Stuff this week - Adaptive Learning Software
Adaptive Learning Software sounds very complex but it just means software that teaches or assesses a student and at the same time learns what they do and don't know and then adapts its questions or exercises to only cover what they need. As a simple example, if the student knows what 2 times 5 is then why keep asking this in subsequent questions.
This also ties into a concept known as mastery learning. Consider a test given to three students where the results are 95%, 75% and 50%. All three students "pass" yet one student didn't know half of the content and even the best student had a gap in their knowledge (assuming the exam has been set well). In mastery learning students do not progress until they master 100% of the topic.
Adaptive learning software is able to narrow down the gaps and only deliver instruction and assessment for what is yet to be mastered. I highly recommend you watch Salman Khan's Ted Talk Let's Teach for Mastery - Not Test Scores to listen to his view on what is possible and where society could be heading.
So you might be thinking well this is all great in theory but actually this is available now! The Khan Academy is providing an adaptive mathematics course for free to help kids all over the world. My kids use this fantastic resource to generally check for gaps in their knowledge but also to reinforce what they are learning at school. I have also recently discovered xtramath.orgwhich focuses on basic math facts and is available from pre-grade 1 through primary. My kids are working their way through this as well. So far I have found them to be engaging and highly beneficial, so much more than the "math games" that the school has suggested they play.
Many schools are rolling out 1:1 device programs yet too often they are nothing more than a $1000 pencil. Yet they could be using these with adaptive software such as the two free programs I mentioned above or other paid programs such as Mathletics or Maths Pathway (both Australian companies by the way!). I have little exposure to either of these programs but each will have their strengths and schools should be leveraging these technological innovations to personalise learning for each child and to embrace the notion of mastery learning.
So much could be done if schools would do some SMART planning. Is your school using any adaptive software packages? If so, what has your experience been with them? | 
Put simply it is a laptop. It is a laptop which runs an operating system known as ChromeOS which was developed by Google. It was conceived as an operating system in which both applications and user data would reside in the cloud. This would be achieved by all the applications being able to run inside the Chrome web browser. You might use Chrome yourself on your Windows or Apple computers. However, since this initial concept ChromeOS has grown in capability and whilst it strengths lie in its cloud integration modern 
