.

Industry News

Friday, January 18, 2013

I just want to call your attention to a few things that crossed my desk this week. The deadline for submitting nominations for the AEP Talent Development Award is Jan 31. The Talent Development Award recognizes individuals and companies in the learning resource industry that strive to create the next generation of successful leaders through their outstanding and innovative hiring, professional development, and career advancement programs. This award was created by AEP in 2009 with the support of our own Nelson Heller to shine a light on the most exemplary recruitment, training, mentoring, and executive search practices among companies in our industry. Special focus is placed on programs that promote staff diversity and that secure the new competencies required for future success. Find more information and a link to the nomination form at http://www.aepweb.org/talent-development-innovator-award/about.html. Nurturing new talent, defining new skills, welcoming diverse points of view keeps makes us all stronger.

Quality Counts 2013, NGSS Draft

Friday, January 11, 2013

Education Week released "Code of Conduct-Safety, Discipline, and School Climate" on Thursday, the 17th annual edition of its Quality Counts report series. This year's report takes an in-depth look at the impact of a school's social and disciplinary environment on students' ability to learn and on the teachers and administrators working in the schools. The report was informed by findings from a survey of more than 1,300 school-level administrators and educators who shared their views on a range of issues related to school climate and discipline in their schools. The report also includes the annual update of the State of the States Report Card which grades each state on key areas of performance and policy. For the fifth year in a row, Maryland was honored as the top-ranked state, posting the nation's highest overall grade, the only B-plus awarded. The nation as a whole received a C-plus when graded across the six distinct areas of policy and performance tracked by the report, marking a slight improvement since last year.

Looming Fiscal Cliffs

Friday, January 04, 2013

Happy New Year everyone! I must admit I'm having a bit of a problem, settling in after a really nice break over the Holidays. I'm sure I'm not the only one having reentry problems, but the year won't wait. As we embark on 2013, we want to make sure the EdNET News Alert is meeting your needs and giving you the kinds of information you want to help your business prosper. We created a short survey to gather your feedback and would really appreciate your input. Click here (http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/ZWGMDV3) to share your ideas in a short, five-question survey. While it is a new year, for the schools it's just the midway point in what is proving to be quite an unsettled market. While schools try to stay focused on the needs of their students, policy decisions (or the lack thereof) contribute to their general sense of unease and no one feels good about the budget implications.