Rewiring Education by John D. Couch and Jason Towne offers a fresh perspective on transforming the education system. The book argues for a fundamental shift in how we approach teaching and learning, advocating for a more personalized, technology-driven model. Couch and Towne draw on their experiences to propose innovative solutions that address the limitations of traditional methods. Their ideas are compelling and thought-provoking, providing practical insights for educators and policymakers alike. If you're interested in educational reform and the potential of technology to enhance learning, this book is a worthwhile read.

We homeschool our children and use a variety of learning styles and subjects, which really made this book quite fascinating. I love reading about education and the psychology of how to help others learn and develop a passion for it. This book should be a must read for teachers as the shift for a more personalized education for each child is becoming more obtainable. Couch lays out the research and reasoning of why certain changes should be made and integrating some of his philosophies could improve many children's rate and love of learning.

As I want to be a professor within the next few years, I found Rewiring Education to be an extremely resourceful book. It wasn't the most exciting, but it did have good information inside it. It took me a while to get through, but I will be keeping an eye out for more from this author.

“Rewiring Education” is written by John D. Couch, Apple’s first Vice President of Education and it starts the conversation on how to use the digital revolution that we are experiencing to unlock the potential in every child. It is evident throughout the book that the author is passionate on the power of education to change lives. He comes across as brilliant and committed on helping children discover their potential.
There is a brief history on the evolution of the American educational system which I found really interesting. I especially enjoyed reading about Steve Jobs and the initiatives that he started through Apple because of his passion on education. I also found fascinating the chapters on how students succeed.
A very interesting book particularly if you are a parent, a teacher or interested in reforming the education our children receive.

I enjoyed this book, as I thought it had many great ideas for alternate ways of teaching. I agree with the author that the memorization of facts is not as important today since a student can quickly search the internet to find the answer he needs. What is more important is teaching students how to learn and how to have the motivation to enjoy being challenged during lessons. This can be accomplished by using various new and exciting forms of technology. I thought this quote summed it up nicely, "...we must rethink teaching...so that teachers become facilitators of learning, rather than conveyors of information." This was a great book that all teachers should read, and I highly recommend it.

This felt more like a pat on the back to the author than a real non-fiction book about how technology can "unlock every student's potential". There are a few stories of real-world application, but mostly I feel like we get to hear that he worked with this guy, got to shake hands with this one, and really loved developing this program that revolutionized something or other. I get that you can't write a how-to book about bringing technology into classrooms because it just changes too fast, but mostly by the end of this book, I felt really vindicated that at least our homeschool "classroom" is getting really close to that ideal 1-to-1 teacher-student ratio that Crouch champions. He says it's only possible with the use of technology. But other than rethinking a "ban" on technology for educational purposes, I didn't really feel like this was anything truly groundbreaking.

As an instructional design student, this title intrigued me a lot. It covered many great points about education and parenting in a digital world. The exploration of the many ways that technology can compliment traditional classroom learning are a great method of exposing the innumerable educational options available today.

I greatly appreciate Couch sharing his parenting experiences while raising children in the growing digital world, there were however moments when his sharing of Apple's educational achievements came off as a bit more boastful than informative.

Overall, I greatly enjoyed this book. Encouragement of technology in education, without forgetting about the phycological aspects and the need for great teachers to help students find their way is my greatest hope for the future of education.

REWIRING EDUCATION is a new offering written by John Couch, Apple's first Vice President of Education and proponent of personalized learning, and by Jason Towne, a research fellow at Harvard University where he focuses on motivation, learning, and technology. The subtitle is "How Technology Can Unlock Every Student's Potential." And while I found the familiar conversational tone to be appealing, I was a bit puzzled by the purpose of this book. One question I have: Is this about what they advocate all schools should do OR about what has been tried and needs to be "rewired"? That's because, frankly, we place a great deal of emphasis on project-based and personalized student learning, but struggle at times to see the added value of technology, especially when it does not work as it should. Even though these authors did not fully address specific concerns about infrastructure and device roll-outs, they did note persistent difficulties with getting promising technology to scale. In addition, Couch and Towne seem to be advocating "hands-on" tech like maker spaces and 3D printing which is great and very appropriate for younger students, but the authors seemed less clear on what higher education is doing to leverage tech potential. And that, in turn, begs the question: How should high schools effectively bridge those practices for students?

Couch and Towne do devote a section of the book to describing models such as TCPK (Technology, Content, Pedagogy, and Knowledge) and SAMR (Substitution, Augmentation, Modification and redefinition) which we have been discussing for years, too. They say, "Technology can be an enormous benefit to learning and creativity if it's used as **prescribed** as a means to engage and motivate." We have tried multiple options, but find the time devoted to manipulating the tech often overshadows the work on content. As a colleague recently asked me (when discussing this book) "Where are the collaborative spaces online that students can use **easily** for creative projects?" Even when final projects look professional, what did students actually learn?

Experts and educators like Marc Prensky, Simon Sinek and Sal Khan all contributed positive reviews for REWIRING EDUCATION, and Couch and Towne extol the virtues of mobile technology, but I also ask what consideration is being given to unintended consequences of too much screen time such as those documented by Jean Twenge? Recently, both NPR and The Chicago Tribune profiled how over 600 schools have worked with Yondr to combat addiction to phones during school. That is counter to the argument made by Couch and Towne that school has not caught up to the digital world. Overall, REWIRING EDUCATION feels well-intentioned, but not as focused on practical issues as it could be.

Links in live post:
http://treviansbookit.blogspot.com/2017/08/igen-by-jean-twenge.html and
https://www.npr.org/2018/01/11/577101803/a-schools-way-to-fight-phones-in-class-lock-em-up and
http://www.chicagotribune.com/bluesky/technology/ct-smartphone-addiction-schools-20180206-story.html

While I don't necessary agree with all of Couch's principles, his books offers new ideas that should be tested on a larger scale to see how they work. One friend always says that you learn more from books/articles/etc. that you disagree with that with those that you fully support. Rewiring Education is one of those books that offers you perspective, ideas to implement (even if you don't live in the US) and offers a glimpse into what technology can do for education. If I had any teacher friends I would recommend them this book.