Greenhaus Education and Other "Effects"

I found this very interesting TED talk this morning by Daphne Koller from Stanford University. She speaks about the power of online learning to reach thousands of people who otherwise do not have access to education opportunities, as well as the capabilities of the online learning environment. Coursera is the social entrepreneurship company she helped develop that works with the universities to sponsor the courses she is referencing. Koller gives a great argument for using technology to not only reach more students, but provide personalized curriculum and feedback and expand the creativity and thinking of students via the online environment. Online learning can bring active learning and formative assessment and ignite student creativity and learning rather than just giving them information.  Her approach is that universities should be providing this content free so that anyone can change their lives, expand their minds, and make the world a better place. While listening to her, ...

I posted an article a while back about my thoughts on the flipped classroom: Math Anxiety and the Flipped Classroom .  In this post, I basically expressed my concern that many teachers are using the flipped model to continue the same traditional way of teaching - lecture and homework, and merely switching where these things happened. If this is how the model is being used, especially in math, it is not going to improve student learning because it's the same old thing. My hope was that those embracing this model were truly doing something different - really using the class time to connect with their students, provide collaborative learning experiences, engaging in real-world applications, projects and extending the learning to make connections - not just reviewing homework. In short, teaching DIFFERENT in the classroom - where the classroom becomes a student-centered learning experience, not just a regurgitation of what they saw/learned in the online 'lecture'. That's...

There is now apparently a community site for teachers on YouTube, designed to help teachers integrate videos into classroom instruction.  The tech integration part of me is really excited by the idea - it sounds like YouTube is putting some thought behind the site as well, by including tips on organizing and using the videos to help students and spark discussion and providing ways for teachers to create their own page and identify specific videos for learing. I couldn't find information on where these videos are coming from, so I am a bit skepticle about the quality, but I see this as pretty promising support for teachers, especially as there is the inclusion of a community forum where folks can post teaching ideas and ask questions. Being curious, I had to check out the site YoutTube.com/teachers  I just did a quick look - will have to explore later, but it has a way to search and organize videos, crand offers suggestions for use in your room, let's you create y...