The Daily Riff - BE SMARTER. ABOUT EDUCATION.

Posted December 1, 2010



More edu-talk on "Morning Joe". Yesterday, Richard Dreyfuss.  Today, Jeb Bush. 

Bush and Former Dem. Gov. Bob Wise join Mika Brzezinski, Joe Scarborough and NY Times columnist Andrew Ross Sorkin to talk about today's  Excellence in Education Conference, with keynote speak Ed Sec'y Arne Duncan speaking today at noon.

Digital learning takes center stage.  Check out video below.  Excerpt from transcript:

Bush:  Well, Joe, thank you. we're here in a two-day conference. last night Chris Christie spoke very eloquently about his efforts in New Jersey. Today at lunch, secretary of education Arne Duncan is going the speak to kind of continue this theme of bipartisanship. We hope we can get to a point, Governor Wise and myself, where digital learning become as nonpolitical issue, becomes kind of the core way that we educate children. It's not ideological. It's really focused on customizing learning towards children and away from the systemic elements where the adults kind of dominate education. We're excited about it. We're unveiling proposals today that, thanks to the good work of over about a hundred people that are experts from all across the country. It creates a roadmap for states to be able to change their policies to put digital learning front and center in their strategies.

Joe:   Talk about digital learning. what do you mean by that?

Well, it's to take content provided maybe by the best math teachers in the world, algebra teachers. It could be developing a course to meet the common core standards being developed now for all  all states, they can be in Washington state and deliver it to classrooms in Miami where teachers become partners with great teachers around the rest of the country and where you have adaptive learning, where students learn at their own pace and when they've mastered the work, they move on.

 Joe, let me give you an example. one major state, and this is true across the country, has 440 high schools and only 88 certified physics teachers. we won't be able to get a certified physics teacher in every one of those high schools, but what we can do through technology is bring in high quality physics content or chemistry, calculus, whatever the subject matter is. Now we combine that with an effective teacher in the classroom to truly get the maximum student outcomes. that's what the power of digital learning is about. It's also permitting students to learn at their own pace.

Video below: