The Global Search For Education – Give Them Access, They Will Come
Feb28

The Global Search For Education – Give Them Access, They Will Come

Congratulations to Dr. Sugata Mitra on winning the 2013 TED Prize.  While I am not entirely sure of what your School in a Cloud model will ultimately look like, allow me to share some thoughts and perspectives as you continue your journey to build it. After screening the soon to be released film Girl Rising last night, I am convinced we need a School in a Cloud concept to help solve the tragic problem of children who have no school at...

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The Global Search for Education: Social Learning
Feb21

The Global Search for Education: Social Learning

 “Edmodo has been a platform that can be adapted to any type of classroom in the US and in every part of the world. We already have over 17,000,000 users.” — Crystal Hutter  Have you done your Edmodo, honey? Yes that’s right, I said “Edmodo,” not “homework” or even “school work”. An impressive 17 million plus users worldwide are doing their Edmodo.  The company’s...

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The Global Search for Education: Health and Education
Feb11

The Global Search for Education: Health and Education

 “Highly prevalent, specific health problems have powerful effects on students’ motivation and ability to learn, and have not been addressed well in our nation’s schools.” — Chuck Basch  Today I begin a series of articles to focus on problems that affect our domestic achievement gap, with the objective of identifying solutions for these issues. Should health disparities be a fundamental part of...

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The Global Search for Education: If not the SAT, What?
Feb04

The Global Search for Education: If not the SAT, What?

 “Multiple choice tests have been the dominant type of test in this country since World War I, but that is about to change.” — Roger Benjamin  What if educators were able to assess the 21st century skills that thought leaders in The Global Search for Education series talk about week after week?  What if this 21st century replacement for the SAT was able to measure high school students’ critical thinking,...

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The Global Search for Education: What Is the Fourth Way?
Jan28

The Global Search for Education: What Is the Fourth Way?

 “We need to establish platforms for teachers to initiate their own changes and make their own judgments on the frontline, to invest more in the change capacities of local districts and communities, and to pursue prudent rather than profligate approaches to testing.” — Andy Hargreaves and Dennis Shirley  The Fourth Way is a powerful new vision to bring about effective educational reform. Even after one has...

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The Global Search for Education: Internet Sharing Programs
Jan21

The Global Search for Education: Internet Sharing Programs

 “The strength of the Wikiwijs platform is that we are now able to make all learning materials available for all teachers in the entire country to share.  Everyone can access the materials through one port of entry.” — Robert Schuwer  The goal of the Netherlands Wikiwijs program, when it was launched by the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science five years ago, was to mainstream the use of open...

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