Education Portal   

We hear so much about Bring Your Own Device districts, schools and classrooms, but I saw one of the best examples of its effectiveness this week in Miami. At Jose Marti MAST, I was working with the AP Psychology class and previous to my lesson with them, Ms. Horgan booked the lab and found out the day before that she could not have it due to interim testing. She told the students that she would have to cancel (since the activity was all online), but the students said, "We can bring in our laptops." The teacher was not sure how to handle it, but thought that she'd give it a try. 14 of the 19 students brought their laptops in and there were actually 5 student computers for the rest! Both the teacher and I were totally amazed at the diligence the students displayed on their own devices and how comfortable they were with having all their own materials readily available. It made me a total believer. This "tuesdays" is a peek into a great website that Ms. Horgan is using with her high school students. This takes college readiness to a whole new level.

Education Portal is a FREE resource that opens a door to higher learning to all students everywhere. There are over 200 college courses available to take at your own pace with fun and engaging video lessons. Students can take an end-of-course exam and can receive college credit that transfers to over 1000 schools. The Education Portal is designed to make the dream of college come true for millions of students regardless of educational, economic and or other background information. Credit granting exams are available in 50 subjects and can be less that $100 a pop. That's a whole lot less than any college course, for sure. Education Portal has an impressive, course catalog for college, high school and test prep. Ms. Horgan uses it constantly to encourage her students to drive deeper and to become dual-enrolled in college as a high school student. She finds many engaging videos that help explain difficult topics in Psychology and history. The videos are all limited to under 10 min. for the web learner.

If you know anyone in high school, it is very important that you share the Education Portal with them. With so many resources available now, we don't always get to look at every one of them, but this is one that can very well change a student's opportunity to truly be a life-long learner, earn college credit. You never know what motivates our students today and perhaps the most unlikely under achiever may be someone you influence to become more than they ever imagined. One of my favorite sayings with one of my daughters is to "be a learn it all, not a know it all." Let's encourage our students to take a risk and learn material on their own. They may find it intriguing and empowering and you may be the person they remember who set them on their path to success.

How do you begin with Education Portal? It's totally free and there is no need to create an account if you are only going to use the videos and lessons. However, if you plan to try for college credit, you will need to create an account that will track your success for you. Check out one of the video lessons on Functions to get a feel for the clarity of the lesson. Being able to pause and play, take notes, try the lesson over and over is excellent. Each video supplies the learner with the transcript of the lesson and a quiz to help monitor understanding. Kudos to the founding partnership of Ben Wilson and Adrian Ridner who created Education Portal, a true self-funded start up project. Their dream is to make education accessible to everyone, everywhere. Looks like a dream come true to me. Congratulations and thank you both.        

"A journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step."

ipadio   

LiveBinders 

Doceri 

NASA's Image Gallery 

Popplet 

Zoey's Room
Finance in the Classroom
Fotopedia 

The Common Good Forecaster  

Google Earth 

UJAM 

Symbaloo.edu 

Google Science Fair 

Stossel in the Classroom
Word Sift 

Lee Kolbert