The scion of the Gap, Inc. fortune has jumpstarted a $25 million fund with the goal of turning the Bay Area into a national hub for blended learning, the promising schoolhouse model that combines individualized online learning and face-to-face classroom teaching.

With a sizable souvenir from John Fisher, the Silicon Schools Fund  tin can move ahead with plans to underwrite 25 schools' experiments in blended learning, within five years. The  grants will be upwardly to $700,000 – money that wiill underwrite startup costs of innovative new schools until they can become cocky-sustaining, according to Brian Greenberg, a one-time charter school chief and applied science advocate who'south the founder and CEO of the new Silicon Schools Fund.

Sophisticated software that can identify gaps in individual students' knowledge is one piece of blended learning.

Sophisticated software that can identify gaps in individual students' knowledge is 1 piece of composite learning.

Most schools take computer labs, and some districts are offering online courses. Teachers have been supplementing what they teach with computer software since Steve Jobs introduced the Mac. But truthful composite learning, in which individually tailored online instruction is an integral office of the schoolhouse day, transforming what students learn and how teachers teach, is still at version i.0 in its evolution and, as with many pioneering efforts, idiosyncratic. A handful of schools – School of One in New York Metropolis (actually three schools at present experimenting with the approach) and Carpe Diem in Yuma, Arizona – have been congenital around personalized learning, with all students going at their own pace and, to an extent, following their own interests. School of One in particular is even so feeling its way, and its founder quit last spring.

In the Bay Surface area, blended learning is getting traction. Rocketship Education has opened seven charter schools serving low-income, primarily Hispanic students in San Jose and has approval for two dozen more. Information technology built its model effectually circulating students in and out of a computer lab daily and plowing savings in personnel costs (one less teacher per course through the use of technology) into teacher grooming and higher salaries. 3 schools open long enough to study standardized test scores have an API to a higher place 860, and one had 793.

But that's simply ane model, and Rocketship is at present exploring other forms of blended learning, perchance including squad pedagogy or small group learning.

Salman Khan, who's on the Silicon Schools Fund board, has go a pied piper of composite learning. Though his eclectic three-minute videos on everything from algebra to economics have been viewed by millions, his focus has shifted to classroom and school transformation. A team of programmers focusing on math has created assessments and algorithms that identify gaps in students' knowledge, a path to mastery and dashboards that feed data on students' progress to teachers in real time. They can adjust their lesson plans or divide the grade into minor groups. Los Altos School Commune, in Khan's backyard, and Top Public Schools' charter high schools in San Jose accept teamed up with Khan University. Inspired by the results, Meridian plans to design its new high schools around composite learning. (I'll exist writing more than about Summit's experience with Khan in coming weeks.) With funding from the Rogers Family unit Foundation, Oakland Unified has launched blended learning in four schools.

Many districts are start to experiment with composite learning – at least equally they conceive it. Some teachers run across it not as empowering but threatening. Silicon Schools Fund wants to shorten the learning curve by having the member schools observe and acquire from one another. They'll also be in the Stanford-San Francisco corridor, where new didactics technology companies, similar Junyo and Educational activity Elements, have set up shop.

Brian Greenberg, CEO of Silicon Schools Fund

Brian Greenberg, CEO of Silicon Schools Fund

"We've been promised before that technology would change teaching," Greenberg said. Now, long-promised personalization of education through low-price hardware and software that can diagnose and suit to individual students' needs has developed to the point "where educators see information technology and recognize this is pretty good," Greenberg said.

The next step is to design schools for blended learning. "Information technology won't be without its challenges," he said. "This is fourth dimension for enquiry. Then we can focus on replication and calibration."

The Fund will announce the starting time two or three grants in Jan, for schools to open next fall, with the side by side round, for schools opening in 2014, to follow. The aim is a mix of district and charter Thou-12 schools, with at least some serving low-income children. Eventually there will exist a portfolio of small and large schools, schools converting to blended learning, and startups. The latter may work better for districts, which lack charters' flexibility and would need buy-in from teachers who'd be learning very dissimilar instructional models.

"Educators have to lead the accuse," Greenberg said.

And so far, the Fund has raised half of the $25 meg goal; Greenberg is optimistic almost raising the remaining money from individual donors.

Fisher, whose parents, Don and Doris Fisher, started the San Francisco-based clothier, is also a major donor to KIPP lease schools. Other Silicon Schools Fund lath members are Ted Mitchell, the president and CEO of NewSchools Venture Fund and a past president of the Country Board of Education, and Michael Horn, executive director of teaching for the Innosight Institute and co-author, with Harvard Business organization School professor Clayton M. Christensen, of Disrupting Class: How Confusing Innovation Volition Modify the Way the Globe Learns.

How Khan Academy is reshaping learning in Los Altos School Commune.

In Silicon Schools Fund videos, Acme Public Schools CEO Diane Tavenner describes how blended learning has inspired a new design and vision for the schools; Sal Khan explains Khan Academy.

How to allocate composite learning and other writing on the subject past Michael Horn of Innosight Establish.

Brian Greenberg's weblog on composite learning.

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