Technology and educational delivery

Technology is making changes in how we learn and teach. This change is advancing ever more rapidly. One side of this is how it will affect instructional methodology.

1. As an example, the following link is to an article on how computers are being used to grade essays. We have had a discussion on this idea a few weeks ago with our High School English department.

Click to go to NPR article on computers grading essays
Click to go to Education Week article on same subject

2. Another example is that we are going to be using a blended classroom concept in grades 5 to 8 foreign language instruction for the coming years. We are going to be using an on-line language software program in an every-other-day format with Chinese and Spanish language teachers on the opposite days teaching and reinforcing language skills in a traditional face-to-face situation. This is an opportunity for students to receive high quality foreign language instruction in both formats (best of both worlds) and this will provide to us valuable information as to how this blended platform may work in other curricular areas.

Click to go to Middlebury information

3. We also continue to explore the on-line charter school option for the future. Access to on-line education is growing and we need to get in the game. We have a few students a year open-enroll out to on-line charters. Each year we also have a number of parents of elementary aged student who desire a blended situation where we can provide educational services in an alternative format. We have worked with home-school parents in the past, but state rules have shut down or prevented those types of partnerships unless we go the on-line route.

There are many obvious opportunities available in the educational on-line world. However, we desire to do this right and we plan to do a lot of research before we jump, as there are still a lot of unanswered questions in this realm. For example, based on student achievement data, there are many models of on-line schools that have results, to put it nicely, that are not good. If we do something, we want to do it well!

Click to read a NY Times article on the subject