The Learning Assembly is a conglomeration of seven nonprofit organizations that collaborate with educators, edtech companies and research partners to raise the bar for quality in the edtech market. The seven members of the Learning Assembly are: Citizen Schools, Digital Promise, Highlander Institute, iZone, LearnLaunch, LEAP Innovations and the Silicon Valley Education Foundation. It is supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Each of these groups is involved in developing pilots of education technology products and in testing those products, with the goal of providing feedback to educators and to edtech developers about the quality of the work. It can all be quite confusing.
So the Learning Assembly has what created an Evaluation Taxonomy, a nontechnical primer aimed at helping people understand the various education field trial research programs conducted by its member organizations. The taxonomy is meant to be a starting point to understanding research practices and findings so that users can engage thoughtfully and knowledgeably in education issues. It is not, however, a “prescription” for how to conduct a pilot.
