by Jeffrey A Fuller

Created on: June 09, 2010   Last Updated: June 10, 2010

While it is true that schools can fail if they do not realize each child learns at a different pace, it is only one factor of many that affect a school’s performance, and one for which leaders have not addressed with an affective solution. But is there really an effective solution?

In education solutions, or promised solutions, are a dime a dozen. All one has to do is Google their perceived problem and thousands, if not millions of links will occupy the screen offering many ways to address a single issue. Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Ebay, all carry books related to any problem teachers might encounter in the classroom. All wise professionals will say the same thing regarding finding solutions, and that is read, read, observe, experiment and read some more, which is what every teacher and administrator should do to solve the problem of teaching children of different learning abilities.

When it comes to teaching children who learn at different paces, the first thought that comes to mind is differentiated instruction. Differentiated instruction has its merits but seldom does anyone really understand it. Teachers cringe at the thought of trying to track the progress of over 100 students and trying to meet each one at their own level and bring them up as far as possible before moving them along. This responsibility comes along with various other responsibilities, such as classroom discipline, documentation, calling parents, sending students to see their counselor, more documentation, addressing modifications and accommodations, even more documentation, ensuring that they have everything needed for the class, graduation, functions, events, etc. It is obvious that decision makers have not realized that teachers have way too much to do and improvements could start with hiring aids for everyone, but the football team will get new equipment before that ever happens.

Knowing the way things are in our not so perfect world of education is what prompted my partner and I to turn our idea into a reality, which combines the all too common advice of “planning, planning, and more planning” with a Moodle Content Management Database. Of course this effort has taken nearly four years of studying ways to use technology in the classroom to emerge, so if you have not begun your technology in education efforts, it is my advice to drop what you are doing and start learning about pixels, database, networks, flash, HTML, and more.

Making use of our summer time off, which

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