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Articles By Victor Rivero |
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Gaming in education is big, and growing bigger, which prompts questions such as "How will serious games integrate into existing learning experiences?" and "Are they actually proven to get results?" Victor offers some thoughts from a market report, then lays out "games, games, games," plus some resources for more information.
Here are somewhat physical artifacts, actual or nearly actual objects that you can pick up and use. They have some weight, they involve dexterity, they are extensions of our hands and minds, and they do well to serve us in learning and experiencing the world around us.
Learning a language in an age of collaborative technologies, such as are now available with video-based and other interactive, adaptive, and personalized learning platforms, has made for a different experience! If you grew up sitting in a high school language class, try some of the tools Victor reports on and you'll see!
Taking on a common task with others—collaborating in an authentic, engagement type of situation—is not merely busywork. It's either practice for real work, or real work itself! That's what project-based learning offers, and Victor offers lots of PBL-oriented resources.
Open education, a collective term describing programs and practices that work to broaden access to learning and training traditionally offered through formal education systems, needs initiatives, open materials, and content to succeed. Victor describes the movement, a range of just such initiatives, and pathways to open educational resources in this month's Tools for Learning.
Victor spoke with a range of luminaries—from the Flipped Learning Network, SolidProfessor, and Techsmith—plus an in-the-trenches educator to illuminate the flipped learning concept and bring you both up-to-speed and up-to-date on "The Key to Flipped Learning."
The Common Core State Standards seek to "emphasize increasing the complexity of texts students read as a key element in improving reading comprehension," according to a brief issued by the Council of Chief State School Officers and the National Governor's Association. Is it working? Victor has some thoughts, and, as usual, some tools to use.
Victor provides today's budding researcher-students with basic advice to consider before diving into a research project and with an array of online tools and resources to tap into once the project is underway.
LMSs have come a long way. As author Victor notes, today's systems are more accommodating to social learning and collaboration and to mobile learning, allowing for course content delivery, student registration, curriculum management, assessment, reporting, and more.
Victor takes the tack that "We are not alone," given recent projections about the number of Earth-like planets out there in solar systems in our galaxy ... and other galaxies. And so, he posits, we'd better get our own house in order before making contact! To that end, he offers an updated list of internet-based tools and resources your students can tap to learn about us and our world.
Like them or not, after years of development and adoption, 2014-15 marks implementation year for CCSS. In the assessment realm, there are innovative solution providers out there, many with die-hard educators among their ranks, that have toiled tirelessly toward authentically improving learning and assessment for students and teachers. Victor walks us through a range of them.
Student devices are enjoying widespread use in classrooms. The usage question is no longer about "how much," but about "how well." Victor's got some stats, plus views and advice from a range of educators.
For you, for your colleagues, for your students, or for your own pursuits—and in celebration of research—Victor provides a variety of useful tools for learning in the areas of search, research, and discovery for life and learning.
As Victor Rivero reports, education apps account for 10.6 percent of available apps on Apple Store ... and that's 10.6 percent of a whole lot of apps! What's needed, then, is not another list of the 20 best, but a guide to the aggregators of education apps.
With increasingly widespread adoption and integration of Common Core's Next Generation Science Standards and Visual and Performing Art Standards, and with educators seeking solutions to combine the best features in a cross-discipline approach to science and the arts, the time for STEM to STEAM has come.
There's a place for digital citizenship education throughout our school experience, from elementary to post-secondary. So this month, Victor has gathered some excellent resources on the subject of teaching this timely topic. Read 'em, use 'em. It's practically an educator's digital civic duty!
Victor offers up some excellent views on the current state and trajectory of social media in K-12 education. And he then connects you with a half dozen currently hot spaces, places, and tools you can use to leverage the concept.
Yes, it's a mobile world. And educators see great potential with mobile technologies in transforming education. But few schools allow students to use family-owned mobile devices in the classroom.
Tim Springer (HERO, Inc.), Don Orth (director of technology at Hillbrook School), and Chris Petrick (Bretford Manufacturing) discuss what it takes to create a mobile world for an academic setting, the issues and challenges, advice on managing the process, and the purposes behind it all.
In 2010, digital textbooks accounted for just 1% of the U.S. textbook market. In 2012, it was 5.5 percent. And it's climbing. Victor offers a company-by-company look providing you with some idea of what lies ahead.
The Common Core offers a uniform, nationwide measure of where our students are and where they need to be, and Victor's Tools for Learning feature this month provides you with a descriptive list of companies that can help you get started.
In this Tools for Learning feature, Victor explores some of the technologies, tools, and platforms that will enable you to succeed in implementing the new flipped classroom teaching and learning model.
Under the sun, moon, and stars, there's plenty to explore when it comes to "mobile in education," and the success of BYOD as a concept is a compelling reason to start exploring
Teachers, librarians, media specialists, and others, including students themselves, need resources for accessing and sharing it all. With search, mobile, and social networking, there's a whole lot more help out of the quicksand.
Instructional technologist Alan Landever, from Fort Leavenworth (Kansas) USD 207, discusses the past, present, and future of the internet at school, as well as the changes and the key barriers still left to overcome, in this Internet@Schools interview feature.
As textbooks give way to digital content and the Common Core standards ripple outward across more than 45 states, how best to align instruction with learning goals and assessments is an issue that lingers on educators' minds. These companies understand this well and have provided tools to help.
"Kids these days. They're in the zone," says Victor Rivero. It's a media-saturation zone he's talking about, owing to the device-saturation that's keeping kids perpetually connected. Educators must offer guidance so kids can navigate through this zone, for reasons of safety, security, and efficacy. Victor proffers the tools that can help.
As the founder of Gaggle.Net, Jeff Patterson has led the company's technology team for the past 9 years and is well- versed in the intersection of media literacy and web security. In this interview, Victor talks tech with Jeff for Internet@Schools.
A learning management system (LMS) is the Holy Grail of education: an online system to manage it all. In this month's Tools for Learning feature, writer Victor Rivero names a range of companies that have ventured into this territory, along with the products and services they offer.
Online education is a $34 billion industry, and it has been growing by an astronomical rate. Today, says author Victor Rivero, elearning is a paradigm shift. Here are some of the companies he's identified as being on board with this 21st-century transformation.
Julie Young is president and CEO of Florida Virtual School, now one of the largest public online school districts in the U.S. In this interview by Victor Rivero, we take a closer look at this virtual school and hear what its leader has to say about the field of virtual learning.
The e-everything revolution charges ahead in the education realm. This month, Victor Rivero reprises and updates the discussion he started last year in his article "E Is for Explosion: E-Readers, Etextbooks, Econtent, Elearning, E-Everything."
"As fast as a trending Twitterstorm and as powerful as a flood of Facebook fans, there's a curious phenomenon moving through our schools these days: social media." Read all about the phenomenon … and the tools that comprise it … in Victor's feature.
The professional development scene for teachers has advanced to the point that the web is a true gift to educators. Here are some excellent online professional development resources to help move you toward a 21 st-century classroom.
Online. Blended. Mobile. 21 st-century. Collaborative. Project-based. Any way you label it, learning is changing. We're now settling into an exciting new paradigm of connected, engaged learning. To get a sense of all this, take a look at the sites, services, and resources we've noted right here in this article.
There's a quiet—or not so quiet—shift happening in school libraries across America. The social media revolution—reflected in all manner of shiny iPhone apps, blogs, Nings, Facebook pages, and other social networking tools, sites, and platforms—is real, and it's running like a loud line of students straight through the stacks, into the common areas, taking a sharp turn, and heading right on up to the teacher librarian/media specialist's desk. Are you ready for it? In this article, Victor Rivero addresses issues, answers, and resources to help.
In this article, Victor Rivero draws on educators' and educational technology product developers' thinking that he picked up during a visit to this summer's ISTE conference. Victor cruised the show, talking with attendees and presenters, as well as with representatives from organizations such as the Partnership for 21st-Century Skills and The Software & Information Industry Association, to get their opinions on 21st century education.
Victor Rivero reviews Cognite from Follett Software Co., a digital learning environment that integrates discovery and organization tools, collaboration, and communication.
In "E Is for Explosion …" Victor Rivero sets the scene with an overview of recent happenings in the world of e-reading devices as well as etexts, then focuses in on more than 15 kinds of electronic texts and content and their producers/providers.
For this story, Victor researched and describes a couple of real-life ways in which curriculum content is moving in the direction of an all-electronic format. He looks first at a school district's move to acquire interactive, digital textbooks from publishers in place of traditional paper-based books. Then he discusses Discovery Education's adaptation of its rich content into digital "basal textbook" format—but "basal textbooks" like you've never seen before!
In this age of technology-enabled openness, how much protecting is too much? And, going further, if our students are completely isolated from the benefits of the information age, will they ever learn? In this month's Tools for Learning feature, Victor Rivero examines some products, services, and solutions that address the question "How can our students stay safe and secure while simultaneously getting access to rich learning resources—and continue to fall in love with learning?"
With online learning growing by a rate of 30% over the past few years, according to the International Association for K-12 Online Learning, once-lonely and isolated education professionals are now taking advantage of tech-based tools and platforms and connecting like never before. From self-paced courses, product training, instructional seminars, and real-time information resources to video segments and streaming content, educators have plenty of ways to hone up on just about anything.
According to the SIIA's Vision K-20 survey, the lowest level for its Five Measures of Progress is in the use of technology-based assessment tools, with an average score of just 46%. Clearly, there's room for improvement! And since knowing more about these tools is a good first step to using them to your advantage, Victor Rivero brings you a sampling of some of the more recent excellent products and services you may find useful when it comes to gaining much-needed assistance with assessment.
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