Utah is working on free online textbooks This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2012, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted. Heavy textbooks weighing down teens' backpacks might soon become a thing of the past in Utah. The State Office of Education has announced that it will develop open textbooks in math, language arts and science — which will be available online, for free — for junior highs and high schools. Once the textbooks are available, schools and students will be encouraged to use them online for free or print them at a cost of about $5 a book or less for schools, said Sydnee Dickson, teaching and learning director at the state office. That's a big savings compared to a traditional high school science textbook, which can cost about $80 on average, according to the state office. "Rather than just reading a flat text, kids get to experience learning with multiple media in the book itself," Dickson said.
Can Khan Move the Bell Curve to the Right? It was goal-setting day in Rich Julian’s 5th-grade class at Covington Elementary School in Los Altos, California, when I visited last fall, and Julian was asking each of his 29 students to list three math goals for the week. To become proficient at dividing a one-place number into a three-place number, a girl with blue-painted fingernails wrote in her math journal. To become proficient in multiplying decimals, wrote a dark-haired boy. No two youngsters seemed to have quite the same math goals because, of course, no two youngsters are quite alike when it comes to learning. For the next 45 minutes, Julian met individually with his 5th graders to refine their goals. As youngsters completed one lesson, an online “knowledge map” helped them plot their next step: finish the module on adding decimals, for example, and the map suggests moving next to place values, or to rounding whole numbers, or to any of four other options. But just as powerful are the data kids have on themselves. Khan’s Rise
Why Digital Learning will Liberate Teachers I spend a lot of time writing about how digital learning can transform our education system into a student-centric one. In my last blog, I wrote about why parents—of all stripes—matter for digital learning and make it fundamentally different from past “reform” movements. Digital learning should similarly be a game changer for teachers. Teachers will be critical to our nation’s future in a world of digital learning. Of course, teachers’ jobs will also be quite different from the way they look today—and if we do this right, they should not just be different, but they should also be a whole lot better, as it liberates them in many exciting ways. Today, teachers spend a significant amount of time engaged in what we call “monolithic” activities—one-size-fits-all, standardized activities that are designed to reach the mythical middle of a class of students. In a world where digital learning becomes the platform for our education system, however, this whole notion should turn around.
Educational Technology Bill of Rights for Students The following are what I believe are the rights of all student to have with regards to using technology as an educational tool, written as a student to their teacher: 1) I have the right to use my own technology at school. I should not be forced to leave my new technology at home to use (in most cases) out-of-date school technology. If I can afford it, let me use it -- you don’t need to buy me one. If I cannot afford it, please help me get one -- I don’t mind working for it. 2) I have the right to access the school’s WiFi. 3) I have the right to submit digital artifacts that prove my understanding of a subject, regardless of whether or not my teacher knows what they are. 4) I have the right to cite Wikipedia as one of the sources that I use to research a subject. 5) I have the right to access social media at school. 6) I have the right to be taught by teachers who know how to manage the use technology in their classrooms. 8) I have the right to be accessed with technology. About Brad
Educational Technology Bill of Rights for Students Part II Wow! I must of hit a nerve with educators when I wrote my first draft of the Education Technology Bill of Rights for Students last month. I got a boat load of emails (about 90% positive and 10% negative), and based those emails I would like to add these to the original: 11) I have the right to use the cloud. 12) I have the right to use alternative forms of data entry. 13) I have the right to use apps that cost money. So here are another three, keep the ideas coming. - Brad Flickinger, Bethke Elementary School About Brad Brad Flickinger is a technology integration specialist who teaches technology at Bethke Elementary in Timnath, Colorado and is the founder of SchoolTechnology.org
How to Create Your Own Textbook — With or Without Apple By Dolores Gende Apple’s iBooks2 and authoring app has created big waves in education circles. But smart educators don’t necessarily need Apple’s slick devices and software to create their own books. How educators think of content curation in the classroom is enough to change their reliance on print textbooks. As the open education movement continues to grow and become an even more rich trove of resources, teachers can use the content to make their own interactive textbooks. Here’s how to create a digital textbook and strategies for involving the students in its development in three steps. 1. Teachers can work with colleagues within their subject area departments and beyond the walls of the classroom to aggregate resources through social bookmarking. Also try Paper.li or The Twitted Times, which will sift through your connections’ resources and organize them. 2. One of the most user-friendly tools to post resources for your course is LiveBinders. 3. Cybrary Man Educational Resources
The Poverty Myth Persists Every time I see a “poverty and education” story I think of the famous line from the New Testament in which Jesus says, “The poor you will always have with you, and you can help them any time you want.” So, with education. Want a convenient scapegoat for our problems? Poverty. I sat through an hour meeting of our small school district’s budget committee last week, most of it devoted to bemoaning our fate as a “poor district” (over 60 percent of our kids qualify for free and reduced-price lunch, the standard definition of “poor” for schools) in these recessionary times. Diane Ravitch has been hitting the poverty gong for some time, most recently in Cleveland, where, she says, “the level of urban decay is alarming.” Huh? I visited a couple of successful Cleveland public schools during my visit—successful in educating poor children—and while principals in each of those schools said they could use more money, neither said that money—or their students’ lack of it—was their major challenge.
Welcome to the Post Textbook World: Ten Elements A friend asked about Jay Mathew’s post on textbooks. I thought the rear view mirror critique of a process to pick better textbooks read more like a 1982, not a 2012 discussion – and certainly not the 2015 conversation we should be having. We’re heading for a post-textbook world (PTW), lots of school live there already. In the PTW, there is still value in organization, curation, and narration, but that will increasingly happen across digital object libraries, not texts. Textbooks continue to exist largely because school boards attempt to use their adoption to maintain (some illusion of) control over the enacted curriculum. Flat, sequential, one-dimensional content is giving way to adaptive content that precisely calibrate learning experiences. Free-leveled libraries can be found on PowerMyLearning.com as well as Gooru. Electronic texts are a transitory technology. The spine of learning environments is shifting from content to assessment.
We Live in a Mobile World - Room for Debate Let’s face it: For my children and for millions like them, life will be an open phone test. They are among the first generation who will carry access to the sum of human knowledge and literally billions of potential teachers in their pockets. They will use that access on a daily basis to connect, create and, most important, to learn in ways that most of us can scarcely imagine. The analog, 20th century curriculum that most classrooms deliver doesn’t fit well with the realities of the exploding mobile, digital world. Right now, schools are resistant, fearing the disruption that mobile access might cause and the dangers that might lurk online. There's no doubt that the current slate of mobile devices have their limitations. Access in our kids’ pockets will force us to rethink much of what we do in schools. Join Opinion on Facebook and follow updates on twitter.com/roomfordebate. Let’s face it: For my children and for millions like them, life will be an open phone test.
This Time Its Personal Personalized Learning | Feature This Time It's Personal Truly student-centered learning has a lot of support in high places in education, but it can’t happen without the right technology infrastructure to drive it. By Jennifer Demski01/04/12 Educators have known for some time now that a one-size-fits-all approach to learning does not lead to the level of student engagement and academic success that schools strive to achieve. But, for the most part, schools have incorporated these 21st century instructional techniques and tools as add-ons to the teacher-centric 19th century classroom structure, in which the majority of the curriculum is pulled from a textbook, and, despite best intentions, most students learn the same thing in the same way at the same time. But what exactly is personalized learning? In any personalized learning model, the student--not the teacher--is the central figure.
Five Tips for School Leaders Here are 5 simple things that school leaders can do to help teachers as they transition their classrooms to Web 2.0 learning. There is so much pressure on school leadership in this day and age. School budgets are growing tighter and tighter. There is pressure from state and federal mandates on testing. With all of these external pressures there is little time for school leadership to encourage teachers to take risks in their classroom and be creative in terms of technology. 1) Why do we even need to be having this conversation? 2) What do good school leaders do? Connected Principals (Classroom 2.0 Presentation) View more presentations from George Couros <insert video> 3) Become familiar with the NETS for Administrators- The National Education Technology Standards (NETS) for Administrators have been around since 2009. 4) Grow your PLN- Just like teachers, administrators and school leadership need a Professional Learning Network (PLN). I originally wrote this post back in 2009.