As schools’ technology usage grows — whether for administrative or pedagogical purposes — schools’ data collection grows as well. Many schools still struggle with developing "best practices" to protect data security and data privacy. One step to take is to do a better job with transparency, that is, to help everyone, including parents and students, understand what data is being collected and why. … [Read more...]
Reading and Research in the Age of Wikipedia
How is literacy changing -- that is, how might new technologies demand new skills for reading, writing, and interpreting online texts? What do "critical reading skills" look like alongside these new literacies? How do students read and research online? How do we assess these new literacies? … [Read more...]
New Literacies in the Classroom
The most basic definition of literacy is "the ability to read and write." How might new digital technologies prompt us to reconfigure our notions of literacy? And if literacy is changing, how must schools change as well? What are "new literacies" -- that is, how do new technologies demand new skills for reading, writing, and interpreting online texts? What does this mean in the classroom? What does this mean for teachers and for school leaders? … [Read more...]
What You Should Know This Week
Duolingo takes on the TOEFL. Each week, Educating Modern Learners will pick one interesting current event – whether it’s news about education, technology, politics, business, science, or culture – and help put it in context for school leaders, explaining why the news matters and how it might affect teaching and learning (in the short or in the long run). We’re not always going to pick the biggest headline of the week to discuss; the application to education might not be immediately apparent. But hopefully we can provide a unique lens through which to look at news stories and to consider how our world is changing (and how schools need to change as well). This week (the week of July 28), Audrey Watters looks at the language learning app Duolingo and its plans to offer English language certification. … [Read more...]
Teaching and Learning in the Midst of Crisis
In a previous EML article on homelessness, we asked "What does progressive education look like in an age of economic precarity?” To expand on that question: what does it look like in the most fragile of situations? What does education look like among the world’s almost 17 million refugees? How can technology make a difference in their education (and can it)? This isn’t simply a question for refugee camps to address either: how will the growing global population of asylum-seekers and displaced people impact schools and communities? … [Read more...]
What You Should Know This Week
Amazon Kindle Unlimited. Each week, Educating Modern Learners will pick one interesting current event – whether it’s news about education, technology, politics, business, science, or culture – and help put it in context for school leaders, explaining why the news matters and how it might affect teaching and learning (in the short or in the long run). We’re not always going to pick the biggest headline of the week to discuss; the application to education might not be immediately apparent. But hopefully we can provide a unique lens through which to look at news stories and to consider how our world is changing (and how schools need to change as well). This week (the week of July 21), Audrey Watters looks Amazon’s new “Kindle Unlimited” program and claims that it will end libraries as we know it. … [Read more...]
How Video Games Will Save School
Once it was rock-n-roll that was condemned for corrupting the youth. These days, it's often video games that are blamed. Despite a lack of research to tie gaming to negative behaviors, video games still suffer from a fair amount of negative media attention. And perhaps that's part of the reason why schools remain resistant to adopting game-based learning. So why should schools pay attention to video games? Researcher and educator Dean Groom debunks many of the arguments against video games, and points to the kind of learning that video games support. … [Read more...]
How Schools Can Hack their Textbooks
A high school math teacher and instructional technology specialist at Zeeland Public Schools, Anthony DiLaura has brought together teachers in his district to build their own digital textbooks, using open educational resources and other openly licensed media. Here DiLaura writes about the move from static print to interactive content, and what it means for schools to have a more active role in "hacking" the curriculum. … [Read more...]
How Do We Prepare Modern Learners for College?
What will the future of higher education look like? And in the midst of uncertainty as to how to answer that question, how do we prepare students for college? (Or do we?) In this article, Bryan Alexander explores the changing landscape of higher education -- new demands and needs for knowledge, skills, networks, credentials. How can those at the K-12 level help to prepare students and prepare educational institutions to think through these changes and these challenges? … [Read more...]
From the Quantified Student to the Quantified Self
The "quantified self movement” seeks to use technology to track and analyze personal data in order to glean insights about oneself. In this article, EML editor Audrey Watters writes about what, if anything, the “quantified self" might offer for learning. Can this movement help us frame discussions about learning analytics in such a way as to recognize learners’ own goals? Or does the move towards embracing a “quantified student” still foster the same sort of data fixations that education today already suffers from? … [Read more...]