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Faith Merino's Resetting Education

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Faith Merino's Resetting Education by Faith Merino

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Resetting Education: Tech and the schools of the future

by Faith Merino, September 24, 2012 | Comments

How schools are utilizing technology to create a measurably better educational future

Education technology has come a long way over the last decade. The solutions and products being developed today are taking education closer than ever to completely individualized instruction, addressing the needs of each student rather than teaching to the majority of the class and ignoring those that struggle. “Education is increasingly about ‘personalized’ learning—but figuring out what that means is ...

Resetting education: the shift to digital textbooks

by Faith Merino, September 10, 2012 | Comments

There's a world of potential in interactive e-textbooks, but how can schools afford it?

Earlier this year, Education Secretary Arne Duncan and FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski proposed an ambitious goal for K-12 schools across the country: ditch the heavy hard-back textbooks and make the digital switch by 2017. In the next five years, the Obama administration wants to see all K-12 students studying their subject matter not in the traditional sense—with a fat yellow ...

Resetting Education: Does "edutainment" get results?

by Faith Merino, September 4, 2012 | Comments

Gamestar Mechanic proves that educational games are more than just a nice idea

You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink. Similarly, you can throw a bunch of numbers, letters, facts, and figures at a 12-year-old, but you can’t make him like it. It’s a crude, but apt analogy. How do you engage a student? It’s the core challenge of teaching—going beyond classroom management, assigning homework, and testing. ...

Resetting Education: an app for classroom management?

by Faith Merino, August 20, 2012 | Comments

How teachers are using technology to simplify behavior management

For those who have considered K-12 teaching, a few concerns immediately come to mind. Is the pay worth it? What if you’re not effective? And probably most importantly, how do you maintain order in a room full of kids? Classroom management is a very real issue for most teachers, and it’s one of the top reported causes of teacher burnout. ...

Resetting Education: tapping into the classroom

by Faith Merino, August 13, 2012 | Comments

Student response systems like ExitTicket allow students to respond quickly and anonymously

A few years ago, when I was a new creative writing teacher at a Brooklyn charter school, I made a rookie mistake. I delivered a lesson on perspective and voice, and wrapped everything up with, “does anyone have any questions?” Fifteen pairs of eyes stared back at me blankly. Finally, one hand went up, and a quiet 10-year-old named Shane ...

Resetting Education: The special needs of Special Ed

by Faith Merino, August 6, 2012 | Comments

Special Education comes with its own set of challenges, and technology is offering solutions

Most would agree that you have to be a pretty selfless person to be a teacher. The days are long, the pay sucks, and when something goes wrong, you’re the first person that everyone blames. Never mind the fact that the only way you’re even able to stay on top of the unique needs of each of your 20 or ...

Resetting Education: Social networks for the classroom

by Faith Merino, July 30, 2012 | Comments

Learning doesn't happen in a vacuum; how social networks are adding a new dimension

These days, there are social networks for every kind of social circle—whether its friends and family (Facebook), shared interests (Twitter, Pinterest), health (HealthTap), and even neighbors (Nextdoor). Social networks for education were a logical next step. This is nothing new to higher education, which has used sites like Blackboard for years. Sites like Piazza and OpenStudy have taken educational social ...

Resetting Education: Adaptive learning to the rescue

by Faith Merino, July 16, 2012 | Comments

Knewton's adaptive learning technology platform turns the one-size-fits-all approach on its head

U.S. high school students aren’t faring so well in the global arena when it comes to educational performance. In 2010, the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) released data from its international tests, which were administered to 15-year-olds in countries participating in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The test scores measured literacy, math, and science skills and ...

Resetting Education: YouTube and the Flipped classroom

by Faith Merino, July 9, 2012 | Comments

How YouTube is helping teachers reinvent the traditional classroom structure

My social circle is populated with math-phobes, because I’m something of a math-phobe. It takes a lot of confidence and conviction to stand up and say definitively, “I have the answer! And lo, gaze upon it.” So I understand when friends of mine post a question from their sixth-grader’s math homework on Facebook in an attempt to crowdsource the answer ...

Resetting Education: The rebounding edtech ecosystem

by Faith Merino, July 2, 2012 | Comments

Edtech is finally seeing a revival after the burst of the Internet bubble

The term “edtech” seems like an easy blanket term that covers all things “educational” and “technological.” But a peek beneath the surface reveals a rich, blooming ecosystem of tech startups covering every possible angle of education, from individual learning styles and special needs to student response systems and professional development for teachers. The edtech world is seeing something of a ...

Resetting Education: How tech is changing the paradigm

by Faith Merino, June 25, 2012 | Comments

U.S. schools are struggling, and Silicon Valley is emerging as an unlikely hero

Every day in the United States, 7,200 students drop out of high school. That adds up to 1.3 million a year. Dropout rates are even higher among certain minority groups. While approximately one in four white students will drop out of high school this year, among black and Hispanic students, the number jumps to one in two. Teacher dropout rates ...

3 Unbreakable rules of recruiting

by Reena A Jadhav
Curious, a learning marketplace, launches with $7.5M

by Bambi Francisco Roizen
Laplanche: Innovation isn't an idea from scratch

by Bambi Francisco Roizen
Startup timing: From impossible to just really hard

by Bambi Francisco Roizen
YL Ventures tweaks strategy to allow for homeruns

by Bambi Francisco Roizen
Splash SF Feb 2013 Winner - PokitDok

by Kristin Karaoglu
Marketplaces, mobile are big VC themes in 2013

by Bambi Francisco Roizen
Care.com CEO Sheila Marcelo shares lessons learned

by Kristin Karaoglu

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