When schools try to innovate, they often take a traditional top-down approach: devise a strategy, roll it out to teachers and support a high-fidelity implementation. The end result is often one that lacks teacher support or genuine enthusiasm — initiatives putter along and change is sporadic or modest.In education and beyond, innovation is usually the result of iteration rather than central planning. In schools that succeed in implementing real instructional improvements, teachers figure out how to improve teaching and learning by journeying through multiple passes of a cycle of experiment, reflection and adjustment.
Number one on their list is, what I feel, an important and overlooked aspect of education. Research and development is all too often replaced with, “the research says we should be doing this, so let’s implement this across the building or district, without doing any R&D”.
She’d laid out the assignment clearly, but student after student was calling her over for help. They were all getting the same error message: The program couldn’t find their files. Garland thought it would be an easy fix. She asked each student where they’d saved their project. Could they be on the desktop? Perhaps in…
The mainstreaming of the popular roleplaying game Dungeons & Dragons has significantly changed how people address and understand the game. It’s become a spectator sport and a way for some gamers to earn their living. D&D gameplay and its symbolism have become a significant plot point in geek-oriented TV shows like Stranger Things and The Big Bang Theory. It’s the subject of copious scientific…
“Sharenting” – where parents share personal information about their children on social media – is the “weakest link” in risking online fraud and identity theft, warns Barclays. The bank says parents are compromising their children’s future financial security with so much online sharing. Source: ‘Sharenting’ puts young at risk of online fraud – BBC News…
Four years ago, Chris Nagele did what many other technology executives have done before — he moved his team into an open concept office. His staff had been exclusively working from home, but he wanted everyone to be together, to bond and collaborate more easily. It quickly became clear, though, that Nagele had made a…
Today, the company is giving parents better insight into what their kids are doing on their tablets with the free Parent Dashboard. The dashboard lives at parents.amazon.com and can be accessed from any web browser. Source: Amazon is launching a new dashboard that lets you monitor the content your kid consumes – The Verge Amazon…
With new mobile apps and technology tools popping up constantly, schools have a variety of options when it comes to picking something that might work in a class. But, is there an easy way to make sure the tool will be good for students? Last year, the Department of Education’s Office of Educational Technology requested…