Digital Discourse / Education Events

The Medium is the Message

September 9, 2010 By

With apologies to Marshall McLuhan, this phrase came to mind when we saw the recent announcement about the death of the floppy. McLuhan argued that the medium that carries a message is an essential part of it. He noted that all media have characteristics that engage the viewer in different ways. It seems then, that as our delivery platforms change for digital code and content, so will our message AND our business models.

Just as the floppy shook up the computer industry in 1971, new mediums like distance learning and cloud computing are redefining how our technology products and services are consumed and interpreted. With the invention of the floppy, ed tech developers suddenly had a quick, inexpensive way to distribute its software on a massive scale. This technological development, however, meant that the market came to expect faster software updates, and new business models were required to keep pace.

Cloud computing is bringing us to a similar juncture. As companies head for the cloud, they will have to find ways to adapt their content and adjust their revenue models to the new medium maintain a viable business. When music went digital, for example, the bottom fell out of the market as the aptly named Pirate Bay and others pioneered the no rules, no royalties model. How our industry decides to manage the growth of e-books or open source LMS may likewise define the fate of our own digital products and services down the road.

What we know for sure is that the education delivery medium is going digital in every direction: from
textbooks to student performance data to interactive whiteboards. As this transition creates new
possibilities, the question is: how will this affect our message and how will we manage the medium?

Posted by Karen Billings, VP Education, SIIA and Alec Wescott, Education Intern, SIIA

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Filed Under: Cloud Computing: Education, Education, Education Events, Mobile: Education

SIIA Events Reflect Evolution of Ed Tech Industry

August 4, 2010 By

In planning two education-focused conferences this summer for SIIA, I was struck by similarities – and of course the differences – in the two events. This week we host, “Innovate to Educate: A symposium on [Re]Design for Personalized Education.” After returning to DC, we go full steam ahead planning the 2010 Ed Tech Business Forum, which will focus on “Re-Inventing Business Models.”

First, the obvious differences: The former conference is our first major component of SIIA’s new initiative on Personalized Learning and is being held in collaboration with ASCD and CCSSO. Two-thirds of the invited attendees represent leadership within the K-12 education sector – school districts, state agencies, professional associations, the federal government and education foundations. Attendees will focus on the policies, practices and technologies needed to enable the redesign of our education system from an industrial-age structure to one that is student-centered to meet each student’s personalized learning needs.

The Ed Tech Business Forum will be 10th annual and has become part of “Education Week” in New York, taking place each year the first week after Thanksgiving. Attendees are primarily from the industry, and represent ed tech platform companies, publishers, and financial firms. They’re there to learn and share information about the shifts they see in their business models.

The similarities: Some of SIIA members will be attending both conferences. While the purpose of the Symposium is to look at system re-design, the Forum will be looking to re-design their business. There’s a cause and effect, and hopefully, they’ll happen in tandem with each other. Our members do react to customer needs … and Personalized Learning is a major one right now. By working with industry colleagues at the Forum, they will gain major insights to Re-Inventing their business models.

Posted by Karen Billings, Vice President, SIIA Education Division

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Filed Under: Education, Education Events, Events, Personalized Learning

Design Fix

July 15, 2010 By

[From a Symposium on Personalized Learning interview series by New Media Partner edReformer.com]

Joel Rose, CEO of School of One in New York City, addresses how personalized learning provides equity of student outcomes, and the need to address the design flaw of the traditional classroom model with with personalized systems and technologies.

Where does technology fit into [personalized learning]?
I think we need school designs that accomplish that personalized vision by integrating, instruction, professional development, leadership, options and technology. It’s one of the necessary components of an integrated design that serves that need. It doesn’t end or begin with technology, but technology is a piece of it.

What are some of the challenges being faced by the effort to bring personalization into the education system?
There is one big challenge, and that’s how nearly impossible it is for an individual teacher to personalize learning for 28 kids, during five periods a day. Even if we do that, it’s not enough. We have to complement the work of great teachers with systems and technologies that can enable personalized learning. It’s a design challenge. [Challenge is] the way we designed our schools, by putting 28 kids in a room, calling that sixth grade and putting one teacher in that room. And making that assumption that a kid can make that one year of growth . . . that’s a design assumption that is incredibly flawed. We are so accustomed to think of school in this way, the idea that there’s a different way of doing it doesn’t really enter into our minds. How we narrowly redesigned roles in school that have kind of calcified how we think about school. A lot of things we have done have just cascaded on top of this system. Until we fundamentally get to this design question . . . “This is where we want kids to be at the end of the year,” “This is the best way of doing that,” until we start asking these fundamental questions, we are going to stay where we are.

Read More from Joel Rose on how personalized learning and technology can address the design challenge of our school model, a roadmap for redesign, and how personalization flips the pursuit of equity from inputs to outcomes.

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Filed Under: Education, Education Events, Education Policy, Events, Personalized Learning, Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , ,

Personalize and Deliver

July 13, 2010 By

[From a Symposium on Personalized Learning interview series by New Media Partner edReformer.com]

Harvard professor Howard Gardner shares his vision for personalized learning in an age of education reform which grows out of his theory of multiple intelligences. Gardner believes the educational world of the future belongs to those educators and technologists who can create robust ways to present important but challenging concepts.

What is your vision for personalized learning?
My vision of personalized learning grows out of the theory of multiple intelligences, which I developed thirty years ago. Personalized learning involves Individuation and Pluralization. Individuation means that each student should be taught and assessed in ways that are appropriate and comfortable for that child. Pluralization means that anything worth teaching could and should be taught in several ways. By so doing, one reaches more students. Today, we live in a computer age. For the first time in human history, individuation and pluralization are potentially available to any young person. And so the ideas of non personalized, remote, or cookie-cutter style teaching and learning will soon become anachronistic.

What are the challenges being addressed and the opportunities being leveraged?
The major challenge is a system that has proceeded for centuries on the basis of ‘uniform’ schooling and uniform learning: teaching everyone the same thing in the same way. That tack has seemed fair, because all are being treated in the same way. But it is actually unfair, because school is being pitched to a certain kind of mind–in my terms, a mind that is strong in language and logic. Added to that is our system of standardized assessment, which focuses on particular bits of knowledge and which often simply presents a set of choices. Once we have more personalized education, we can provide far more realistic assessments and allow students leeway in how they approach the problems and puzzles that they are presented.

Read More of Dr. Gardner’s views on the intersection of personalization and equity, the research on personalized learning, and the role of technology.

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Personalized Learning Central to Whole Child Approach

June 27, 2010 By

[Guest blog by Judy Seltz, Deputy Executive Director for Constituent Services, ASCD — Symposium Partner)

In April, the U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee made a whole child approach to learning part of the ESEA reauthorization discussion when it heard from a series of speakers about the importance of thinking beyond a narrow definition of academics and accountability in designing an education program for the future. ASCD believes that each child, in each school, in each of our communities deserves to be healthy, safe, engaged, supported, and challenged. That’s what a whole child approach to learning, teaching, and community engagement really is.

These 21st century demands require a new and better way of approaching education policy and practice — a whole child approach to learning, teaching, and community engagement. We need to redefine what a successful learner is and how we measure success. It is time to put students first, align resources to students’ multiple needs, and advocate for a more balanced approach. A child who enters school in good health, feels safe, and is connected to her school is ready to learn. A student who has at least one adult in school who understands his social and emotional development is more likely to stay in school. All students who have access to challenging academic programs are better prepared for further education, work, and civic life.

Personalized learning is central to this approach to learning. We talk about each child, not every child. Each child learns differently; personalized learning supports differences in talent, interest, style and pace.

ASCD is pleased to collaborate with SIIA and CCSSO in bringing together a unique group of thinkers from policy, practice, government, and business to learn from and listen to each other about the promise and challenges of making personalized learning a reality for each student.

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Filed Under: Education, Education Events, Events, Personalized Learning Tagged With:

Mass Customization for Student Success

June 23, 2010 By

[From a Symposium on Personalized Learning interview series by New Media Partner edReformer.com]

Symposium speaker Roberta Selleck, Superintendent Adam’s County School District 50, Colorado talks about her district’s shift from a teacher-led to a student-centric learning system.

What is the vision for personalized learning?

We just finished our first year using non-graded time as a variable this year, in other words, grade levels went away as we know it. They are based in their instructional level, not their frustration level. That’s a huge paradigm shift. The words we are using are mass customization. We recognize that every child is unique, so we must look at every child as a unique individual. Where are they on that continuum so that we can help them continue that academic unique journey?

Where does personalization intersect with equity?

We certainly believe that what happens in our traditional system is a travesty. The kdis are put on a conveyor belt, and nine months later they are popped out and for the most part if they are almost ready to go to the next level, they go, regardless. That for us is not equity. We have broken that model and tried to look at each child as an indidvidual. It’s not the teacher just talking about her 25 kids in the class. All teachers are owning all kids’ education and graduation goals, even at the elementary level. We all have a piece of the game.

I wish people could come and really see this in action. Once a month, we host these tours and we have 25 and 30 people, come, we put it in context. We put it in the classroom. These kids can clearly articulate what their goals are, and where they are at, academically. What it is they are working on, and they can tell you what they know, and they can tell you what they don’t know. It’s really remarkable to see. Kids are not shy about sharing that with others.

Read more of the inteview on the challenges being addressed, system design, curriculum and technology, teacher role and professional development, and opportunity for public-private software development partnership. Read more about the Adams County initiative.

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Personalized Learning is Ongoing Student-Led Improvement

June 15, 2010 By


[From a Symposium on Personalized Learning interview series by New Media Partner edReformer.com]

Symposium speaker Wendy Battino is the Co-Founder and Executive Director of the Re-Inventing Schools Coalition, which grew out of reforms in the Chugach School District in Alaska. We spoke with her about vision, personalized learning components and policy-making strategy and how her implementation at RISC helps her students achieve.

What is the vision for personalized learning as your organization pursues it? One thing we have known for quite a while is that students learn in different ways. We have worked to create a system that meets the needs of every student. The vision is allowing students to engage and have responsibility for their own learning. The way we use personalized learning plans, students get a choice of what kind of topic they want to master. They get to start driving some of their learning and the teacher facilitates that.

What are the challenges being addressed by practitioners in this system? Our biggest mission is tackling the creation of systems so that individualized learning can happen. It’s systematic reform. The challenge is that reform itself is challenging, because of all those moving parts, it means change, and change is all a process for people to go through. To go through a change from a hundreds of years old model, to delivering personalized learning to each student, is not a minor challenge.

Videos of the RISC System.
MORE of the Interview on the personalized learning transformation and scale path, evidence and policy barriers.

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