I talked to an 8th grade teacher recently as I was evaluating applications for education. The main concept I took away, is they would really like more data, faster. They have several programs/applications etc that produce data but its always a few months old.
This is a relatively easy problem to solve technologically, but its more difficult to implement. As I was coming up with solutions, I soon found a few barriers to entry that one might not consider. The first being that older teachers are very resistant to change that is on a fundamental level. Second, funding in this particular district is very very very low. The computers they had were about 8-9 years old, and in extremely bad shape... an alternate source of funding would need to be located, as it was unlikely the district could afford it and that taxpayers would vote to increase taxes to pay for it.
After an hour of I soon came to the "chocolate covered broccoli" ideas, this is where she became more receptive. I came up with a quick application of augmented reality, that would be a fun, and maybe educational experience but ultimately doesn't help push eduction into a more interactive data oriented learning style. Basically my point is the problem is as much political as it is technological.
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I talked to an 8th grade teacher recently as I was evaluating applications for education. The main concept I took away, is they would really like more data, faster. They have several programs/applications etc that produce data but its always a few months old.
This is a relatively easy problem to solve technologically, but its more difficult to implement. As I was coming up with solutions, I soon found a few barriers to entry that one might not consider. The first being that older teachers are very resistant to change that is on a fundamental level. Second, funding in this particular district is very very very low. The computers they had were about 8-9 years old, and in extremely bad shape... an alternate source of funding would need to be located, as it was unlikely the district could afford it and that taxpayers would vote to increase taxes to pay for it.
After an hour of I soon came to the "chocolate covered broccoli" ideas, this is where she became more receptive. I came up with a quick application of augmented reality, that would be a fun, and maybe educational experience but ultimately doesn't help push eduction into a more interactive data oriented learning style. Basically my point is the problem is as much political as it is technological.