I have been kicking an idea around in my head for quite a while now. With all of
the talk of data and teacher accountability I tried to think of ways to help teachers
and students deal with such a mess of information. I kept coming back to my experience
with Moodle and WordPress thinking I could come up with a solution.
Today I came across a Tweet™ about a contest to answer a question, "What If …"?
This intrigued me so I clicked on through. This is the site
https://www.whatifintowhatis.com/
Here are the basic rules:
The Lexus Engineering Amazing Contest (the "Contest") is a
skill contest in which contestants ("Entrants")are invited to
provide an idea on how they would engineer a better tomorrow
by submitting the continuation of the question, "What If …"? (the "Essay").
Essay must be 365 characters or less and concisely outline the
idea for an optimized future and how they would achieve it.
Ideas must not be related to automobiles or the automotive industry.


 




The question inspired me to write an answer: I didn't submit it, not ready to let
it go yet.


What if my fourth grader went to school and sat down at her desk with her tablet
computer that was connected to the school wireless router. When she connects to the
internet on her device she is at her “Learning Space,” where she is prompted about
what she is to do today.


I envision in an entire school, district, state, nation…. The Learning Space:
Powered by a learning management system (LMS) that is designed to offer advantages
to entities involved in a student’s education.




The Student’s education is individualized. The LMS is adaptive and intuitive
to the student’s strengths and weaknesses. The student’s interests are taken into
account so learning becomesmuch more engaging.




The LMS allows teachers to see what their students are needing help with. The
teacher becomes a facilitator and guide for students. A teacher is able to set goals
and rewards as they track progress toward Common Core Standards mastery.The LMS
allows for lessons to be imported from a repository. The Lesson Block Repository
is where teachers can download and activate lessons for their courses. The Lesson
Block is a complete unit that contains a standardized lesson format with objectives,
goals, activities, quizzes, formative assessments, summative assessments,and adaptive
resources for struggling/excelling students.




Administrators and State Departments are able to track student data in real-time.
The assessmentaspect of Lesson Blocks is happening all the time. The Results of every
student is being sent to the appropriate people. Students, parents, building
administrators, state officials, and national officials get only the data they need.




Educational Technology developers are able to submit Lesson Blocks to the
Learning Repository. The Blocks are evaluated and tested, the dynamic nature of
Lesson Block assessment data allows for rapid evaluation of the quality of the
Lesson Block. Developers can submit premium Lesson Blocks, and anyone can submit
an open-source Lesson Block.




When my daughter gets home we can sit down with her tablet and look at what
she did today. We can review areas she had difficulty with, because the LMS shows
us. I can also learn some strategies from the LMS to help me, help her better.
She can do her homework and connect with her friends through the LMS where they
can work together.