BRINC
Personalized
Learning Project
DLC/TechMACC Combined Meeting
March 14, 2014
is a Delaware educational
project of the Brandywine,
Indian River, New Castle
County Vo-Tech,
and Colonial school districts
developing personalized
learning opportunities for
students.
What is Personalized Learning?
 How many of you have heard or used the following
terms?
 Online Learning
 Blended Learning
 Customized Learning
 Personalized Learning
 Mastery Learning
 Some educators tend to use several terms
interchangeably, when we should be more specific.
 In this presentation, we’ll explore how to create and
support a digital infrastructure that supports all of
these models of 21st Century learning.
Personalized Learning
 Learning in which the student:
 Drives their learning
 Connects with interest, talents, and passions
 Owns and is responsible for learning
 Identifies goals and plans for learning
 Builds a network of peers, experts, and
teachers
 Demonstrates mastery of content
 Becomes self-directed expert learner who
monitors progress and reflects on learning
 Adapted from Bray and McClaskey (2013)
The Goal & The Vision
A unified learning experience for every
student that can be customized and
personalized for the student, based on
individual abilities, needs, and interests
aligned to the mastery of standards.
So, how do you get there?
Instruction and Technology
Like a good melody and harmony, these
two components need to communicate
and collaborate.
One without the other diminishes the
potential impact
This means having hard conversations,
airing differences, and finding
compromises that work for everyone.
One of the keys to supporting
these initiatives is…
…making smart decisions
about the tools into which you
invest your time and money.
Infrastructure to Support
Personal Learning
Technology Criteria #1
Integrate Resources into One
Place
 Utilize one tool to pull together all of the various tools and
resources students and teachers are using for learning.
 Examples:
Learning Management System
 A Learning Management System (LMS) is a software
application for the administration, documentation, tracking,
reporting and delivery of e-learning education courses or
training programs.
 It may include:
 Digital Content
 Curriculum Sequence
 Gradebook
 Messaging protocol
 Calendar
 Be careful…
Learning Management System ≠
Personalized Learning
Technology Criteria #2 –
Adherence to IMS Global
Standards
 Common Cartridge
 A universal package for digital units and lessons,
allowing them to move from one system to
another
 Example: A teacher builds a course in BlackBoard
and with one click can move it to Schoology
 Learning Tools Interoperability
 Support for the interaction with External Tools
 Example: A teacher can launch a BlackBoard
Collaborate Session or use TurnItIn, right from
within Canvas
Technology Criteria #2 –
Adherence to IMS Global
Standards
 Learning Information Systems
 Allows platforms to pass information regarding
students back and forth, such as classes, grades
 Example: A district requires that you use a certain
gradebook software that is not the LMS
gradebook. This allows grades to flow between
the LMS and the district gradebook.
Technology Criteria #2 – Adherence to
IMS Global Standards
 Question & Test Interoperability/Accessible Portable Item
Protocol
 These define a standard format for assessment
questions.
 These questions can be presented and often scored
within the LMS.
 Example: A teacher’s biology textbook comes with a disk
of potential assessment items. If the questions follow one
of these two standards, they can be imported into the LMS
without re-typing them all in.
For more information on
standards, check out:
http://www.imsglobal.org/
Technology Criteria #3 –
Device Agnostic
 Think about adopting solutions that will function on any
device, not just a single device.
The right LMS can provide a single,
unified experience for students and
teachers.
Technology Criteria #4
Tagging, Search, and
Learning Analytics
 Learning Objects need to be shared in an organized and
searchable way.
 Tags can be VERY useful to teachers:
 Common Core State Standards
 Next Generation Science Standards
 Keywords
 Author
 Date
 Type of Learning object
 Learning objects can be stored and shared through a learning
object repository (LOR) across schools, districts, and
consortium.
Technology Criteria #5
Ease of Use and Training
 We required a system that is easy to use and
implement.
 We tried a lot of potential products.
 We are piloting the project with 40 teachers
before making larger scale commitments.
 The platform collects
lots of analytics easily.
Instructional Criteria #1
Craft Powerful Learning
Experiences
Organize Course with Scope and
Sequence
Textbook
Media Resources (YouTube,
Images, Websites)
External Tools (Google Apps,
Dropbox)
Teachers create rich assignments,
involving a variety of multimedia
resources
Instructional Criteria #2
Ease of Use
 Platform must be easy for teachers to
create rich learning experiences.
 Platform must be easy for students to use.
 Students need to be engaged by the
platform.
It needs to be reliable and perform
consistently.
Example of Workflow
Tagged with CCSS, NGSS
Sequence of Learning
Instructional Criteria #3
Automate some of the learning
feedback loop
 Use technology to establish mastery requirements.
Instructional Criteria #4
Standards, Data Reporting
Being able to tag learning objects and track student progress
according to standards is a must!
Instructional Criteria #5
A System that evolves with
teachers
The system’s capabilities must have enough depth that teachers
can continue to explore new options/capabilities/experiences.
Schoology
Live Demo
Questions?
Patches Hill
Duane.hill@irsd.k12.de.us
Steve Mancini
Steve.mancini@nccvt.k12.de.us
Ralph Landolfi
ralph.landolfi@nccvt.k12.de.us
Michael League
Michael.league@irsd.k12.de.us