למידה, אינטרנט ... ומה שביניהם

Online education is a one-size-fits-all endeavor. It tends to be a monologue and not a real dialogue. The Internet teacher, even one who responds to students via e-mail, can never have the immediacy of contact that the teacher on the scene can, with his sensitivity to unspoken moods and enthusiasms.

You can get knowledge from an Internet course if you’re highly motivated to learn. But in real courses the students and teachers come together and create an immediate and vital community of learning.

Let computers do what computers do best and teachers do what they do best.

First, it assumes that computers somehow work independently of teachers. That takes most of the ways that kids and teachers can work together using technology out of the equation. What [it] leaves behind is automated software that guides student learning in deeply prescriptive ways.

But teaching is so much more than quizzes, lectures and data collection. And the promise of technology isn’t that [it] can automate the rote tasks of teaching – in the end that’s low hanging fruit. The promise of technology is rather the way that it can allow teachers and students to work together to do more, create more, research more broadly, share more widely, learn more deeply.

I was a huge, international expert on pedagogy, classroom management, curriculum, and child development in my second year of teaching. Then, ten years later, I was mortified what an arrogant showboat I had been in the early years---there is so much more to it than what you see in the first years.

This ceased being a tech blog long ago. There's a war on. What can you do to help? Sign the National Resolution on High Stakes Testing.

Seldom do these futurists acknowledge in their rosy predictions that while many parents, practitioners, policymakers, and researchers inhabit either the Utopian or Skeptic poles, many others cluster in the middle of the continuum. Many of those who hug the middle know that present and past school uses of technologies show great promise for student learning but contain serious flaws; sometimes they even wince at especially foolish claims Utopians make. Overall, however, most believe technologies in or out of school will ultimately benefit students and teachers.

Are kids really motivated by technology?

My answer often catches participants by surprise: You can't motivate students with technology because technology alone isn’t motivating. Worse yet, students are almost always ambivalent toward digital tools. While you may be completely jazzed by the interactive whiteboard in your classroom or the wiki that you just whipped up, your kids could probably care less.

They are motivated by issues connected to fairness and justice. They are motivated by the important people in their lives, by the opportunity to wrestle with the big ideas rolling around in their minds, and by the often-troubling changes they see happening in the world around them.

Technology’s role in today’s classroom, then, isn’t to motivate. It’s to give students opportunities to efficiently and effectively participate in motivating activities built around the individuals and ideas that matter to them.

What I learned and appreciate more than any other thing that I get from blogging is that I write for me. It is a reflective, personal endeavor. I made the choice to open my blog to public scrutiny. I encourage comments to my ideas, to affirm, or further reflect on those ideas based on the reader comments. Testing my ideas in public is testing I can believe in.

The whole idea of Connected Educators is to break down the barriers that have prevented us from exchanging ideas in a big way. Technology has provided us the tools to share and collaborate in astounding ways. We do that on a daily basis with existing content. Blog Posts provide us with: original thought, new ideas, questions, reflections, and much, much more.

And that has been surprisingly liberating. I have no idea how many people subscribe to my blog. I have no idea how many people read it. Which means that I have to do it for myself, even if I’m aware that others can follow along.

To pay attention to that audience is to try to repeat previous successes, and to possibly improve on them, rather than to explore new and uncharted territory.

one area that is certain to benefit from more uniform educational standards is the online learning industry.

can also turn it into a windfall for e-learning companies.

And with all the testing associated with Common Core, to gauge students’ progress and weaknesses, more tests will be necessary.

But the learning materials and tests no longer need to be differentiated state by state, saving the companies money, industry members said.

According to NextUp Research, the research arm of Global Silicon Valley Corp., the e-learning market in the United States is expected to grow to $6.8 billion by 2015, up from $2.9 billion in 2010.

They’re literally salivating at the prospect of enhanced profit potential.

[a] test factory wrapped up in a Tootsie Roll outer shell.

The idea is to assemble the system leaders in one place to get inspired for the new school year.

I need to create bingo cards or something to keep track of the number of educational clichés presented from the stage. Phrases like “21st century skills”, “the 4 C’s”, “digital natives”, and so many more. I’m pretty sure no one will mention standardized testing, instead using euphemisms like “assessment”, “data”, or “student achievement”.

All schools will build professional learning communities that employ best practices to raise the bar and close achievement gaps.

Once again he told us how our students have changed, how the world is different, and how we need to change our practice.

The problem with [the] talk, and really with most of the inspirational talk from the other speakers, is that what is said is very much disconnected from what everyone in the audience understands is expected of them once school starts.