With the Common Core’s emphasis on data-driven instruction there is a misguided focus on using technology to deliver content and collect data rather than cultivate learning and stimulate cognitive development.Using education technology isn’t so much about students mastering a device or procedure so much as it is about mastering themselves first.
I’ve seen assessment tools used by teachers in the belief that the tools are an instructional tool. Just because you can get pretty graphs out of a piece of software does not mean it can be used as an instructional replacement. Assessment tools have taken over a lot of edtech, because they are easy to use to generate pretty graphs under the guise that student use of the tool is teaching students. This couldn’t be further from the truth.
Internet Travels Of bits and bytes is my weekly round up of interesting links and ideas I discovered on the internet. It is published on Mondays for the previous week With it being summer and me not wanting to get burned out, for June and July the Of Bits and Bytes newsletter will be links…
In learning, there may be no greater tool for students than hands-on experience. Consider a classroom of first-graders who were lead in an endeavor to raise trout eggs while understanding environmental impacts. Or a high-school biology teacher who had her students create a project on any system in the human body, with results that included everything…
In a 21st-century teaching world that is in a constant state of change, we find ourselves as educators trying to find value in everything we do. Maximizing curriculum integration is key in an environment with a packed curriculum and limited time for teachers to extend their learning.An area that deserves particular attention is the Arts,…
Another former Facebook executive has spoken out about the harm the social network is doing to civil society around the world. Chamath Palihapitiya, who joined Facebook in 2007 and became its vice president for user growth, said he feels “tremendous guilt” about the company he helped make. “I think we have created tools that are…
It sounds like a paradox. How can you teach computer programming without a screen? Computer programming is a term synonymous with coding, after all. Text, letters, syntax, arranged in meaningful sequences that give machines instructions. We code with our keyboards and we see code on our screens. But there is a clear distinction between coding…
