Ed tech continues to change schooling—and our kids too, though maybe not altogether for the good:
- More than 35,000 Mississippi kindergartners—about 64%–didn’t meet the state’s readiness guidelines, and those who spent the 2017-18 school year in Head Start scored only one point higher than those who stayed home. The state’s solution: Get them on UPSTART loaded with animated lessons, songs, and games introducing them to the connections between letter and sounds, etc. for 15 minutes a day. Most spent an average of 100 minutes/week. Kids are pre-tested beforehand.
Early education experts caution that a computer program can’t replace an actual classroom where kids develop social skills, interact with other kids and their teacher.
- Researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s effectiveness and inequality initiative investigated highly touted “flipped learning” at West Point and found only short-term gains in math and none in economics. Moreover, “the flipped model broadened the achievement gap.”
Their warning and conclusion: “Educators should exercise caution when considering the [flipped learning] model.
- Many teachers struggle to find materials that align with NGSS’s call for question- and discovery-based science instruction. Now, though, comes word that OpenSciEd is gradually making available curriculum-based material it claims is NGSS-based to the public. 6th grade covers thermal energy; 7th grade deals with metabolic reactions; and in 8th it’s sound waves.
- Trending: Field trips using virtual reality, offering students 360-degree views which they navigate via their touchscreens. Google Expeditions has already taken more 3 million students nationwide on such trips. No comparison to the real thing but still…
With my thanks, do you love tech’s takeover of our lives, or, like me, have your doubts? ~ Carol