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Edu-Innovation, an Oxymoron?
In preparation for the New Schools Summit, following are a few thoughts for a great group. Acknowledging the difficulty of penetrating the complex decentralized maze of US public education, a New Schools regular asked a dinner gathering of notable reformers last week if education innovation was an oxymoron.
Bloomfire Formalizes Informal Learning
Here’s an article with a little western MI love for Bloomfire , a Kalamazoo start up creating groups “of informal, social-learning opportunities can be dedicated to anything from sales strategies to fishing.” Bloomfire Manefesto is a little groovy, but if you’re not thinking about the future of…
Emerging Vision for Learning Platforms
There are a handful of conversations swirling around about next generation learning platforms that will combine adaptive/personalized content, assessment, learning communities, with aligned student, teacher, and school services. The ones that gain wide usage will combine open and proprietary content (e.g., basic and premium cable) with a open app platform…
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.’ …
Learning platforms to come
The next generation of transformative learning platforms will include personalized instruction, social learning, and related services. They will integrate the functionality of learning management, student information systems, and longitudinal data systems. They’ll take advantage of the explosion of data that will come along with assessment embedded in digital content (e.g., score…
iNACOL advancing online learning
The Virtual School Symposium, hosted by iNACOL, is Mon-Tues in Austin. I joined the board because 1) we’re within reach of being able to offer quality learning to every student in American and iNACOL will take us over the finish line. Hold out states like NY that don’t…
The blended world
Our kids already live in a blended world. K-12 is starting to catch up with a variety of models that combine the best of online learning and onsite support. Here’s 5 trends signaling a blended singularity: Schools become blended. The biggest growth area for online learning is traditional…
Big Levers
There are plenty of theories about how to improve education. Most focus on what appear to be big levers—a point of entry and system intervention that appears to provide some improvement leverage. These theories usually involve ‘if-then’ statements: ‘if we improve this, then other good stuff will happen.’ Leading theories…
Harlem miracle and thoughts on authorization
Now old new, last week’s release of Hoxby‘s report demonstrating the superiority of New Yorks’s charter schools is a BFO for those of us that spend time in NYC schools. Following up on my recent post on the best school operators, it’s worth highlighting two ladies running networks of extraordinarily good…
How will the new world order be created?
I’m finding an increasing number of people that draw similar pictures of the future on the back of napkins over lunch. The piece parts usually include: · A social learning platform with apps for content, classroom, schedule and learning management · A vetted and organized body…