future of learning
Naughts Not So Bad for Education
The papers have been full of editorials expounding on why the past decade was disastrous for America. There is much to forget and regret about the last decade but it wasn’t so bad for education. We should have made more progress than we did, but here’s 10 big advances that…
Best of 2009: 10 blogs you may have missed
Still think Investing in Innovation is important for the economy, 2/23; follow up on 3/3 quoting Reid Hoffman Thought a Brooks column on Fryer’s study of HCZ, 5/10, would be the most important of the year given definitive evidence of the power of good schools to…
Augmented Reality will improve field trips
eSchool News posted a update on Augmented Reality. Here’s a couple snippets: This computer-enhanced view of the world is not just available to cyborgs in science-fiction movies. Increasingly, it can be found on cell phones, for free or on the cheap, through programs that provide “augmented reality.”…
How Students Show What They Know
My wife appreciates psychodrama (today we’ll see another triumphant women in a Nancy Meyer movie). I, on the other hand, enjoy a juicy psychometric-drama. And we have a thriller in the making. A couple agreements in the next few weeks will set the stage for the next decade of testing…
The Edu-Entrepreneurs bargain
The sun set at 4:22pm at latitude 47.3. It will set about a minute later tomorrow. The days are finally getting longer again. We also turned the corner on the Great Recession; at least the leading indicators look that way. That is little reassurance to the 20% of the…
The Great Inflection & what it means for Edu-Philanthropy
We’re at a turning point. Thirty years ago, Fritjof Capra, who paved the systems thinking pathway for Senge and Wheatley, warned that mankind always sees itself at a turning point. But this time it’s really true. Expanded access to broadband, cheap…
5 charter authorizing strategies to max RttT
It’s time to rethink charter school authorization. There are 5,000 charter schools in the US (about 5% of the total number of schools) and a push from the Department of Education for more. Given that half of the charters aren’t any better than traditional public schools, there has been a push…
Post-inflection learning ecosystem for entrepreneurs
National Journal asked us to review a Springboard (Business Roundtable) report. My reaction was, “Where’s the entrepreneurship?” Springboard made some sound recommendations, but it reads like the predictable managed economy platform of big biz/labor. In contrast, yesterday Tom Friedman noted the Great Inflection and the ‘maker economy.’ …
DOE is major venture investor (but not ED)
The WSJ reports that the Department of Energy has quietly become the biggest venture capital investor: The DOE hopes to lend or give out more than $40 billion to businesses working on “clean technology,” everything from electric cars and novel batteries to wind turbines and solar panels.
Blog premise (or a TOC if you will)
With over 300 posting, I think I‘m getting closer to figuring out what this blog is about. Here’s a summary of the logic chain (or as my friends at Bridgespan would say, my theory of change): Excellence and equity in education is the most important issue for the America economy…