“The Fab Lab program has strong connections with the technical outreach activities of a number of partner organizations, around the emerging possibility for ordinary people to not just learn about science and engineering but actually design machines and make measurements that are relevant to improving the quality of their lives.” [MIT Center for Bits and [...]

This year, Minnesota 2020 has released some exciting critiques of the state of education in Minnesota and nationally. And, by “exciting,” I mean sometimes scathing critiques … with a glimmer of hope. At the top of their hit list (and rightfully so) is No Child Left Behind. This morning, they blogged: Last fall, the prestigious [...]

This morning, the Star Tribune published a piece on a push by DFL legislators for a “New Minnesota Miracle,” through an injection of $2.5 billion into K-12 education in Minnesota. From the article: The plan would pour money into basic education funding for schools to use as they see fit. There also would be more [...]

Whitney Stark at Minnesota Public Radio wrote me to ask what I think about the increase in schools that fail to meet Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) under No Child Left Behind: Minnesota Public Radio News is interested in learning more about what is going on with Minnesota’s declining and low Adequate Yearly Progress results. What [...]

We had the fortunate opportunity to interview Dr. Janet Hively, founder of Minnesota’s Vital Aging Network and co-founder of the SHiFT network. In this video, she shares with us what what is unique about Minnesota’s approach to innovation, the conditions necessary for fostering innovation, and the implications for leaders: Dr. Janet Hively on Innovation in [...]

[cross posted from Leapfrog Institutes newswire] We had an opportunity to interview Dr. Moira Gunn, host of Tech Nation (carried by NPR and available as a podcast), at the Synergy 2008 conference in Phoenix, Arizona, last month. We wanted to know what she thinks is innovation, the relationship of innovation with markets, how important innovation [...]

At last night’s Destination ImagiNation 2008 Global Finals opening ceremonies, the Minnesota delegation LEAPFROGGED into the Thompson-Boling arena at UTK! More Global Finals coverage coming soon… Did you notice that they carried frogs in with them, too? Rock on, Minnesota! (If the embedded video doesn’t play, you can view it here).

Graeme Thickins reminds us that the Minnebar barcamp is coming up on Saturday, May 10! As noted a couple months ago, barcamps are open access, user-generated conferences. Aside from all the great discussion and networking to be had, MinneBar includes free breakfast, lunch, afternoon appetizers, evening drinks, and a commemorative t-shirt. The list of sessions [...]

The StarTribune reports that the town of Chaska, Minnesota, is planning for a new higher education campus, built by an outfit called “EdCampus.” What makes the site unique is that it is being built without a sole tenant in mind: The company plans to erect classrooms as shells, line up higher education institutions as tenants [...]

Contrary to the closed access environments University of Iowa graduate students advocate, I believe that “intellectual property has the shelf life of a banana.” Therefore, before the giant hairball of a banana that is my doctoral dissertation over-ripens beyond its useful life expectancy, I am releasing the document as a free download. More information on [...]