Vander Ark on Innovation
This blog was written by Tom Vander Ark (@tvanderark), an education advocate, adviser, and author of Getting Smart: How Personal Digital Learning is Changing the World. Tom is Founder and Executive Editor of Getting Smart and a partner in Learn Capital. This blog is no longer being updated.
Education
Opinion
#YearInReview: The Best of 2015, 10 Predictions for 2016
With EdTech investment in the United States and abroad reaching record levels in 2015, we look to the new year with 10 predictions that will have BIG implications for learners. This includes better formative assessments, the dominance of Chromebooks and the adoption of micro-credentials.
Education
Opinion
10 Tips for Developing Student Agency
Student agency may be as important an outcome of schooling as basic skills according to a new Harvard study. "The Influence of Teaching Beyond Standardized Test Scores: Engagement, Mindsets, and Agency" makes 10 suggestions for teaching.
Personalized Learning
Opinion
Bay Blends Advance Personalized Learning
After visiting seven Bay Area schools from our elementary and secondary schools worth visiting lists we believe that when it comes to innovation, the Bay Area is a great place to see a wide range of schools doing great things. We were inspired to see options like design thinking models that challenge traditional school and innovative project-based learning strategies.
Classroom Technology
Opinion
Education for Change: Turning Around Oakland
Using points, badges and levels to track progress, students at Epic in Oakland embark on their own "Hero's Journey" in an innovative blended middle school with a game-base UI. Epic's curriculum features design thinking workshops, while there is a makerspace provided for students to build.
School & District Management
Opinion
From "Shock and Awe" to Systemic Enabling: All Eyes on New Hampshire
Instead of creating change through compliance and extrinsic motivators, the new era of education and education policy will require ecosystems of policy, regulation, investment, and operating structure that enable, rather than dictate. Under New Hampshire's PACE accountability system districts and schools are now opting into using next-gen performance-based assessments, staked to much richer definitions of student success, on the basis of their readiness to do so.
Teaching
Opinion
School Hacks as Professional Learning: Transforming Schools, One Leader at a Time
School Retool is a professional development fellowship that helps school leaders redesign their school culture utilizing small experiments called "hacks." The Raikes Foundation, based in the Seattle area, is bringing School Retool to the Puget Sound in early 2016. Learn more about the opportunity and how to apply.
School & District Management
Opinion
School Networks Scale Innovation
By matching design, technology, professional learning, networks can provide a short cut to coherence and performance. Networks providing relevant services at a competitive price continue to grow in size and impact. Networks like New Tech Network are growing by using a combination of three strategies.
Education
Opinion
Scaling Up: Give Money and Advice this #GivingTuesday
Ten tips for expanding the impact of a nonprofit organization and three basic scaling strategies: expand services, expand locations, or advocate for your solution. Despite inherent disadvantages of the nonprofit structure, there are big problems to solve and solutions that should be brought to scale.
School & District Management
Opinion
8 Ways Machine Learning Will Improve Education
Machine learning, an effort to program computers to identify patterns in data to inform algorithms that can make data-driven predictions or decisions is changing how we learn. Students, parents and advisors will make more decisions about learning pathways but those decisions will be nudged and guided by informed recommendations. In the coming year, every faculty should discuss the coming impact of big data--and ask students to do the same.
School & District Management
Opinion
Exponential Technology: Everything is Closer Than it Appears
Exponential technologies have created eight opportunities for operators, Edupreneurs, and investors. Taking full advantage of these eight opportunities requires an improved learning infrastructure, a combination of industry standards, new state policies, and a few new tools.
Education
Opinion
Smart Cities Need Great Schools, The Best Antidote to Poverty
Healthy learning ecosystems are critical for equity and opportunity. In a meeting with Missouri charter school leaders we discussed critical elements of learning ecosystems. Here are seven standout elements for creating environments, that are important when creating great schools, the best long term antidote to the cycle of poverty.
Personalized Learning
Opinion
The Perks of Personalized Pathways and Playlists
The most exciting aspect of personalized learning playlists is how easy it is to share or build them with colleagues anywhere in the world. Teachers gain opportunities to learn new approaches from others and be more productive by spending less time building and more time adapting and implementing. By giving students relevant learning activities and letting them choose which works best for them based on preference, learning style, and individual goals, students are motivated to take control of their own learning.
Classroom Technology
Opinion
The Shift to Digital Learning: 10 Benefits
Digital learning is changing the world. It is connecting billions of young people to the idea economy. It is improving working conditions and career opportunities for educators. There are seven benefits of digital learning that are changing the opportunity set for teachers and three additional benefits that are proving to be game changers for educators.
Education
Opinion
Next Generation K-12: 10 Implications for HigherEd
HigherEd institutions will need to enable a bundled multi-provider experience (or risk becoming part-time providers), focus on employability skills and experiences, and take learner experience much more seriously. Here are 10 implications for HigherEd; some directly as a result of next-gen models, some resulting from next-gen policies, some from EdTech and consumer variables impacting both K-12 and HigherEd.