:: The 4th Era ::

Today’s Savvy Teachers are Putting the “Learn” in Personal Learning Networks. It should be clear to any educator, or any career-minded individual in any field.

Via Ivon Prefontaine, PhD

The integration of technology in learning is not new. In the 1980s, many schools had fancy calculators, Macintosh computers, and were even teaching students basic coding.

 

This kind of integration often happened at the lesson or activity level, meaning that it was often surface-level, tacked-on, and perhaps a bit superficial.

 

The power of technology is difficult to fully leverage without curriculum-level integration. This means choosing tools, platforms, and policies based on standards, assessment, and instruction. A side benefit to this approach is the possibility of teacher collaboration and “same-pageness.”

Today’s big news is that Coursera, the largest of the MOOC providers, has signed with 10 public statewide systems.

Anya Kamenetz writes in Fast Company:

"Coursera is partnering with 10 major public flagship and state university systems, from the State University of New York to West Virginia University, that collectively enroll 1.25 million of the nation’s 21 million college students. Coursera’s existing university partnerships with schools like Stanford and Penn mainly involve professors creating and offering online courses to several million users on the platform. These new public partnerships, however, are aimed at using MOOCs to enhance teaching, learning, and collaboration not only for online students around the world, but also for students already physically attending classes at these universities, and high school students who hope to enroll there."