Perhaps nobody told you, but over 1.35 million objects from the Smithsonian's 19 museums, 9 major research centers, and the national zoo have been recently released and combined with custom tools to support rich, digital learning around the globe using the largest treasure trove of historical assets in the world. Somewhere between 9 and 10am EST on a chilly Thursday [...]
Increasing access to educational opportunities that are truly College and Career Ready is a tall order...particularly in the nation's 2nd largest school district. However, for those prepared to roll up their sleeves and wade deep into rooms of teachers looking to legitimately analyze and examine their curricular approaches from basic assignments to key assessments, good things can happen. Coaching teams of [...]
I loved my time teaching high school. I watched my own kids' largely enjoy their time in high school. I always look forward to working with high school teachers and being inspired by their passion. But I bristle whenever I have to contend with some general, grandiose statement applied to a high school wether it comes during a principal's well-intentioned [...]
Today we've launched an exciting new set of online professional development authoring tools within our education platform Cartographi. That was the easy part; the program content on the other hand presents a more complex set of issues. It is always exciting to move from the initial project planning on the whiteboard to then months later launching out a whole new [...]
Blended learning starts with moving learning activities into a digital environment where students can access independently from the regular classroom delivery process. But that's just the beginning. For years, we have been examining the steps by which effective teachers organize, construct, deliver, and support learning through the process of selecting viable learning objects, materials, creating supporting instruction, verbal guidance and [...]
A call for more advanced thinking in the development of digital curricular formats designed to capture the way open learning objects and resources are organized and framed by educators to create quality instructional experiences for students. More regularly now, we are asked to look at and provide feedback to various agencies and projects that are forging the tricky waters of [...]
As part of a work-related project, I was reading the Smithsonian's Strategic Plan entitled, A Smithsonian for the 21st Century. Under the heading of Broadening Access, I was inspired by the following excerpt: ...we will leverage the power of technology using new media and social networking tools to deliver information in customized ways and bring our resources to those who [...]
