EdTech Researcher
Justin Reich is the executive director of the MIT Teaching Systems Lab, a fellow at Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society, and the co-founder of EdTechTeacher. Beth Holland is a doctoral candidate at Johns Hopkins University and an instructor at EdTechTeacher. Douglas Kiang has over 25 years of teaching experience at all grade levels and currently teaches computer science at Punahou School. This blog is no longer being updated, but you can continue to explore these issues on edweek.org by visiting our related topic pages: research.
Education
Opinion
Will Technology Lead to the Unbundling of Schools?
I want to pick up a topic I started last week: the visions that free marketeers have for technology and education (I got sidetracked by EdX, my reflections on EdX, and my students at MIT.) I was reminded to revisit the topic by Thomas Freidman's last op-ed in the New York Times, where he raises concerns about our transition from a market economy to a market society, where civic institutions are replaced by market institutions and everything is for sale and everything is provided by private institutions. The process that Freidman derides is enthusiastically recommended in the Fordham Institute's recent report: Education Reform in the Digital Era. The report proposes a radical realignment of school funding, education delivery, and the purpose of schooling in order to transform schools from civic institutions to market institutions.
Education
Opinion
MaKey MaKey Makes the World Your Computer Interface
If you would like to use a hand of bananas to play the piano, play Dance Dance Revolution by jumping in buckets of water, or control Super Mario Brothers with Playdoh, then you need visit the Kickstarter campaign for MaKey Makey The MIT Media Lab is a place where people rethink our relationship with technology by remaking our relationship with technology. They are philosophers with soldiering irons.Jay Silver and Eric Rosenbaum are two such philosopher/tinkerers getting their PhD at the Media Lab, and they are the designers of MaKey Makey.
Education
Opinion
The Next Generation of Teachers Infusing Technology
I'm teaching an Introduction to Education course at MIT this semester, as part of their small Teacher Education Program to prepare MIT students to serve as K-12 educators. For the last few weeks of class, the students in class are teaching lessons to one another.
Education
Opinion
Summarizing All MOOCs in One Slide: Market, Open and Dewey
Last week, I proposed a 2x2 framework summarizing the field of education technology, which asked two questions 1) Are you trying to make a billion dollars? And 2) Do you believe education can be delivered? From these two questions, we get three categories for all ed tech ventures: Market, Open, and Dewey.
Given all the hub-bub about Massive Open Online Courses last week, I thought I would take a moment to put the MOOCs into this Market/Open/Dewey framework.
School & District Management
Opinion
Universities Battle to Teach the Most Students, Learners Win
The announcement yesterday from Harvard and MIT to jointly form EdX provides rapid acceleration to the arms race among elite universities to build Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) to try to teach the world. (Or at least the Internet-accessible world interested in graduate courses in circuits.)
Education
Opinion
Hitching Free Market Ideology to Online Learning
Several weeks ago, Chris Lehmann tweeted from the Ed Innovation Summit in Scottsdale, Arizona, "Educators - if you don't see that there is a billion dollar industry wanting to take over schools using tech as the Trojan Horse, wake up." If I were to have one quibble with the metaphor, it would be this: the free marketeers are not hiding inside the horse, ready to jump out only after they are let in the gates of schools. They are riding right on top of the horse, shouting "Hey, this is a great horse! Let me tell you how we plan to use this horse to advance our free-market ideology in the education sector."
Education
Opinion
Summarizing EdTech in One Slide: Market, Open and Dewey
I'm working on an introductory workshop on digital media and learning for the upcoming Future of Learning Institute run by Harvard's Graduate School of Education and Project Zero. One of my jobs is to introduce participants to the diverse landscape of the field of education technology. One of the biggest problems in the ed-tech space right now is that the phrase "education technology" means very different things to different people and organizations. Here's a 2x2 model that summarizes (and, of course, oversimplifies) the entire education technology space into three groups: Market, Open, and Dewey
Education
Opinion
Guest Presentation: Wikis and the Collaborative Classroom, Just Posting in the Same Place?
Earlier this week I spent an evening, via Skype, with Steven McGee's Teaching with Technology class in the Learning Sciences Department at Northwestern. Steven came to a talk I gave at AERA on the same topic, and he invited me to join his students. Since I was I was basically just doing a webinar with them, I screencast the event so that I could share it here, and so he could share it with sick students who missed class.
Education
Opinion
Wendell Berry Summarizes Technology and Education Reform
Wendell Berry sums up my position on the role of technology in K-12 education reform. My read of the history of U.S. education is that no new gadget or Web page is going to change practice at scale. If we want things to be different, it will be a long, slow process of working with 3.2 million teachers in 14,000 districts. Plan for that.
Education
Opinion
What Do We Mean by "Good Learning" for Games and Apps?
The most fun and rewarding thing to do with Common Sense Media's new Learning Ratings for Apps and Games is to challenge them. As with any rating system, the ratings themselves are useful, but the real learning starts when young people (or people of all ages) start talking critically about the ratings.(I introduced the basics of Common Sense Media's Learning Ratings in Monday's post.)
Education
Opinion
Common Sense Media Launches Learning Ratings for Apps and Games
One of the key problems with educational media is that there are no objective, neutral arbiters who are evaluating apps, games, and Web sites to determine whether or not these media offer meaningful learning experiences. As a result, developers have an incentive to focus on making their products "appear" educational rather than focusing on actually making them meaningful learning experiences. There is no external review for developers making any kinds of claims about their products.
Education
Opinion
Helping Students Decode Kony 2012
Yesterday I was on Radio Boston, a news show produced by WBUR, talking about education, social media, media literacy and Kony 2012. My main point is that the Kony campaign is incredibly persuasive not just as a video but as a powerful narrative situated in a hyperlinked environment with very accessible opportunities for action.The sophistication of the campaign raises the bar for the kinds of Media Literacy skills that students need.
Education
Opinion
Three Great Free Online Events in the Next 30 Hours
There are three great media events coming up in the next 30 hours.
Education
Opinion
Grading Automated Essay Scoring Programs- Part III: Classrooms
I arrive at the final of my three part series of Automated Essay Score Predictors.In this final post, I offer a scenario of how Automated Essay Score Predictors could be used in a progressive history course in an elite private school.