Project 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.   

EdWeek 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…

Silicon 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…

Pulitzer 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…

Technology-driven innovation is alive and well in the US and beyond, according to EdSurge‘s Tony Wan who recently penned a column for Fast Company magazine. In this piece, Wan gives us an idea of who is playing in the ed tech incubator space and speculates on implications for further growth. Tech incubators have traditionally been hubs where start ups can work, collaborate and learn from each other and experienced professionals…

DMLcentral has published another useful blog post; this time from the Mozilla Foundation’s Doug Belshaw. With support from the MacArthur Foundation, the Mozilla Foundation has been busy developing an open badging system that allows people to get recognition for skills learned in formal and informal learning environments. According to the Open Badges web site, “It’s free software and an open technical standard any organization can use to create, issue and…

Here’s an audio recording of a recent piece broadcasted on KQED in San Francisco. Guests include Amanda Lenhart of Pew Research Center, Jim Steyer of Common Sense Media, and Madeline Levine, a psychologist based in Marin County, CA. During this conversation, the participants discuss current research, trends, and implications for parenting in the 21st century. 

The New York Times reports on a new tool that may help publishers and educators gain insight into the reading habits of college students. Silicon Valley-based CourseSmart tracks data points such as skipped pages, neglecting not to highlight key passages in the text, lack of note taking and how many times a digital textbook has been opened. Using this data, CourseSmart creates “an engagement index” for individual students. The theory…