The FCC released a guide to help educators build rich digital learning experiences for students. “The playbook offers information about determining broadband infrastructure for schools and classrooms, leveraging home and community broadband to extend the digital learning environment, and understanding necessary device considerations.” (see more at http://www.fcc.gov/encyclopedia/digital-textbook-playbook )

To view a pdf of the playbook, go to this link http://transition.fcc.gov/files/Digital_Textbook_Playbook.pdf . I’m especially intrigued by the information on pg. 45 about broadband availability at home for qualifying students. These cost factors could significantly help bridge the ever-widening digital divide.

This photo made the rounds on Facebook today. It was originally posted by douglaswray on Instagram.

It’s obviously a humorous take on social media but it also does a really great job of quickly conveying the purpose of each social media tool — plus donuts are yummy.

Three primary benefits of shifting to personal digital learning are presented by Tom Vander Ark in a recent blog post. They are:

1. Equalization of digital learning opportunity will extend access to the best teachers, content, and courses.  When every student (and family) has 24/7 access learning resources more students will graduate ready for college and careers.
2. Customization will boost learning productivity—students will learn more per hour.  In addition to learning at the right level and the ability to varying rate, time, and location, it is becoming increasingly possible for each student to learn in the best modality.  Some students will learn fractions with Khan Academy tutorials, others using the visual approach of ST Math, and still others by the games of Mangahigh.
3. Motivation will boost engagement and persistence—students will learn more hours per year.   Engaging content, more self-directed learning, and tactics borrowed from casual games will extend learning.

How can students benefit from making this shift?

Equalization — Most great teachers attempt to provide multiple pathways for learning. However I’ve experienced instances while working with teachers in which the teacher is unknowingly building roadblocks to learning. It is ridiculous for students to have to wait for the learning until the teacher is ready to get to “that chapter”. It is equally ridiculous for a teacher to proceed with the next concept in a learning progression if some students have not mastered the current concept. Technology can be the equalizer in this dilemma.

Customization — It is difficult for teachers to provide customization or differentiation if they have to create all the different possible pathways to learning by themselves without technology. Online resources offer a vast buffet for customization, teachers do not have to spend all their nights and weekends creating content. When students utilize these resources based on their individual learning styles, I do believe we will see an increase in the speed of learning per hour — let the fast runners run.

Motivation — The literature is rich with information about student motivation. It is high time we were more attentive to that knowledge and made it part of our daily practice.

Over the past year or so, TIE has been embarking on work around the concept of customized learning. We’ve partnered with authors Chuck Schwahn and Bea McGarvey to develop work that supports the book Inevitable. It promotes the idea that we need to stop tinkering with the industrial age mode of education and instead work on some real transformation. We need customization for the masses — Mass Customized Learning (MCL).

To make this transformation we need to break down the weight bearing walls that support our current system. Textbooks area a weight bearing wall. Textbooks present an organized sequence of content and they help teachers know what they are supposed to do. But they prevent us from accessing rich, engaging and nearly unlimited information online. Kevin Honeycutt captures it perfectly, he says, “The web and technology have set out an amazing buffet of teaching and learning tools and for the most part we’re eating the napkins.”

I’ve started to gather resources that represent new ideas about the role of textbooks on my Delicious social bookmarking site. The resources are tagged with the label “textbooks” and you are welcome to explore them with me. The most recent article I tagged is from Mindshift. How to Create Your Own Textbook — With our Without Apple is a good starter article if you want to learn more about new ideas related to textbooks. With the new Common Core standards upon us, it seems like the perfect time to retool the idea of textbooks and explore free open source options that can be accessed online.

I just got back from the NCTM National Conference in Indianapolis. This math is for all teachers teaching grades 5-12. It is so difficult in these grades to provide meaningful yet engaging lessons. Visit www.youcandothecube.com and get information on how you can use our favorite chilhood puzzle, the Rubik’s Cube, in your math classroom. The activities are aligned with national standards as well as 21st Century Skills.

In this blog post, Glenn Wiebe suggests two web sites that are beneficial for the teaching of history. See his original post here: http://historytech.wordpress.com/2011/04/28/best-of-history-web-sites/

The Internet is wonderful for entertainment and interesting content, however, not every site, including YouTube, is necessarily a safe site for kids nor accessible in most school settings because it’s hard to filter out the bad content from the good. Luckily, many of the children’s sites across the Internet publish their own version of YouTube, dedicated exclusively for kids and no one else. Go to Educational Freeware  to find ten video websistes that are safe for kids as well as a lot of other free resources http://tinyurl.com/3ojkvb6 .

Welcome to the 25th annual TIE Conference. It is a pleasure and a privilege to have you
participate in the region’s largest professional development event for
educators. I encourage you to engage fully in all the conference has to offer –
nationally recognized keynote speakers, stimulating breakout sessions, a
technology-rich exhibit hall, fabulous prizes and much, much more.
TIE 2011 reflects the finest in education/government/business partnerships. Through
cooperation and collaboration with schools, professional education
organizations, the South Dakota Department of Education and technology vendors,
TIE leaders have shaped an event that helps participants discover the potential
of sound technology integration for all learners. The result is a conference
that features a wealth of relevant technology-related information for today’s
schools and communities. The enthusiasm and commitment of TIE 2011 partners is
reflected in the breadth and depth of conference activities.

TIE Twitters and we invite you to join in the conversation. You can find a Twitter
TIE-torial here http://xrl.us/twitterattie.
You can follow all the happenings at TIE when you follow the #TIE11 Twitter hashtag.
On Monday evening you are invited to a “big screen” premier of TIE’s latest DVD
production, Digital Citizenship: Breaking the Culture of Mean. Please join us
at the Elks Theatre in downtown Rapid City from 5:30 to 6:30pm for a viewing
and a panel discussion.

At the conclusion of a great TIE Conference, attendees are energized and anxious
to bring ideas and strategies back to the classroom. Often we have so many good
ideas, we lose track of them. This year conference resources from presentations
will be posted on the TIE Conference Ning http://tieconference.ning.com.
We’ve encouraged presenters to post presentations, handouts and links so that
you can easily access them after you return home.

Thanks go to a host of people, organizations and agencies for the success of this
event. Also, as the Director of TIE, I offer a special thanks to the TIE staff
members that work diligently throughout the year to ensure that the TIE
conference is a powerful and productive experience for participants.

TIME  published a thought-provoking article “Zero Tolerance, Zero Sense.” The article looks at two scenarios in which young men violated a policy and were punished according to the Zero Tolerance policy. One situation is commended; the other has a different sort of ending. Read the article and see what you think. Does your organization need to rethink its Zero Tolerance policy?

This blog post from Glenn Wiebe caught my attention. He starts out discussing the passing of Dick Winters:

Major Richard “Dick” Winters was a retired paratrooper who served as a captain in Easy Company, 506th Parachute Regiment, 101st Airborne Division and made famous as part of Stephen Ambrose’s 1992 best-selling book Band of Brothers and Tom Hank’s 2001 HBO mini-series of the same name.

Wiebe goes on to explain the importance of primary sources in education. I agree completely but what I focused on what his question “What stories are we asking our students to write down?”  This question lends itself to education as a whole. Just what are we asking our students to do? Let’s be clear about this and make sure we doing relevant work with them. We need to make conscious decisions when planning lessons and assigning work. Mostly, we need to make sure they are meaningful.

Read Glenn’s post: http://historytech.wordpress.com/2011/03/22/dick-winters-oral-history-and-personal-primary-sources/