Comments on My K-12 Blind Spot

• Check out Twitter
• Posted by Michael Ritter , Professor at UWSP on December 3, 2009 at 6:15am EST

• Hop on to your favorite Twitter client and search on #edtech

• K-12 does know about online education
• Posted by Ray Rose , President at Rose & Smith Associates on December 3, 2009 at 6:15am EST

• Thank you Joshua, I've been saying this for a long time.

  The virtual high school movement has been alive and growing strong over the past decade. We started it in 1995. More than a third of all high school students are in some form of online course, and it is one of the fastest growing areas of K-12 education. Most of the online education programs require online instructors to have online professional development before they can teach online. We know, from the research, that teachers teach the way they've been taught.

  If you want to know about K-12 online education look at iNACOL.org. There you'll find a number of research briefs on a variety of issues,standards for online courses, and reports on the current state of online education. Over half of the states currently support an online education program at the secondary level. Two states require an online education experience as part of the high school graduation requirements.

  You'll find that the K-12 virtual school movement has done a considerable amount of thinking about online pedagogy. Much more so than I find in most higher education programs. There's a lot higher education can learn about technology integration in learning environments.education program.)

  Publications that you might be interested in, eSchool News and Ed Week both cross the K-12 IHE divide.

  You'll find there are a number of disruptive thinkers in the K-12 space, and virtual education has been identified as one of those disruptive technologies that is changing the way we educate our youth.

  I'd be very happy to continue the discussion.

• Edutopia
• Posted by K Klein , Computer Studies at Onondaga Community College on December 3, 2009 at 6:45am EST

• Check out:

  http://www.edutopia.org/

  I also adjunct at the largest teacher preparer in NY State. I have been doing future-oriented work with teacher candidates for a decade.

  KK

• sharing info
• Posted by random thoughts at mid-sized public university on December 3, 2009 at 9:45am EST

• Many of us lack time to follow all of these developments. It would be wonderful if someone could cull all of the information coming from K12 use of technology and give the rest of us periodic updates on some of the most promising innovations.

• A great example
• Posted by G. Robertson , Instructional Develoment and Assessment Department at Colorado Christian Univeristy on December 3, 2009 at 10:00am EST

• A "look what can be done" resource I've used to show my post secondary colleagues what some of our future students will expect when they go to college is a wonderful website, mrcoley.com. This is the e-learning part of his 5th grade classroom and is a wonderful example of what e-learning can be at any level.

• Factors to consider
• Posted by Dr. Pepper , Academic-in-Training at US Northeast on December 3, 2009 at 10:30am EST

• Things have changed a lot (it seems) from when I was in high school (only 11 years!). I know that in technology terms it's a huge leap, but in terms of budgets and administrator mentality it probably isn't.

  This post comes at an opportune time. In one of my classes we've got a lot of K-12 teachers and it's interesting to compare notes. Some wealthier communities are experimenting with Moodle (and so are the teachers in my classes), but it seems like a big funding divide. Even if you have an LMS in place, you are supposing that kids do have access to a computer at home, with internet, to check things out and submit assignments before the next class session. You are also assuming that parents are up to speed with technology to supervise their kids online. I know people that have a "minimum screen time" policy with their kids. This includes television, video games and computers. If given the choice the kid will say "TV or DSi" instead of "oh! moodle! moodle! please moodle!"

  In a higher ed environment, students who come in have access to on campus computer labs, libraries that stay open late, dorms with internet access. If you've gotten to college you have money (or you got it somehow), and if you don't know what you're doing tech-wise, chances are that someone near you does! In a K-12 environment it's a totally different ballgame (at least the way things are now)

• Posted by Steve Foerster on December 3, 2009 at 12:45pm EST

• The article and comments make it seem, probably unintentionally, that Moodle is primarily a K-12 technology and Blackboard primarily a higher education one. My middle schooler uses Blackboard, whereas I teach community college courses using Moodle.

• Additional Resources
• Posted by Shana Glenzer , Blackboard, K-12 on December 3, 2009 at 12:45pm EST

• Josh – great post. Working in the online learning space, it’s funny to hear how word about use of technology in K-12 spreads. Mostly it is parents learning from their kids – so you’re not alone.

   

  Over the years I’ve come to trust a few people, groups and resources about trends in K-12 technology and specifically online learning.

   

  Julie Evans at Project Tomorrow (www.tomorrow.org or @ProjectTomorrow) leads a survey effort (called Speak Up) to collect the opinions of students, teachers, parents and administrators and provides great data analysis about trends, etc. iNACOL (International Association for K-12 Online Learning), as mentioned above, also publishes some great reports. http://www.inacol.org/research/reports.php

   

  When it comes to blogs for the latest info, I often check out EdWeek Digital Directions blog: http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/DigitalEducation/ and the Disrupting Class blog: http://disruptingclass.mhprofessional.com/apps/ab/.

   

  ISTE’s Special Interest Groups gather like-minded K-12 educators around many different issues related to technology and education. They’ve got loads of great ideas: http://www.iste.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=SIGs&Template=/CM/HTMLDisplay.cfm&ContentID=18214.

   

  Finally, I’m enamored with Twitter for the K-12 EdTech information I can gather from individuals there. Some of the folks I follow (and it’s a very limited list) are @tvanderark, @flvs, @sherylabshire, @educationweek, @douglevin, @John_Bailey and @blackboard (obviously!).

   

  I’m sure I could ramble more, but hope this gets you rolling….

   

  Shana Glenzer, (shana.glenzer@blackboard.com or @sglenzer).

   

   

• An example from Austrailia
• Posted by Lisa , Instructional Technologist at Idaho State University on December 3, 2009 at 1:00pm EST

• http://human.edublogs.org/ is a blog example from Austrailia.

• research study?
• Posted by Joshua Kim at Dartmouth College on December 3, 2009 at 4:45pm EST

• A clear case where the discussion is way more informative then the original post. Thank you. The resources, links, Twitter handles mentioned form the basis for an environmental scan of the K-12 ed. tech space.

  I'm thinking about a research paper that looks at ed. tech. across secondary and post-secondary levels - anyone interested in working on something like this?

• Research Paper
• Posted by Shari Pobjecky at Desire2Learn - K12 on December 3, 2009 at 6:00pm EST

• Josh -

  I'm currently working on a research project involving ePortfolio as part of my dissertation. If you're interested, let me knkow.

  I also rep Desire2Learn into K-12 markets in North America. By the way - by number of users, D2L is the largest provider of Learning Management Systems to K12 in North America.

• weblogged is a blog I like
• Posted by steve , librarian at bluegrass college on December 3, 2009 at 6:00pm EST

• http://weblogg-ed.com/ is Will Richardson's blog which has good ideas.

  From what I have seen, it looks like the K-12 world is ahead of higher ed in many ways.

• Lots of innovation in K-12
• Posted by sylvia martinez on December 5, 2009 at 6:00pm EST

• There is actually a lot of innovation in ed tech going on in K-12, and it's certainly disruptive. There is a lively and ongoing conversation on Twitter (I'm @smartinez if you want to follow me) or follow my blog at http://blog.genyes.com . I run an organization called Generation YES (http://www.genyes.com ) where we work with K-12 schools and teach students how to teach technology to teachers and peers. It's reverse mentoring, and very effective for all involved.

  If you are looking for more blogs on the cutting edge of K-12 education and technology, a nice "top 50" list is here: http://www.dangerouslyirrelevant.org/2008/06/top-50-p-12-edu.html

• TONS of technology integration at my school
• Posted by Marjorie , Kindergarten Teacher at Elementary School on February 15, 2011 at 7:45pm EST
• I ran across your page while looking for educational apps. for my class Ipad. I teach kindergarten at a Title 1, magnet school in Texas. My school focuses a lot on math, science and technology integration! Currently..my kindergarteners use a smart board, smart table, itouches, ipad, macbooks & flip cams on a daily basis. We have done voice threading, voki, odosketch and used a number of other interactive sights to enhance our learning! Granted, I know not all schools and teachers have access to the technology that costs a great deal of money...but there are SOOO many free resources that lend themselves to a wide scope of possibilities for educators.I think it is incredibly important that our students of all ages come to be digital natives and learn things in a technological way! Especially for students who are not always adept at writing what they know to show mastery, technology has been a wonderful way to assess student progress, needs, etc! This morning in fact, my kindergarteners were photographed by the Dallas Morning News while they worked in groups of 3 to create a keynote (powerpoint for the macbook) on nouns and then record their own voices explaining why their chosen pictures where in fact nouns!!! It is truly amazing what kids can do when they are introduced to all these wonderful tools! I am only a second year teacher...so I have turned to my super-fabulous mentor (who happens to have a masters in technology integration!) I might be a little biased...but if you are looking to see how often technology is used at a primary level, check out her class blog:
  https://gblog.garlandisd.net/users/cmcarrio/weblog/