Marie Bjerede
Marie Bjerede is a writer, speaker, and champion for education transformation. She believes people acting as independent agents can collaborate to get more done and live happier lives. She's seen, first-hand, how technology co-evolves with that model. She thinks a lot about how students, citizens, and employees can take ownership of their work and create force multipliers for productivity, creativity, and happiness. Marie has spent a quarter century in the wireless communication industry working in many roles -- from embedded software coder to leadership geek to education advocate. From this front-row seat to the wireless revolution, she's seen mobile broadband bring the transformative potential of the Internet to industries and communities. But she's also watched as schools have been left behind. With her wireless communication background, she's now challenging technical, economic, social, and systemic obstacles.
DIY learning: Schoolers, Edupunks, and Makers challenge education as we know it
We're on a path toward personalized learning.
Schoolers, Edupunks and Makers are showing us what's possible when learners, not institutions, own the education that will define their lives.
The dilemma of authentic learning: Do you destroy what you measure?
The challenge of translating the educational benefits of making.
Making and education clearly go hand in hand, but how do we quantify and share the results of authentic learning without losing its essence? That's the issue educators are currently facing.
Helping educators find the right stuff
The Learning Registry looks to crack the education resource discovery problem.
There are countless repositories of high-quality content available to teachers, but it is still nearly impossible to find content to use with a particular lesson plan for a particular grade aligned to particular standards. That's where the Department of Education's new Learning Registry comes in.
Three game characteristics that can be applied to education
A tech-focused look at how "leveling up," collaboration, and play can be woven into learning experiences.
Cloud technologies and thoughtful roadmapping of digital technology can ensure that authenticity, social interaction, and play remain central components of education.
World of Warcraft and Minecraft: Models for our educational system?
How two games can help student engagement.
Massively multiplayer games like World of Warcraft can teach communication and the higher-order skills needed to achieve collective goals. Simple, rule-based games, such as Minecraft, showcase the value of preservation and exploration.
Tinkering with technology education
The maker movement's many entry points create a welcoming environment for tech education.
The maker movement offers an appealing invitation to technology for a broad audience that includes both women and men, seniors and children, technologists and artists.
Making cell phones useful for school
Much of the tech to support school-ready cell phones already exists. Now we need the devices.
A variation on the monitoring technology that allows educators to safely use computers in the classroom is also available for cell phones. But there's a hitch: phone manufacturers and chip suppliers will need to create phones that are kid-safe and school-ready.
Can standardization and innovation coexist in education?
Education needs standardized platforms and technical innovation. One framework might serve both.
The goal of an educational platform is to standardize at a level that encourages broad adoption of technologies while also allowing new innovations to flourish. Choosing the wrong level can undermine your best intentions.
Education as a platform
A data-driven architecture could disrupt the school system and improve it the more students use it.
Parents want to understand their kids' achievements beyond letters on a report card. If a wealth of multi-dimensional assessments were only a click away, how many families would use them and in so doing help make them better?
Teachers become senseis while tech handles drills
A school finds success moving drills to software. Is there a model here?
San Diego's High Tech High has found success with ALEKS, a software package that uses simple feedback to reinforce fundamental math skills. This example hints at a revised teacher-tech relationship, where the technology handles drills while teachers coach and offer guidance. Toss in additions like mobile access and 24/7 connectivity, and new possibilities — and new questions — arise. In this post, Marie Bjerede examines all these angles.