Plenty of buzz exists about blended learning and its transformational potential. But what does blended learning really mean? In this course we will explore the different models of blended learning and dive into key issues that impact students, teachers, and schools. Specifically, we will look at these issues through the lens of three high-performing schools that each use a different type of blended learning. A few of the key topics will include: - The role of the student and how to support students in the transition from traditional to blended learning - Implications for teachers in their day-to-day work and overall role - Impact on the way schools are designed including staffing models, use of time, hardware/software selection, and the use of data - Implementation challenges, potential solutions, and the remaining open questions We will live by the attributes of blended learning in this course, encouraging students to take quizzes at the beginning of the module to assess their understanding and skip material they already know. Overall, we will take a hand-on approach and the course will culminate in participants prototyping their own blended learning model. If you are interested in learning more about how to best leverage technology in education and rethink the way we run schools, join this MOOC and encourage your colleagues to do the same. Become a part of this growing movement and learn first-hand how blended learning can help provide students a more personalized learning experience.
Resources to Help You Pick Software
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来自 新教师中心 的课程
Blended Learning: Personalizing Education for Students
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从本节课中
Making Hardware, Software, and Space Decisions
Explore the choices you have to make around your software, hardware, and facilities, and how to make sure they support your educational model.
与讲师见面
Brian GreenbergCEO
Silicon Schools Fund
Rob Schwartz
Michael Horn
So we've talked about what different types of
software are out there and how you choose them.
So now let's dive into the resources that help you make that choice.
>> Yeah, and in Ed Tech there's actually some
new entrants that are making this kind of interesting and.
The one approach is to have sort of an editorial voice.
You think about Consumer Reports.
I would rarely buy a new piece of electronics before going
over to CNET and reading what the experts say about it.
But because the Ed Tech space is actually quite small
right now, it's actually hard to imagine any one organization building
up the resources to staff it the way a CNET would.
So you can have the editorial voice and that's good.
But we might need another version as well.
>> So we're seeing a second option also arise,
which is this, leveraging this notion of crowd sourcing.
And what we mean by that is actually taking the reviews of actual
users themselves, parents, teachers, even students in some cases and saying, how did
this software work for you?
What are its, potential up sides as well as what are its drawbacks?
And now, this approach itself has some up sides and drawbacks, because
it can be really useful in, in harnessing the wisdom of the crowd.
But it also might, as we've seen on certain
travel sites, not always give you the best information.
It can be gamed in certain ways or, quite frankly, maybe
your review isn't going to be applicable to me in my situation.
>> But
compared to having nothing at all, these
are really good helpful tools for educators.
And we're going to point you towards two
particular new resources, Common Sense Media and EdSurge.
Now Common Sense Media is well known for their reviews of student, of
children's television and movies, and giving parents
information they need to make good decisions.
About that kind of entertainment media.
They've also now launched a new product called Graphite,
which is trying to do the same thing
to provide teachers and parents information about EdTech software.
>> So, EdSurge is also doing something like this,
it's well known already for its newsletters that basically give
you a weekly update on all that's going on
with EdTech in the world, from K12 through higher education.
But what they're starting to do is create
this thing called the EdTech index, and this
is a place for the same sorts of
activities where teachers can actually review these products.
And say what's working or not for them.
Now, a couple other resources that are also
out there, are Learning List and Ed Shelf.
So basically, we're just seeing the early emergence of a lot of players trying
to use this crowd sourcing to help
you make better decisions in picking your software.
Both Graphite and EdSurge are combining elements
of the editorial review, with crowd source feedback
from actual educators to help you make these
decisions, about what products are right for you.
And both are really new resources, and yet they're promising.
So if you're starting to think about a blended learning model and trying to
pick the right software, we recommend that you check them out as starting points.
Now as a good exercise, in the Resources section, we've
linked to their reviews of the same product, ST Math.
So that you can get a sense for how they treat
these reviews In different ways and the advantages and disadvantages of each.
>> Now, we believe that good homework is always authentic and
based on the real world.
So, we've created this week's assignment to try to get you
on these platforms, so you can see how they're doing reviews.
And that you can actually contribute to their knowledge base, if appropriate.
And Rob will come back at the end of these
videos to tell you more about how the assignment's going to work.
>> Now, schools often are tempted as they get into
this work to think oh, we'll just build our own
software to drive our teaching, and you may remember that
Summit Public Schools actually did this when they created this individualized
learning playlists.
And they curated lots of content, for their students.
>> Right and the obvious upside to this is you
get exactly what you want, it's customized, you built it.
Unfortunately it's also really, really hard, and it's something that
even the experts with dedicated teams can spend months doing.
So just like I would not advise a school to go
build a customized bus themselves, because I want the perfect transportation option.
We generally don't think schools should
necessarily get themselves in to the business
of having their teachers staying up at
night, learning coding and building customized software.
However, one model that we have seen work really well, is the
idea of schools working in closely aligned partnerships with a software company.
And when we talked about Summit earlier, they built
their new Activate platform with a company called Illuminate Instruction.
Illuminate needed what Summit knew how to do, which was how to build really good
content, and find what students wanted.
And Summit needed what Illuminate knew how to
do, which was to create really robust software.
The interdependence was the key here.
So when a new feature was developed, they could get it quickly
into the school, and the teachers could pilot and try it out.
And then that feedback would get back to the
software developers who could quickly iterate and create a new
tool, and that mutual interdependence has created what we
think is a very promising new software product that neither
of them probably could've built on their own.
>> A few years ago my CAO and I had a vision for what could exist.
this was the early vision for our playlist
and what they might, what might be possible there.
but we didn't have the skill or the ability to create this and
while we could imagine imagine it, we had no way of making it happen.
We got lucky, in that we got introduced to some really thoughtful,
committed, educational entrepreneurs, who wanted to work with educators like us.
And so we got into a room.
We literally flew down, got into a room, and spent
about five hours whiteboarding what we thought would solve a lot
of our problems, and how they started to think about
and could imagine their technology being able to meet that need.
From there, a relationship was born.
and, you know, fast forward several years, we have worked side by side, really in
a, an interdisciplinary team, if you will, to build the Activate platform.
And this is a platform that we're now
making available to anyone and everyone free by design.
We had, a common interest, common values, and a real
desire to build something that we felt like, would enable
blended learning and next generation learning
for all kids and for all teachers.
And, that experience has been invaluable for both parties, I believe.
>> So working really closely with a software company can obviously be great.
But the correlate to that is that if you don't have these
deep relationships, it can be hard to know exactly what you're getting.
I just had a principal say to me recently that his new rule of thumb
is that he believes half of what a vendor says the software can do now, and
none of what he says it's going to be able to do in the next release.
And I don't share that to be snarky.
because I have a lot of friends who work in
the industry, and I think they're doing really great work.
But the reality is it's very hard for a
school to count on something coming in the future.
And it's even sometimes hard to know exactly
what these tools can do in their present version.
>> And one of the reasons for this, is that
a lot of the companies creating the software are actually startups.
And if you know anything about startups, it's really hard to deliver
consistently on these product features when you're
actually working with just a few employees.
And you actually haven't built much of what
you say you're going to deliver next year.
>> So they can have the best of intentions
but they might be looking at five different road-maps for
where there software can come, and you might want version
five and they actually decide to go down version three.
So we would just say be eyes wide open.
Understand that we are very early in this movement and the software will
get much better, but it's going to take a little time so you can't
rely too much entirely on the software.
