Each fall they survey hundreds of thousands of students, teachers, administrators, and parents about the uses of and hopes for educational technology in the "Speak Up National Research Project". From the data released in 2011 (full report here: http://www.tomorrow.org/speakup/pdfs/SU10_3EofEducation(Students).pdf), they identified 3 key trends:
- Mobile Learning: Educational experiences that are enabled by mobile devices and applications provide a multitude of untethered opportunities for students to be more engaged in learning and extend the learning process beyond the classroom
- Online / Blended Learning: Online and blended learning enables a greater personalization of the learning process and facilitates opportunities for students to collaborate with peers and experts, thus empowering a new sense of personal ownership of the learning process by the student.
- e-Textbooks / Digital Content: The use of e-textbooks and other digitally rich content engages students by providing a real world context for the learning process and allowing learning to extend beyond the classroom walls.
Lawrenceville is doing a number of things which are in line with these: our pilot programs with iPads and Androids are a perfect fit for the first two, and our association with the 8 Schools in a blended learning project addresses the second.
