Early this week, ABA attended the October 2012 State
Education Technology Directors Association (SEDTA) meeting with our client, SymbaloEdu. What happened at the meeting?
Lots of face to face meetings with delegates we've come to
know, some great sessions including updates from the states on Big
Data initiatives, broadband and device access, preparing high quality
online assessments and accelerating the shift to digital and open content.?? These were preceded by an enlightening
plenary by Betsy Corcoran,
co-founder and CEO of EdSurge.? If you
aren't currently subscribed, you should be at www.edsurge.com.? Her talk focused on the current environment
of innovation, fueled by investment from the new crop of Internet entrepreneurs
with an interest in education.? This
interest coupled with a new economy in which a business can be launched with
very little initial investment, have resulted in a proliferation of education
start-ups trying to reach the market, many of whom solve one small problem in
learning. We will be talking about that in greater depth in an upcoming
article.?
The luncheon program continued the tradition of hearing from
students, and in this case we were treated with perspectives from three high
school boys, each with very different experiences.? All were from Jamesville School District in
Wisconsin.? Cathy White, the Assistive Technology Specialist at the district,
spoke in depth about technology tools she has used with students, not only
those diagnosed with learning challenges, but all students who may have less
obvious challenges to overcome.?
Jamesville is using her knowledge and experience to extend to others in
the teaching staff.?? Atomic Learning has developed
excellent materials for training in this area that schools and districts have
found useful. The ever-increasing movement towards personalized learning
underscores the need for educators to be equipped with this kind of knowledge
to support all learners.? The recognition
of the needs of these three young men, coupled with the necessary tech tools to
serves those unique needs, led to tremendous outcomes in achievement well
beyond what we would have seen even ten years ago.?
The first full day?s program was capped by a panel of
Education Technology leaders, Linda? Roberts, director of technology for the
DOE during the Clinton administration, John
Bailey, who held that
position during the GW Bush years, and Karen Cator, who is currently in that
role.? They shared insights about major
trends including the impact of such trends as mobile and wireless and
personalization.? They agreed that the policy
impact was enormous in the establishment of eRate, and that cloud computing has
shifted companies from annual software releases to iterative modifications and
improvements to Internet delivered learning.?
This is really interesting since for many years the stability of
software throughout the school years was such a factor in product selection for
so long. ?
Most valuable to all of the companies in our industry was
the announced release of State Education
Policy Center, (SEPC) which has been created as a repository of state
policies at http://sepc.setda.org/.? This provides, in one central place, the
unique policies that guide purchasing and use of instructional materials for
the different states.? "The SEPC is
intended to provide up-to-date information regarding select technology-related
education policies and practices to inform school reform and improvement
efforts."? This site is open to the
education community at large in hopes that cross-pollination of ideas will lead
to better policies by all.?
Another important release came from National State School
Boards Association, Born In Another Time, Ensuring Educational Technology Meets
The Needs Of Students Today.? An
executive summary is downloadable at http://assess4ed.net/resources/ensuring-educational-technology-meets-needs-students-today-%E2%80%93-and-tomorrow-nasbe-report-0
Finally, but very importantly was the release of yet another
report, Out of Print, Reimagining? the
K12 Textbook in a Digital Age.?
This more lengthy report can be found at www.SETDA.org.
Some things to remember about this organization?s reports:
These studies and reports are jointly produced
by state and corporate members, so they represent a true collaboration.
While the reports are valuable, active
participation, if appropriate, is far more valuable in the long run.
These reports contain information of value well
beyond the scope of technology.?
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.