Musser ESOL Tech Blog

The highlight of this week's Google alert daily digests for me was an article from The News Herald about a personalized learning symposium taking place in Northeast Ohio this week. The article itself was just your basic "5W" piece on the event itself, but it linked back to an earlier piece in Education Week that attempted to define the key traits of personalized learning, and it was that article that I found quite thought provoking. According to the Education Week piece, personalized learning is competency-based and flexible while making some use of both personalized learning pathways and learner profiles. Each of these facets represents some serious pedagogical questions that I would be willing to wager most educators (if they were being completely honest) would struggle to answer.  I could devote and entire blog post to each of these facets  (Maybe in future weeks?) but today I'd like to focus on the competency-based piece. About the ONLY place in my district ...

This week I read about a pretty wide variety of things. I began the week with an article on a public library in Edmonton, CA that held a festival to connect local authors and readers.  The main thrust of the program was to empower people to tell their own stories, and one way this was done was through an introduction to digital storytelling. I found myself nodding in agreement as I read this piece, since I know digital storytelling to be an incredibly powerful means of expression that can open up students who are reluctant to write by broadening their perspective on what storytelling and "writing" is really all about. Another piece that popped up in my alert digest was a press release from the "Digital Narrative Alliance" promoting the upcoming Narrative Summit in the SF Bay area.  The goal of this group is to discuss, "di gital storytelling and methods for implementing change through evolving channels for distracted audiences."  I found this line interest...