B.Y.O.T Bring Your Own Thoughts
The latest on all student-centered models, leadership development, strategic planning, teacher retention, and all things innovation in K-12 education. We answer questions before you think to ask them.
Blended Learning | Education Elements | Innovative Leadership | Personalized Learning | Teams & Culture
This year, at iNACOL’s annual conference on blended and online learning, we were honored to host and celebrate the launch of Michael Horn’s and Heather Staker’s book, “Blended: Using Disruptive Innovation to Improve Schools.” For a special edition of the book, they allowed me to write a preface focused on how superintendents should think about blended learning, and I’m grateful for that. If you didn’t make it to the book launch party in Palm Springs, you missed some good fun, but don’t worry, you can still get a copy of the preface here. Both Michael and Heather are two amazing people who truly care about innovation in education. I’m thankful for the work they do to provide thought leadership in making blended learning and innovation a way of life for all educators and students.
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Curriculum Strategy & Adoption
The last two weeks of my life have reinforced, affirmed, validated, bolstered...the fact that there is only one body that knows best about your customer’s needs and that is the customer themself. As obvious as that seems, I can recall countless times that I have seen the customer’s needs remain hidden despite asking all of the right questions, and doing what appears to be thorough due diligence. We all understand the value of stakeholder feedback, but how do we ensure we are talking to the right stakeholders? …. it would be really cool if I now gave you the right answer… but that would defeat the “question mark” at the end of my sentence. The ever present challenge of accurately identifying customer needs became apparent to me the last two weeks when I had the opportunity to (a) sit with good people (who are great clients) and listen to some of the “fallout” related to some minor product changes, and (b) participate in strategic planning with a new partner who is thoughtfully building a new instructional environment and instructional model because their old partners didn’t take the time to listen. Meetings like these are invaluable, and while we do them often, I know we still don't do them enough.
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Blended Learning | Personalized Learning
Except for the fact that our whole team is so tired it is hard to get anyone to put a full sentence together, we kinda wish we could go to iNACOL once a month, not once a year. Being at a conference surrounded by smart, passionate, people that recognize the need to fundamentally shift the way we educate students now in order to enable every student to succeed is pretty exciting. I’m not going to lie, the conversations I overheard during meals are a nice change from what I hear in a typical restaurant - even while eating cheesy egg sandwiches at 7 am I was impressed with both the level of understanding and the thirst for knowledge expressed by conference attendees. So what did we do as a result? Well, we tried to capture all that energy and excitement with a personalized learning map!
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Blended Learning | Curriculum Strategy & Adoption
I recently went over the DOs and DON’Ts of choosing hardware to suit your blended learning needs. A lot of you may be saying, "Thanks for the advice, but what can you tell me about the actual devices?" Well, that’s what this week’s post is all about!
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