GETideas.org is the incubator where education leaders can develop their professional learning networks. This community provides tools, research, and inspiration to help transform learning institutions. The primary goal of GETideas.org is to bring people together to exchange ideas towards solving education challenges. During the last few months, GETideas.org has been specifically exploring four themes particularly relevant to today’s school leaders. These themes have been: -The Cultivation of Leadership-The Design of…
A Bill of Rights and Principles for Learning in the Digital Age
January 24, 2013EdSurge discusses a Bill of Rights and Principles, newly developed by a group of people passionate about learning, serving today’s students, and using every available tool to respond better to the needs of students in a global, interactive, digitally connected world....
Digital Content: What Does the Future Hold for Education Systems?
January 23, 2013GETideas.org hosted this GooglePlus hangout on the future of digital content. The online discussion featured a panel of education experts, including Nicole Allen, affordable-textbooks advocate, Student PIRGS; Una Daly, communication college outreach director, OpenCourseWare Consortium; and Cable Green, director of global...
Explaining Inequalities in School Achievement: A Realist Analysis
January 22, 2013In Explaining Inequalities in School Achievement, author Roy Nash argues that a realist framework for the sociological explanation of educational group differences can, and must be, constructed. A move to such an explanatory framework will allow society to take into account the...
Education 3.0: Seven Steps to Better Schools
January 14, 2013In Education 3.0: Seven Steps to Better Schools, renowned educator and technology expert Jim Lengel provides a refreshing and hopeful picture of what schools should look like, including a groundbreaking seven-step process for envisioning and building them that draws on the...
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April 23, 2013Australian education leader Greg Whitby reflects on the many professional benefits of engaging with others on Twitter. If you are interested in exploring Twitter as a professional development tool, please check out our list of suggested education leaders to follow on Twitter.
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April 23, 2013In this report for the PBS News Hour, correspondent John Merrow of Learning Matters showcases a school district in Kentucky that has committed to a project-based learning approach in its effort to improve educational outcomes for their students.
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April 23, 2013This is a video introduction to an online course (commonly known as a MOOC) taught by Stanford’s Paul Kim. Roz Hussin will be co-teaching a follow up course with Paul Kim and will be one of our panelists during our special Hangout on Air on April 24, 2013. Visit these pages for additional information: The original course URL: https://venture-lab.org/education (last year Fall 2012)The ongoing course URL: http://shell.venture-lab.org/wooc (to be launched in August 2013)
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April 19, 2013This is the first of two new reports from Project Tomorrow using data from their widely heralded 2012 Speak Up Survey. Part 1 starts out stating the importance of digital considerations in education, “We are at a cosmic moment in K-12 education. The conflux of the impeding implementation of Common Core State Standards (and other new state standards) with the advent of new, high quality, educationally rigorous and innovative digital tools…
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April 16, 2013A new report in Digital Learning Now’s Smart Series calls attention to America’s school finance system. Complete with an infographic, executive summary and full report, this new resource points out that many of today’s students are opting for blended and online learning environments and that these models will be potentially inaccessible to the mainstream unless funding options are improved. The authors of this report (John Bailey, Carri Schneider, Tom Vander…
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March 25, 2013Digital Learning Now! is a group run by a council industry expert, policymakers, and educators dedicated to improving digital opportunities for American students. In March 2012, Digital Learning Now! released its second annual report which grades individual states on their progress towards implementing technological innovations. Criteria for these report cards are based on 10 elements of high quality digital learning, and only 6 states received an A or B for…
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March 11, 2013A new paper entitled Launching Successful Readers: the Role of ICT in Early-Grade Literacy Success has been published by the Joan Ganz Cooney Foundation. The intended audience is policy makers and educational technology developers. This intentionally brief report calls for interested parties to consider applying literacy research to addressing barriers to literacy growth and to the design of comprehensive literacy programs with the goal of avoiding the creation of more…
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May 5, 2013The library cooperative OCLC recently ran a conference at the University of Pennsylvania for academic librarians entitled, “MOOCs and Libraries: Massive Opportunity or Overwhelming Challenge?” and the Chronicle of HIgher Education was there to report on this convening. In this article, the Chronicle points to one librarian from Duke University who mentioned that the popularity of MOOCs has caught people by surprise. Additionally, “She’s been hearing from instructors that ‘the…
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January 23, 2013Reshaping Learning, edited by Ronghuai Huang, Kinshuk, and J. Michael Spector, presents selected papers from distinguished experts and professors in learning technologies and related fields, all of them pioneers with innovative approaches to the development of learning technologies. This book will address the main issues concerned with current trends in and the future development of learning processes, innovative pedagogies, the effects of new technologies on education.
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January 22, 2013
In Explaining Inequalities in School Achievement, author Roy Nash argues that a realist framework for the sociological explanation of educational group differences can, and must be, constructed. A move to such an explanatory framework will allow society to take into account the social influences of early-childhood development, the later emergence of social identities, and the nature of the social class impact of educational and career decision making. By building on the critical…
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January 17, 2013The monumental growth in technology has affected children’s attention, motivation, and the way they learn developmentally forever. The Grassroots Guide to Primary ICT by Jon Audain explores ways of usng ICT to improve creativity, motivation, and efficiency in the classroom and within the school community. As well as offering plenty of advice to practitioners at all levels of experience and seniority on how to use ICT most effectively, this book gives guidance on…
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February 7, 2013Educause Review Online has published a study by David Michael Ruth, Thomas M. Mastre, and Ron Fricker. In this study, students at two military colleges were surveyed about their ownership and use of mobile devices. It was determined that a majority of students were interested in mobile learning opportunities and owned such devices; tthis population was also interested in access course materials and related information online. The authors noted that…
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October 11, 2012ICT in Education shares the interesting case study Finborough School, a small private “all-through” (ages 2-18) school located in rural England. Finborough successfully introduced a bring-your-own-device (BYOD) program to serve students with special learning needs.
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October 3, 2012At Clintondale High School (Michigan, U.S.), 74% of students qualify for a free or reduced-price lunch program, 38% receive special-education services, and 70% are members of a racial minority group. Two years ago, the school’s failure rate was as high as 61%. In this Getting Smart post, Clintondale’s principal Greg Green tells the story of his school’s turnaround via the flipped-classroom model.
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June 26, 2012This U.S. Department of Education blog post profiles the rapid turnaround progress at Emerson Elementary School, which serves the Argentine community of Kansas City, Kansas. Just three years ago, Emerson was identified as the lowest-performing school in Kansas and was awarded a grant through the School Improvement Grants program to implement one of four turnaround models. At Emerson, where 90% of the students are eligible for free or reduced priced lunches, approximately…
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February 14, 2013This handbook was produced by the Yollocalli Arts Reach and is posted in DML Central. It serves to help other organizations create informal learning spaces that empower youth. The concept of HOMAGO (Hang Out, Mess Around and Geek Out) is based on the work of Mimi Ito and refers to three arenas where kids can socialize, play, and learn from one other using physical spaces as well as social and new media.
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February 7, 2013Check out this infographic from PBS LearningMedia that accompanies their report that teachers are embracing digital media in greater numbers. Educators are leveraging technology and incorporating multimedia into their lessons with greater frequency.
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December 7, 2012The Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium’s Technology Strategy Framework and System Requirements Specifications provide minimum hardware specifications and basic bandwidth calculations that allow U.S. schools and districts to evaluate which of their existing computers will support the administration of the assessment system in the 2014-15 school year. The framework was developed with input and feedback from Smarter Balanced member states, work groups, and data from the Technology Readiness Tool, an online inventory of technology…
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November 12, 2012This document was prepared by the Career Readiness Partner Council, a broad-based coalition of U.S. education, policy, business, and philanthropic organizations that strives to forward a more comprehensive vision for what it means to be career ready. The Council hopes this vision spurs conversation and action in communities across the country.
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April 19, 2013Project Tomorrow hosts the annual Speak Up Survey in which school administrators, teachers, students, and parents offer their views on educational technology. The 2012 results are now available, and Project Tomorrow has put together this very useful and informative infographic.
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April 18, 2013EdWeek has published a thoughtful and moving opinion piece by Lorraine Bellon Cella, Superintendent of the Edgewater NJ schools. Ms. Cells revisits her high school days, recounting how a young and innovative teacher impacted her life as a student. Noting the qualities that made this teacher great aren’t necessarily quantifiable, she then goes on to question the value of current teacher evaluation systems, “My greatest worry is that teachers will…
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April 15, 2013Silicon Valley understands the value of computer science, and more related education initiatives seem to be emerging from Northern California, perhaps because of an increased emphasis on STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) education in the United States. Previously, GETIdeas.org has pointed to resources such as Stanford’s Makers in Residence program, SparkFun’s National Tour, Code.org and Code Summer+. Now comes an initiative geared towards the elementary school set, Tynker, a…
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April 13, 2013Pulitzer prize-winning New York Time columnist and author Thomas Friedman recently consulted with GETideas.org contributor Tony Wagner about the changing workforce landscape and implications for young people. Friedman asked Wagner to elaborate on his statement that the goal of education should not be to make kids “college ready” but “innovation ready”. Wagner responded, “because knowledge is available on every Internet-connected device, what you know matters far less than what you can do…
