K-12

BlackboardTV (or "BbTV") is a new, multimedia initiative to help e-Learning innovators — designers, instructors, students — visualize online teaching and learning.

Look for BbTV crew members filming during BbWorld Commerce ’08 in Phoenix (March 9-12), and at DevCon ’08 and BbWorld ’08 in Las Vegas (July 14-15 and July 15-18, respectively).  We’ve archived a wealth of video resources at the BlackboardTV Channel on YouTube, and each Saturday we’ll post a video here on EducateInnovate, such as:

• Works about the global Blackboard community of users created by BbTV producers
• Instructional videos produced by Blackboard users, with tips for teaching and learning online
• Thought-provoking or witty clips about education and technology
• Cool videos we stumble across and just plain like

For our first recommendation, it seems appropriate to post a brief (1:35) informational video created by McDaniel College and posted originally to YouTube, demonstrating how to add a YouTube clip to your Blackboard environment:

McDaniel College, a private, four-year liberal arts college with 1,600 students, is located in Westminster, MD, about 30 miles northwest of Baltimore.  Thanks, McDaniel, for sharing your knowledge and helping us in the Blackboard community visualize e-Learning!

We invite you to share with BbTV suggestions for videos that should be featured here on EducateInnovate.  No clip is too short; no video, too funny!  Send your videos to us, or links to clips you like, at BbTV@blackboard.com.

The cover story of the 2/25/08 U.S. issue of Time magazine is titled "How to Make Great Teachers." Although there is not one single answer or formula, this article points to the value of merit pay, professional support, career path development, deep knowledge of one’s subject and the belief that all children can reach high standards.

As The Education Report blog points out, these methods have been in the teacher-quality dialog for some time now, especially merit pay.  It will be interesting to see how they play out in this year’s presidential election.

Although the presidential campaign so far has not centered on education, the candidates all have positions on top public education issues.  Use this voter’s guide to see where the candidates stand on issues such as NCLB, merit pay, school vouchers and extending the school day.

Hi, my name is Greg, and I’m a blog addict.

I admit it. I check the feeds of the blogs I subscribe to in Google Reader before I hop in the shower in the mornings. At lunchtime, you’ll find me sitting at my desk, sandwich in hand, scrolling through the morning’s posts and spamming my colleagues with forwarded tidbits that I’ve gleaned from my mid-day dose. And usually at some point in the late afternoon, as the meetings and decisions and deliverables wear me down, stepping away from it all to check the blogs again usually nets me some new idea that gives me a rush, reminds me why I love the field of educational technology, and energizes me enough to get me through the rest of the day.

So this time around, I’ve decided to share a list of some of the educational technology blogs that make up part of my daily fix. What follows, in no particular order, are twenty of the best education blogs as judged by . . . well, me. It’s a totally subjective list and it’s by no means exhaustive, but all of these authors post regularly and all of them have introduced me to great new ideas at one point or another. But if you should get hooked yourself, you can’t say I didn’t warn you.

In January Education Week released the 12th edition of its annual Quality Counts report, in which the publication uses indexes developed by its publishing organization, the EPE Research Center, to assign a letter grade to the public K-12 education system in each U.S. state and the District of Columbia.

The 13-page report, as described in the Ed Week press release announcing its publication, “tracks state efforts to connect education from preschool through postsecondary education and training.”  Specifically, the report assesses the potential for students in each state to succeed through the continuum of a lifelong education.

In the Washington Post, staff writer Megan Greenwell provides a succinct overview of the report, with a focus on ratings for Maryland (B average, #3 in the nation), Virginia (B-, #5) and D.C. (D+, #51).  In her article Greenwell explains that “Quality Counts is widely considered to be the most thorough evaluation of school performance because more than 150 data points are used in the report.”

As a nation, the U.S. received an average, overall grade of “C.”  Criteria for the state ratings are based on the following six areas of performance and policy (national averages included):

• Chance-for-Success Index (C+)
• K-12 Achievement (D+)
• Standards, Assessment and Accountability (B)
• Transitions and Alignment (C)
• The Teaching Profession (C)
• School Finance (C+)

To see what grade your state received, and how it ranks compared to others, see the Ed Week report Quality Counts: From Cradle to Career, Connecting American Education from Birth to Adulthood.

We use wikis internally at Blackboard for project management, development and operations among other things, and in the last year or so they’ve really taken root company-wide.  As more and more people have started using them, we have moved from a culture of "information control" to one of shared information and openness.

I have to admit, at first it was a little nerve wracking to put all of my project plans and ideas out there for the whole company to see.  But in doing so, it created more of a sense of accountability and confidence.  No longer was I only compiling information for myself or to convey to my immediate team, but I found myself being more succinct and thorough so that anyone could understand the plan and reasoning behind it.  I was forced to think things through even more than before and make decisions more on fact and research, less on assumptions.  And of course, I then referenced and linked out to the sources of those facts and research findings, thus spreading even more knowledge to my colleagues that they could then apply to their initiatives, as well.

Even more beneficial is the opportunity for those colleagues reading my work to provide feedback and suggestions.  I have had numerous occasions where someone from another department read my launch plan on the wiki and offered insight to a novel approach they had seen at a conference, or offered experiences they have had that influenced me to alter my direction.  Instead of me just creating things in my own bubble, confined by my own knowledge and experiences, they helped me get to a more reasoned and weathered solution that had the support of the greater company behind it.