In the age of mobile computing, attention and engagement have become commodities. Advertisers are willing to spend millions for mere seconds of viewers’ attention. With all the ads and apps buzzing in students’ pockets in the 21st century classroom, we had to ask ourselves: how are learning technologies (books, desktops, tablets, and otherwise) keeping up with the rising bar of grabbing attention? What are the best practices for engaging students today? Specifically relevant to the NewSchools Seed Fund, how can we measure the role technology can play in student engagement?
I set out to create a white paper to collect some of the research done on the topic and to encourage entrepreneurs to begin asking the questions and collecting data themselves. The report, titled Measuring Student Engagement with Learning Technology, can be found here.
[slideshare id=36121123&doc=measuringstudentengagementwithlearningtechnology-140620145743-phpapp02&type=d]
To make sure I was on the right track, I consulted with several professors at Stanford and worked with several CEO’s of edtech companies that NewSchools supports.
One edtech startup founder, Guido Kovalskys of Nearpod, set a great example by using the research and questions to run a survey of his own. The results of his survey will soon be available on the Nearpod website, and I will post them here.
If you run a survey with your own company on student engagement, please email me at dhavens(at)newschools.org or send a tweet to @eduhavens and I will update this post and promote it.