PILOTed

SIIA Edtech Innovation Showcase 2010

Here were my notes from the SIIA education innovation showcase tonight. Over 30 organizations submitted their Edtech products in order to be able to present to funders and potential partners. These were the presenters and alternate.

"I can do that kids" by Atmotivate
Kids battle an avatar named Obst and learn how to learn and strategies to overcome adversity. This is improving learning outcomes for students in grades 1 through 5. 

Kidzui
Kidzui is a browser for kids 4-7 years old. With $10 million invested in design and development, it is designed to be both fun and safe for kids. Kidzui blocks bad content AND opens up to over 20,000 exciting screened sites. 
Search results are graphical, and grouped by age. Sites are reviewed by teachers, and Kidzui produces reports for parents and teachers on what kids ate interested in. 

Metacatworks by Meta Logic
MetaCatWorks teaches research skills by combining content management, data collection and reporting, into a platform for nontechnical people. 
It could be used for massive projects across schools and districts, and also for individual projects. Partner universities are designing free curriculum for STEM projects. 

Learning studios
Learning studios redesigns the classroom for project based learning. 
Teams of HS students, subject matter experts, and educators learn by attacking problems together. The Learning Studios company links up organizations with problems to schools to help solve the problem. 

MathMotion
MathMotion is founded by two Stanford School of Ed postgraduate students, who programmed a math game using motion to teach fractions. Their first game addictively involves trying to get a ball to drop on the right place on a number line. It is available for the iPhone, iTouch, and iPad.

Panopto
Panopto is presentation and lecture capture and search softwarEveNt provides easy editing, and uses consumer hardware. It can broadcast lectures and webinars, auto transcribe, and allow viewers to add notes and search. Panopto provides analytics of who is watching what.

P.e.t. learning styles system
PET is an acronym for Personal Empowerment through Type, and provides a learning styles inventory for students, parents, and trachers  It is Web based, and covers grades 5-14

Truintuition's workbench
Workbench is online collaborative authoring software. It incorporates digital resources like video, journals, and interactives in a powerful but easy to use platform for educators. 

Sokikom
Sokikom is a social game to teach math to elementary students. This multiplayer game is aligned to NCTM standards. 

A Time for Change

The following was written by Farimah Schuerman, Managing Partner at Academic Business Advisors.

 

Image by DML Competition via Flickr

At this year’s conference of the Council of the Great City Schools a recent study was released on the social and educational Factors contributing to the outcomes of Black Males in urban schools.  Education was frequently referred to as the Civil Rights issue of the day as education is seen as the best way to achieve the American Dream of success.  This topic was central to several of the presentations including the Keynotes, and most importantly, a very provocative Town Hall meeting.  Some wonderful speakers shared information regarding exceptional programs that were having real impact in their communities.  The entire report is definitely worth reading.  Note that the study focused on students in Large Cities. 

Some of the factors the study considered included: Readiness to learn, Black Male achievement on NAEP, Black Male achievement in selected Districts, College and Career Readiness, School Experience, Post Secondary Experience,

Some key take-aways

Readiness to Learn:

Factors such as infant mortality, health insurance, household composition, family employment and economic stability were seen as contributing factors to student success, or lack of success, in school.  For example, in 2008, Black children were twice as likely as white children to live in a household where no parent had full-time or year-round employment. 

NAEP in Selected Districts:

The mathematics scale scores of the Black students, (male and female) in 2009 were significantly lower than Hispanic students, and both were significantly lower than White students in grades 4 and 8.  But, between 2003 and 2008 there has been a significant increase in those scores.  While the differences were smaller, this was consistent among students who were not eligible for Free and Reduced Lunch, (Title I)

In 2009, reading, significant improvement in scale scores for grades 4 and 8 were noted in NYC, Atlanta, and in grade 4 in Boston, Charlotte and Houston for Black males, while in Cleveland, Detroit, WDC, Fresno and Milwaukee they were lower than the national public school scores for grade 8. 

College and Career Readiness

In 2008 Black Males were nearly twice as likely to drop out of high school, and the statistics for AP test takers broke down at 60% White, 15% Hispanic, 10% Asian and 8% Black.  (I’m not sure how that reflects the general population spread of students.)

School Experience:

Black and Poor students were more likely to be retained than their classmates in 2007.  23% who were retained were Poor, and 16% were black compared with 5% non- Poor and 8% White. 

You can find the entire report through the Council of the Great City Schools website at www.cgcs.org. 

While the statistics are compelling, nothing was as compelling as hearing the students.  The candid conversations that followed these presentation made clear the severity of the issues.  But it also provided an understanding of how urban districts are taking on the challenge of Calling for Change.

Related articles

• "New Report on Black Male Achievement Reveals Jaw-Dropping Data" and related posts (d-edreckoning.blogspot.com)
• NYT: Black education gap looks even bleaker (msnbc.msn.com)

Summary of the 2010 National Education Technology Plan (NETP)

The hierarchical manufacturing model of education worked for a long time. Today, we need more.

Image by mweisburgh via Flickr

A 21^st century education requires us to give students more power over their own learning, and the ability to tap into the same plugged in world that many experience outside of school.

There should be core standards, but all students should be expected and enabled to use their own impetus to go past the core and beyond the classroom, to use technology to access global resources, to connect to people, to create, to experiment, and to learn.

Critical thinking, complex problem solving, collaboration, and multimedia communication will be woven into everything they do.

Students need to understand the concepts and know how to use tools to help them gather, visualize, and analyze data, design and create digital models, and collaborate for brainstorming, planning, and project implementation.

Students, teachers, and administrators must have the immediate and continuous feedback to know if students are on track and where any gaps are, and then access to interventions that propel the students forward. This is the ultimate goal of all assessments.

 

Image via Wikipedia

The teacher becomes the focus point of a connected teaching team. Teachers are fully connected to content, resources, and systems that empower them to create, manage, and assess engaging and relevant individual and group learning experiences. Learning activities can take place at any hour of the day, any day of the week, 12 months a year, both in and out of school. These are new and evolving skills for teachers, so professional development must be collaborative, continuous, and coherent.

While the technology exists for all of this to happen today, neither school infrastructures, nor the abilities to properly deploy and use that technology in schools are prevalent. Bridging this gap is an effort that is going to be led by funding and support of the US Department of Education.

The US spends more per student than any nation in the world. Boosting our effectiveness means not only enhancing our results, but improving our productivity. Our goals are competence and understanding, and these can only be achieved through organization around learning needs, not age groups, rigid schedules, classrooms, and mass produced textbooks.

The details of the plan are thus organized based on learning, assessment, teaching, infrastructure, and productivity. And our goal is that by 2020, every student will graduate high school, and be career and college ready, and for 60% of those graduates to go on and complete a college degree.

Related articles

• Flat Classroom™ Presents at the Global Education Conference (123elearning.blogspot.com)
• Teaching with Web 2.0 Tools (librarianbrain.wordpress.com)

Social Networking in Education Businesses

If you are an ed-tech business, and you want to capitalize on social networking, how do you get results?

There are four components to defining your social networking goals: your purpose, your audience, your media, and your metrics.

You need to pick one primary purpose for your social media marketing.

1. Are you looking to boost brand recognition?
2. Do you want to generate leads?
3. Do you want to get feedback?
4. Do you want to generate sales?

If you answered 2 or 4 above, then social networking is not the way to accomplish your goal. While you may end up generating leads through social networking, and you may end up generating sales, direct marketing, including search engine optimization and search engine marketing, is generally much better and more predictable.

Social networking can help you achieve a market leadership position for your brand, and it can provide invaluable feedback on messaging, features, benefits, drawbacks, threats, and impressions.

In looking over your messaging, who is your target audience? Do you want to reach the investment community? Potential partners? State or district administrators? Principals? Teachers? Tech Coordinators?

In terms of media, what social media does your audience use? Do they read blogs, and which ones? Which communities do they belong to? What tweats do they read or send? What do you need to contribute to the community, how often, and how long a ramp up time do you need to become a valued part of the community? Who else could help you along the way, and what will they expect in return?

In considering your metrics, what is your expected return, and how will you measure it? Are there milestones?

Through ABA's experience with communities, texting, networking, and blogs, we have a track record establishing leadership positions and building rapport through social networking. If you want to use social media to build and establish a leadership position for your brand or obtain market feedback, we'd love to talk further.

One person can make an impact

The day before election day, our local paper ran a letter-to-the-editor I wrote supporting our State Senator, Suzi Oppenheimer. At the time I wrote the memo, Suzi was being projected to lose the election.

I wrote the letter because Suzi has been a big proponent of education, while I felt her opponent was primarily interested in reducing taxes.

At this point, Suzi is 180 votes ahead of her challenger. If she wins, the NY State Senate will have a Democratic majority. If she loses, there will be an equal number of Democrats and Republicans and they will have to figure out what to do next.

I wonder how many votes I influenced. Maybe we all can start trying to make a difference.