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Concerns in Education

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Teaching Innovation Is About More Than iPads in the Classroom. Innovation is the currency of progress. In our world of seismic changes, innovation has become a holy grail that promises to shepherd us through these uncertain and challenging times. And there isn’t a more visible symbol of innovation than the iPad. It’s captured the hearts and minds of disparate subcultures and organizations. In education it’s been widely hailed as a revolutionary device, promising to transform education as we know it. Unfortunately, it’s not as simple as bulk purchasing iPads and deploying them into the wilds of education. Innovation can’t be installed. It’s not ‘just add water’ The profusion of digital technology at work, home and everywhere in between is evident to even the most causal observer.

In light of this dynamic, two critical questions need to be asked and provisionally answered when integrating technology into education. Adapting Teaching To Technology This isn’t to say that teachers are becoming obsolete. Does our current system support innovation? Related. Does Our Current Education System Support Innovation? Flickr:Flickingerbrad By Aran Levasseur Innovation is the currency of progress. In our world of seismic changes, innovation has become a holy grail that promises to shepherd us through these uncertain and challenging times. And there isn’t a more visible symbol of innovation than the iPad. It’s captured the hearts and minds of disparate subcultures and organizations. In education it’s been widely hailed as a revolutionary device, promising to transform education as we know it.

The profusion of digital technology at work, home and everywhere in between is evident to even the most causal observer. We can’t just buy iPads (or any device), add water, and hope that strategy will usher schools to the leading edge of 21st century education. In light of this dynamic, two critical questions need to be asked and provisionally answered when integrating technology into education. Adapting Teaching To Technology This isn’t to say that teachers are becoming obsolete. Innovation from the Margins. Adaptive Learning: Why Your Kids Will Be Smarter Than You. "Education is a big problem," says Knewton CEO Jose Ferreira. He's spent his whole life in the education space, starting at Kaplan in 1991. He tried to bring adaptive learning to Kaplan in 1993, but it was hard to do so in a brick-and-mortar situation, an environment in which few people even had computers. Ferreira was ahead of his time, and once technology caught up, he founded the adaptive learning platform Knewton in 2008.

Education might not be the sexiest of industries, but it's a $7 trillion global industry that's ripe for innovation. To date, Knewton has received $54 million in funding to build its Adaptive Learning Platform that helps you learn better by responding to what you do and don't know, personalizing the content that's served to you based on data collected about your learning habits. Knewton has had students in 190 countries, and this fall over 600,000 students will use the platform.

You founded Knewton in 2008 — how did it come about? What is the end goal for Knewton? How To Focus In The Age of Distraction. 10 Ways To Become A Better Online Learner 7.77K Views 0 Likes There are some quick and easy ways to become a better online learner. Whether you're taking a class or just researching, here are the DOs and DON'Ts. Sam Chaltain: Should States Be Sued for Providing Low-Quality Schools? How's this for a summer blockbuster -- the American Civil Liberties Union is suing the state of Michigan for violating the "right to learn" of its children, a right guaranteed under an obscure state law.

And yet although this case is the first of its kind, we've been having this debate for a loooong time now. For years, Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr. has tried -- and failed -- to introduce language for a new amendment to the U.S. Constitution "regarding the right of all citizens of the United States to a public education of equal high quality. " Then there's the United Nations' Convention on the Rights of the Child, a 1989 gathering that resulted in the first legally binding international treaty and establishment of universally recognized norms and standards for the protection and promotion of children's rights. By any account it was an overwhelming success; all but three member nations signed on. The three holdouts? Somalia. And then there's the U.S. We could start with these seven steps:

Finland Rethinks Factory-Style School Buildings. What's the Matter With MOOCs? - Innovations. One of the most interesting and maddening issues to emerge from the debacle at the University of Virginia over the past month has been the obsession that people far removed from the actual work of teaching college and university students have for MOOCs. MOOCs is the acronym we use to describe “Massive Open Online Courses,” such as those offered with great fanfare by Stanford University, MIT, Harvard, and others.

We saw this obsession expressed in the e-mails that UVa Rector Helen Dragas exchanged with the recently resigned Vice Rector, Mark Kington. The e-mails were released after the UVa student newspaper, The Cavalier Daily, issued a Freedom of Information request for them. It seems that both Kington and Dragas saw these recent moves by America’s elite private universities as something of a missed opportunity for UVa. President Teresa Sullivan’s scholarly, intelligent response to their interest in MOOCs failed to satisfy these two board members. Let me pause to say that I enjoy MOOCs.

My thoughts on the MOOCs article. Filling the Skills Gap.