The International Association for K-12 Online Learning (iNACOL) is hosting their annual Virtual Symposium this week  in Orlando, Florida. A widely attended event with online educators and AAE members, the conference kicked off this morning with an introductory address by INACOL President and CEO Susan Patrick and a panel, Driving an Innovative Policy Roadmap Towards the Transformation of Student Learning, with speakers from across the country.

Connected Educator Month is almost over.  Hopefully, you’ve spent the month learning about different techniques and places you can use online to connect with other educators.  As we come to a close, I’d like to highlight one more option that often gets overlooked: YouTube.

As technology continues to evolve and expand, it is rare to hear of a school moving away from the use of new devices and programs. However, the South Bend School District, near Houston, Texas, recently abandoned a $16 million plan to incorporate iPads into classrooms.

With the recent blog entry about using badges in the classroom, this seems a good time to write about how to leverage gamification in your classroom.  The two concepts often go hand in hand, with badges being an excellent way to add a level of gamification.

If only because of the popularity of Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, nearly everyone is familiar with the concept of badges.  Even if you’ve never participated in these programs, at the mention of ‘badges’ you probably visualize a sash with round pieces of embroidered cloth sown on.  This rather old-school way of showing off a person’s accomplishments transitioned into the computer age through the creation of digital badges, and now these digital badges are emerging in schools across the country as a way to incentive students.

As school cheating scandals continue to make headlines, the need for secure testing measures has never been greater. Despite the debate over standardized tests, these assessments provide invaluable  information on student growth, and with developing technology may become safer than ever before.

A paper was presented last week that at first glance appears to reinforce what most people already know instinctively: if you plop a couple of middle school boys down in front of a video game, they will be interested.  What makes this study relevant to educators is the context around which it’s being written.

With the constant influx of Apple products entering the market, it is often hard to decipher the best products for your classroom. In addition to iPads, lap tops, and tablets, a new product is quickly gaining popularity in the education sector – Google Chromebooks.

More and more teachers are looking to online professional development courses as a way to keep abreast of current trends, hone skills, and fit their PD needs into an already cramped teacher schedule. The increase of offerings of online professional development is rapidly replacing older methods of having an expert come to your school, or attending workshops of a various topics. The shift can be seen on AAE's own Professional Development Calendar, where online offerings vastly outnumber in-person workshops or classes. Online professional development is cheaper, easier to fit into a teacher's schedule, and has the ability to be personalized to an individual teacher's need.

Everyone is familiar with camera surveillance at banks, high-end stores, and office buildings. In a post-Newtown world, however, surveillance cameras are becoming increasingly familiar in neighborhood schools. In fact, after the tragedy in December, over 62 of the 400 bills relating to school safety nationwide, pertained to surveillance cameras.   Continue Reading...

Yesterday, Edweek published  an insightful article citing new trends in low-cost professional development courses. As professional development opportunities continue to expand via online platforms, "MOOC's" (massively open online courses) are now being offered to K-12 educators. Silicon Valley company Coursera recently partnered with seven universities to provide 28 free courses, with topics ranging from biology and literacy to lessons on how to structure classes and survive the first year of teaching.

As we do every month, we’ve collected the best teacher resources we’ve found and are presenting them here for you.

Digital Learning Now! (DLN) recently released the 2012 Digital Learning Report Card, a measurement of effective digital learning practices in all 50 states. The report highlights both recent advancements in digital learning and calls for states to modernize public education for the next generation of learners.

Welcome to the Association of American Educators' online biweekly publication, Reform Matters. This education reform-focused publication features both original AAE content and a compilation of the latest news from the growing education reform community.

When you talk to educators about professional development, there tends to be a mindset that favors events like conferences, workshops, and webinars. Even though studies have shown that these forms of professional development are limited in their success, teachers still cling to them as ways to connect with other educators and get new ideas. That's not to say that these forms of professional development are entirely without merit, just that by relying on these staples we close ourselves to other opportunities.

While there is a plethora of research about the quality of schools in America, there is little information about the state of bricks and mortar school infrastructure across the country. According to a recent assessment from the Center for Green Schools, there is a $270 billion spending gap in repairing and maintaining school buildings. In order to update and modernize schools across the country, it is estimated that state and local officials would need to spend nearly $542 billion. 

Teachers in the classroom today all remember being issued their textbooks in grade school year after year. Immediately outdated content accompanied by the occasional pencil drawing have been standard issue for generations. With the dawn of new technologies, textbook publishers are rushing to meet the needs of a new generation of students.