[IAEP] Facebook Software Puts Students in Charge of Curating Their Own Lesson Plans

[Adam Holt]

NY Times Excerpts:

Facebook is out to upend the traditional student-teacher relationship.

On Tuesday, Facebook and Summit Public Schools, a nonprofit charter school
network with headquarters in Silicon Valley, announced that nearly 120
schools planned this fall to introduce a free student-directed learning
system developed jointly by the social network and the charter schools.

Rather than have teachers hand out class assignments, the Facebook-Summit
learning management system puts students in charge of selecting their
projects and setting their pace. The idea is to encourage students to
develop skills, like resourcefulness and time management, that might help
them succeed in college...

The Facebook-backed platform is entering the public school software market
when rival tech giants like Google and Microsoft have already established
big footprints in education, in an attempt to build brand loyalty among
students early.

In June, Google said more than 60 million students and teachers worldwide
used Google Apps for Education, a suite of free products that includes
Gmail and Google Drive for document-sharing. Many other schools use
Microsoft productivity tools and Skype, the videoconferencing tool, in
classrooms. Amazon also plans to soon introduce Amazon Inspire, a site
where teachers can share free instructional materials.

The software gives students a full view of their academic responsibilities
for the year in each class and breaks them down into customizable lesson
modules they can tackle at their own pace...

Screenshot:

https://static01.nyt.com/images/2016/08/09/business/10FACEBOOK2/10FACEBOOK2-superJumbo.jpg

More detail:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/10/technology/facebook-helps-develop-software-that-puts-students-in-charge-of-their-lesson-plans.html
https://nonprofitquarterly.org/2016/08/11/facebook-partnership-develops-software-students-curate-educations/
https://www.summitlearning.org
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