•
As a member of the Consortium for School Networking (CoSN) Board of Directors, I have the opportunity to meet and learn from educational technology leaders from around the world. At our last board meeting, I volunteered to draft a statement for the group to respond to the development of the National Educational Technology Plan by the U.S. Department of Education.
CoSN members are professionals who have first-hand experience with planning, implementing and maintaining the nation’s educational infrastructures. The plan’s vision for learning, assessment, and teaching with technology assumes seamless, reliable access to networks and computing devices. It assumes applications are intuitive, easy to learn, and responsive to changing needs. It assumes information is secure, integrated, and authentic. To become reality, this vision requires a comprehensive technology infrastructure with massive scalability and micro adaptability. Please view and vote for our statement if you agree: Laying the Foundation for Ubiquitous Technology.
•
School districts come in all sizes and most of them seem to build their own applications and systems. Web 2.0 and the browser as a platform really opens the door to lots of low-cost, specialized, nearly free or subscription-based tools that could really help schools improve their productivity.
Read more »
•
National School Boards Assocation T+L Conference
Denver, CO
I missed the first 10 minutes of the Project RED presentation, but was immediately engaged by the slide displayed when I walked through the door. More than half of survey respondents (62%) reported that ubiquitous technology in their schools increased high-stakes test scores, and 48% reported a reduction in disciplinary action.
You can participate in the survey at Project RED Deadline: November 16, 2009
Project RED is the research project of Jeanne Hayes, the Hayes Connection; Tom Greaves, the Greaves Group; and Leslie Wilson of the One-to-One Institute. Through surveys and interviews, the group seeks to show the true financial benefits of education technology. They have focused on two key issues: student achievement and the financial impact of technology on state budgets. To my knowledge, no other group is making a research-based financial connection between education technology investment and state economies by analyzing cost savings, cost avoidance and revenue enhancements to state budgets with investment in educational technology.
Read more »
•
The National School Board’s Association Technology Learning Network announced their “20 to Watch” for 2009. I’ve profiled several of these districts through various projects and am pleased to see innovation recognized. Jump to see the list:
Read more »
•
If you think the U.S. has a drop out problem, India has the world’s largest population of children and 53% of children who start school drop out by 8th grade. The government plans to double annual education expenditures and remake the nation’s schools. A panel led by Dilip Thakore, Publisher and Editor, Education World, at the Milken Institute discussed India’s Human Capital: Educating the World’s Largest Population of Children, the opportunities to reform India’s education system both in terms of curricula and investment opportunities.
Read more »
