How to teach young children in the digital age

A new report recommends how to integrate digital media effectively into young children's education.

As research suggests more than half of children ages 5-8 have used a mobile device such as a smart phone, iPod touch, or iPad, a new report offers recommendations for how policy makers and education leaders can take a more robust and modern approach to helping young students learn and develop in the digital age.

Take a Giant Step,” from the Digital Age Teacher Preparation Council, finds that the integration of innovative, research-based training models for early childhood educators is a key element missing in the design of high-quality early learning programs.

The Digital Age Teacher Preparation Council, established by the Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop and the Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education and co-chaired by Stanford University professor Linda Darling-Hammond and Cooney Center Executive Director Michael H. Levine, reviewed research from foundations and government agencies and discovered that fewer than half of all early learning programs in the U.S. are considered high quality and promote significant learning among underserved students.…Read More

New PBS resource could help advance digital learning

PBS LearningMedia contains digital content specifically created for use in the classroom.

The Public Broadcasting System and Boston-based PBS station WGBH are releasing a new digital media platform for pre-kindergarten through college, called PBS LearningMedia. The site will provide digital content tied to curriculum standards and will be available in both a free and premium format.

Rob Lippincott, senior vice president of education for PBS, said the system—expected to be announced June 27—has been in development since the emergence of WGBH’s Teachers’ Domain and PBS’ Digital Learning Library.

“LearningMedia is a merger of those two efforts to create a single national educational media platform for public media,” Lippincott said.…Read More

Gates gives $20M for digital learning, Common Core curriculum

$3M will go to the Pearson Foundation to create 24 online courses supporting the Common Core standards; four of these courses will be free to schools.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation announced April 27 that it will be investing more than $20 million in game-based learning and other digital tools to help usher the new Common Core standards into the classroom.

The foundation wants to help teachers engage students in learning the challenging new standards being adopted by more than 40 states. It says some of the web-based games, social-networking platforms, and online courses will be available for any teacher to use free of charge.

The new tools will include video games that build proficiency in math, reading, and science, as well as a new game platform that can be used for various subjects. The grants also include money for web-based classes aligned with the new common standards.…Read More

The top 10 ed-tech stories of 2010: No. 5

The National Educational Technology Plan reflected the changing classroom environment and the need for better technology training

In March, the Education Department (ED) released a draft version of its new National Educational Technology Plan, and after collecting responses from the public, the department issued a final version of the new plan in November.

The plan calls for engaging and empowering learning experiences for all students; standards and assessments that measure key 21st-century skills and expertise; a shift to a model of “connected teaching,” in which teams of interconnected educators replace solo classroom practitioners; always-on connectivity that is available to students and teachers both inside and outside of school; and a rethinking of basic assumptions, such as seat time, that limit schools’ ability to innovate.

Julie Evans, CEO of the nonprofit organization Project Tomorrow, said the plan provides some “long-overdue recommendations” for how technology can enhance education.…Read More

Panel: Remove barriers to digital learning

The Digital Learning Council's blueprint aims to personalize learning.

Digital and blended learning opportunities have the potential to improve U.S. education dramatically, because they can help teachers provide a more personal learning experience for their students, according to the Digital Learning Council (DLC), a nonprofit, nonpartisan advocacy group led by former governors Bob Wise of West Virginia, a Democrat, and Jeb Bush of Florida, a Republican. But for this to happen, policy makers must remove barriers to digital learning such as archaic school funding formulas and seat-time requirements, the council argues.

The DLC on Dec. 1 introduced its “Ten Elements of High-Quality Digital Learning,” a blueprint for how digital learning can transform education. On Dec. 2, the Alliance for Excellent Education (All4Ed), of which Wise is president, held a webinar to discuss the DLC’s blueprint.

“Students today are living in a digital age, and they are learning digitally everywhere except for school,” said Wise. “If you are eligible for public school, you should be eligible for publicly-funded digital learning.”…Read More

Panelists: Digital tools expand learning opportunities

Access to digital learning opportunities is critical for U.S. students' success, panelists said.
Access to digital learning opportunities is critical for U.S. students' success, panelists said.

The nation’s director of education technology called on schools to replace textbooks with mobile learning devices, and the head of the Federal Communications Commission said his agency would be voting this week on whether to lift some restrictions on the use of federal e-Rate funds to help deliver broadband access to more students, during a Sept. 21 panel discussion about the implications of digital-age learning.

Investments in broadband access and mobile learning devices are essential to helping students learn the skills they’ll need to compete on a global scale, said panelists during “Back to School: Learning and Growing in a Digital Age,” hosted by Common Sense Media, the Children’s Partnership, PBS Kids, and the University of Southern California’s Annenberg Center on Communication Leadership and Policy.

“In some ways, this country is in a serious crisis when it comes to education and the underinvestment in our kids over the last 30 years,” said Jim Steyer, CEO and founder of Common Sense Media, during his opening remarks.…Read More

Publishing giant makes $400M commitment to ed tech

HMH says it's putting out a call to action to the industry to speed up digital learning in the classroom.
HMH says it's putting out a call to action to speed up digital learning in the classroom.

Educational publishing giant Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH) is making a $400 million investment to back up the company’s increasing emphasis on putting more technology into classrooms. The reason, HMH says, is because it no longer accepts the status quo in public education.

“We are living in challenging times—but the challenge of fixing public education is one challenge we simply have to meet,” said company CEO Barry O’Callaghan in an interview with eSchool News. “We need to bear down on what works in the classroom and provide schools and teachers with the tools and resources they need to be effective. Then we need to assess progress, measure results, and do what works best for each child.”

The investment, announced Sept. 13, includes $100 million in incubator money for education technology that supports student achievement. Through this new Innovation Fund, HMH will provide capital and product expertise to budding educational entrepreneurs.…Read More

Opinion: Corporate policy making would result in a net loss

Eric Schmidt, chairman and CEO of Google, and Lowell McAdam, president and CEO of Verizon Wireless, are two major players in the net neutrality debate.
Eric Schmidt, chairman and CEO of Google, and Lowell McAdam, president and CEO of Verizon Wireless, announced a business partnership last year. (AP)

Default Lines column, September 2010 edition of eSchool News—The future of digital-age learning could hinge on the boardroom deals being made by giant corporations as they seek to head off “net neutrality” regulations … and education leaders ought to speak up to make sure their voices are heard on this critical issue.

As we report in our story “Net-neutrality agreement sparks concerns,” Google and Verizon have floated a plan they hope can serve as a framework for federal regulators in drafting rules for net neutrality, which is the idea that internet providers can’t discriminate against certain types of traffic flowing over their lines. But several public-interest groups have slammed the companies’ proposal, saying it would lead to a two-tiered system of internet use that favors large organizations over smaller competitors.

The plan hatched by Google and Verizon would prevent service providers from slowing down, blocking, or charging to prioritize internet traffic flowing over their regular broadband lines. But it exempts wireless carriers from these restrictions. It also leaves room for broadband providers to charge extra to route traffic from so-called “premium services” over dedicated networks that are separate from the public internet.…Read More

Former governors fight for digital learning

The Council says it will create policies around digital learning. Copyright: Shareski
The newly formed Digital Learning Council says it will create policies around digital learning. Copyright: Shareski

Part of providing a 21st-century education means incorporating digital resources into the classroom, but not every school has the knowledge or necessary to implement education technology successfully. To help remedy this situation, former Republican Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida and former Democratic Gov. Bob Wise of West Virginia have put their party differences aside to head a new Digital Learning Council that will create implementation guidelines for states and schools.

According to Bush and Wise, technological innovations have already changed the way the nation works, shops, and entertains itself. The Digital Learning Council aims to help transform education by moving digital learning to the forefront of education and away from the niche role it plays today.

“Today, more than two million students take courses online and 1.5 million home education students take online courses, but that barely scratches the surface of what is possible through technology,” said a statement from the nonprofit Alliance for Excellent Education (AEE), of which Wise is president.…Read More

Ten winners snag $1.7M total in digital competition

Ten digital learning projects will be funded through a $1.7M grant program.
Ten digital learning projects will receive a total of $1.7M from the MacArthur Foundation.

A project to show youth-produced videos on 2,200 Los Angeles city buses, the next generation of a graphical programming language that allows young people to create their own interactive features, and an online game that teaches kids the environmental impact of their personal choices are among 10 winning projects that will share $1.7 million in funding to create new “learning labs of the 21st century” through the MacArthur Digital Media and Learning Competition.

The competition winners will use games, mobile phone applications, virtual worlds, and social networks to advance learning in the 21st century, the foundation said.

It is digital technologies such as these that ensure learning evolves with students, said Connie Yowell, the foundation’s director of education.…Read More

McGraw-Hill moves beyond electronic textbooks, but obstacles remain

McGraw-Hill Cos.’ McGraw Hill Education unit is venturing further into digital learning with the release of a new internet-based elementary-school reading program, reports the Wall Street Journal. At least, it will try to do this. The unit, whose textbooks and other learning materials provide about 40 percent of the parent company’s revenue, is launching its LEAD21 literacy curriculum in partnership with Intel Corp., offering the materials on the chip maker’s “Classmate” personal computer, built specifically for elementary-school students. The Wi-Fi enabled devices are waterproof and vaguely resemble toys. But with schools strapped for cash and teachers still hesitant about digital devices after some e-readers came up short for educational purposes, the companies could face an uphill battle. “You want all the bells and whistles, but the schools tend to be not all that sophisticated,” said Peter Appert, a Piper Jaffray analyst who covers McGraw-Hill. While digital textbooks are generally cheaper than their hard-copy counterparts, the up-front costs of supplying devices for an entire school or district can be prohibitive…

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