Haiku Learning Blog

Last week Converge Magazine published an article that highlights three education technology trends (as identified in a June 2010 report by the Software & Information Industry Association) to watch: learning management systems, online learning, and mobile computing. To summarize the summary, increased government standards and lower prices for learning management systems will move school districts and colleges toward blended learning programs.

We keep in close communication with our users, so these trends were no surprise to the Haiku team. In fact, if you’re familiar with our approach to updating our learning management system then you know that we constantly collaborate with educators to learn how students learn and teachers teach. That knowledge enables us to evolve Haiku LMS to meet the actual needs of actual people rather than impose our ideas for what we deem useful features.

We’re pleased that our learning management system already offers much of what educators do and will need going forward:

• Online gradebook and class rosters
• Chat*
• Online interaction with teachers*
• Assignments and student calendars
• Announcements
• Learning and course management

* Chat and online interaction get an asterisk because they’re features that are already in the works for Haiku LMS. In the meantime, third-party services like VoiceThread meet the need for these functionalities and are integrated into Haiku LMS via our Embed the Web™ feature.

More information about how to obtain the original, full report is available in the SIIA press release (pdf).

What other trends do you see?

If you’re interested in online learning — particularly blended learning — we highly recommend reading the April 28 special report, E-Learning 2010: Assessing the Agenda for Change, by Education Week. We offer here a glimpse of what you’ll find.

Something for Everyone

While some people talk the talk about the applications and implications of blended learning, schools around the United States are actually walking the walk. The article “Schools Factoring E-Courses Into the Daily Learning Mix” provides first-hand evidence that blended learning has boundless benefits. For a rural district in Idaho it enables students to take courses like foreign language that aren’t available in their own building; for students in Los Angeles it enables students to avoid scheduling conflicts that inevitably result when so many choices and activities are available. In each case, online courses are integrated into the school day, and schools increasingly see the valuable role online offerings can play alongside traditional classes (4). The article also notes strategies for successful implementation of a blended learning program, including on-site resources like mentors and computer labs.

A Shift in Mindset

Blended learning can also reduce dropout rates. An estimate in the article “Detroit-Area District Innovates to Address Dropout Problem” puts the dropout rate in metropolitan Detroit at 40 percent. With Detroit’s economy in crisis, jobs are scarce for adults let alone adolescents who have given up on education. Westwood Community School District offers at-risk students an alternative to the traditional classroom setting: blended learning. The approach is markedly different even in semantics: class participants are “researchers” rather than “students,” and they engage course content through online classes, project-based learning, and in-person support (6).

Worth a Read

Other articles in the issue touch on topics like synchronous and asynchronous classes, enrollment caps, and funding. This report is one you don’t want to miss. It’s available to download from the Education Week website.

If you need evidence of how quickly of print resources are giving way to digital materials, a recent deal between Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and Detroit public schools provides a perfect case-in-point. As reported by The Boston Globe on October 29, the $40 million, multi-year deal includes the sale of some textbooks, but largely provides the district with software like Learning Village to deliver educational resources and to connect students and teachers to a virtual network.

This is a huge step forward for online and blended learning because it further underscores the increasing momentum and success of digital learning. Such a shift to digital content ensures that schools will be able to keep content current and ultimately to tie that content directly into their online classrooms to provide students with even more resources.

There are a number of content providers that are already publishing great content for students, and this latest announcement is just one more indication that digital information is here to stay.

In his October 20 opinion piece “The New Untouchables” Thomas Friedman submits that addressing America’s current jobless rate and economic downturn by fixing only the banks and financial institutions is like putting a bandaid on a severe wound. What’s needed, Friedman says, is repairing the public education system, too.

It’s past time to consider what’s necessary to succeed …

He makes a strong case. We as a country got caught up in attaining The American Dream and failed to continuously align public education with our evolving goals and expectations. Now American workers are paying for that myopic mindset, having lost the competitive edge over foreign workers and even robots and computers. Those who are currently succeeding and will continue to thrive, Friedman says, are those with the gumption “to invent smarter ways to do old jobs, energy-saving ways to provide new services, new ways to attract old customers or new ways to combine existing technologies.” These people, says Friedman, are the untouchables.

… but we can make changes that will better position our future.

At a time when a college degree isn’t the ticket to success it once provided, we need to be smarter about school and teach skills that go beyond facts and figures. To Friedman, that means improving “entrepreneurship, innovation and creativity.”

Haiku Learning’s take: we’re already on our way

Friedman may be right, and we’re glad he spoke up. While a retooling of the public school system gets debated and worked out at a national level, we’re seeing a grassroots movement in the Haiku community that indicates individual schools and teachers are already pushing in new directions. They’re setting up virtual classes that support their real-world classrooms, and in many cases the courses are exclusively online. They’re challenging students to think beyond what they read on the page and to apply knowledge and reasoning that really stretch their thinking.

We blogged in June about a K12 common standards initiative that was underway to develop baseline expectations for math and reading skills at the national level. The first draft of the proposed standards is now available for review, and public feedback is requested.

You have until October 21 to submit feedback. You can view the standards and give input online:www.corestandards.org/Standards/index.htm.

Speak Up

The Haiku team encourages you to review the standards and add your voice to the conversation. We’re excited about the opportunity that common standards will provide in terms of shared content and shared teaching and learning strategies, yet we recognize that it will take an extraordinary effort to implement the metrics and to ensure that they truly are benefiting students.

The initiative is led by the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers. Forty-eight states and three U.S. territories have joined the effort. See the complete list.