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Personalized Learning through Adaptive Technology

Personalized

Over the past few months, you may have heard some chatter about personalized learning through adaptive technology. Not surprising.

The Brookings Institution referred to personalized learning as a major movement in education. Murray (2017) stated that colleges and universities are increasingly seeking ways to customize curriculum and learner outcomes via adaptive technology to match student-needs based on unique learning profiles.

And as with any new development in higher education, faculty is chiming in with, “Can I use this for my courses?” “…and, how?” The short answer? Absolutely. The longer answer? Read on to find out how. Continue reading “Personalized Learning through Adaptive Technology”

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Kickin It Old School…Tech in 2009

2009

Teachers’ Use of Educational Technology in U. S. Public Schools, 2009: First Look provides national data on the availability and use of educational technology among teachers in public elementary and secondary schools.  The purpose is two-fold: (a) to determine the availability of technology and (b) to determine how often technology is used.  The teacher survey included: (a) information on the use of computers and Internet access in the classroom, (b) availability and use of computing devices and software, (c) availability of school or district networks including remote access by teachers and students, (d) use of educational technology, (e) teacher preparation for  educational technology in instruction, and (f) technology-related professional development activities.   Continue reading “Kickin It Old School…Tech in 2009”

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Can Technology Make Curriculum Cool?

Over the past few months, you may have heard some talk about Curriculum, Instruction and Technology (CIT) as one of the new specializations for the old Masters of Education (M.Ed.) degree.  Not surprising.

Tech is cool. Curriculum is anything but.  Technology has been a part of the social fabric for about 20 years, or so. Curriculum was carved into stone tablets back in ancient Greece, by Plato or Aristotle, or someone. Think of technology as a much-needed injection of youth serum into curriculum. Technology has fostered new learning theories, new gadgets for instruction, and new ways of doing…well,  just about everything. Continue reading “Can Technology Make Curriculum Cool?”

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7 Tips for Making Technology Integration More Human

TIS

Recently, I was speaking with a technology integration specialist (TIS) whose position is new for her district.  Her goal is to make it the norm for “teachers to be able to request TIS services for 1:1 coaching with any device or app or curriculum activity”.  She  is working to make both herself and the purpose of her position known, while generating ideas and trainings for teachers where technology-use lacks right now.  Continue reading “7 Tips for Making Technology Integration More Human”

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Surveys for Technology Plan Building

I am teaching a graduate course on systemic change. During the course, the subject of building public schools technology plans has come up. When writing a technology plan, a survey is intended to compile information about the current status and future plans for the use of technology in the district. Surveys may be given to staff, students, community members and parents.  In Massachusetts, the commonwealth provides a tool called the Technology Self-Assessment Tool (TSAT). The TSAT has been designed for:

  1. Teachers: to determine their own levels of technology proficiency and to identify personal technology professional development needs.
  2. Schools/Districts: to assess their professional development needs and to plan professional development activities that will help all teachers become proficient in technology.
  3. The State: to gather and report data on technology competencies and technology professional development.

Many technology directors use this when writing their technology plans. I think it is a dated tool and I won’t document he agony of trying to login and how it requires teachers to have a separate (from ELAR) login to use.

Here is an alternative. I think you will find it much better than the TSAT.

Survey Tools for Schools

The Friday Institute has developed a set of surveys to help K-12 school leaders make data-based decisions in their schools or district. On this site, you can create an online version of any of our surveys for easy distribution, data collection and data review. Each survey is unique – you can create surveys for individual schools in your district and new surveys can be created each year. All surveys will be saved in your account so you can access your data at any time.

Once a survey is created in your account, you will be able to:

  • Monitor real-time response rates
  • Extract survey result data
  • View visualizations of survey data

Please note: You will need a valid Google account to access this tool, and you will need to use the same Google account each time you log in to access your data.

https://surveys.fi.ncsu.edu/

Let me know what you think, below.