Book: Education Nation: Six Leading Edges of Innovation in our Schools Author: Milton Chen Publisher: Jossey-Bass Teacher (July, 2010) Like sunspots, books critical of the education system seem to follow periodic cycles. And, it seems we’ve hit a high point over the past year or so. We’ve seen popular books on the theme emerge from [...]

The Bank of Common Knowledge (Banco Común de Conocimientos) is a pilot experience dedicated to the research of social mechanisms for the collective production of contents, mutual education, and citizen participation. It is a laboratory platform where we explore new ways of enhancing the distribution channels for practical and informal knowledge, as well as how [...]

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 [...]

Last month, Leapfrog Institutes and Education Futures interviewed Dr. Christopher Dede, Timothy E. Wirth Professor in Learning Technologies, Technology, Innovation, and Education at Harvard University, on what it would take for a state to become a leader in innovation. His answer was quite simple: successful states set up regional economic education development centers. These centers [...]

…but, only if students know the math first. Media guru Griffin Gardner forwarded this article from ScienceDaily, which suggests that calculators are useful tools in elementary-level mathematics classes.  Citing research by Bethany Rittle-Johnson and Alexander Oleksij Kmicikewycz at Vanderbilt, and recently published in the Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, ScienceDaily writes: “So much of how [...]

A few days ago, Minnesota Public Radio‘s Gary Eichten shared a clip of Duke’s Vivek Wadhwa, speaking about his research on the effects of globalization in the United States: After researching the impact of globalization on U.S. competitiveness in the tech industry, Vivek Wadhwa was surprised to see his findings contradict commonly-held ideas. He recently [...]

The StarTribune is running an excellent story on an intellectual property crisis at the University of Minnesota that probably is contextualizable to other “Research I”/”Research Universities (RU/VH)” universities as well: Entrepreneurship is avoided. Perhaps this is a cultural thing: The university “provides all sorts of disincentives to new technology,” John Alexander, president of Twin Cities [...]

For those of us who will not be at the AERA conference in New York City, we can join the Applied Research in Virtual Environments for Learning (ARVEL) special interest group’s launch party via Second Life: Monday, March 24, 7:00 to 9:00 pm slurl.com/secondlife/EDTECH105/132/24 Or, in person: Hilton New York – Petit Trianon, 3rd Floor [...]

17 projects will receive up to $238,000 in funding as part of the first ever Digital Media and Learning Competition funded by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and administered by HASTAC (the Humanities, Arts, Science and Technology Advanced Collaboratory). While my proposal wasn’t among the less than 2% of submissions awarded funding, [...]

“Tomorrow is yesterday,” Skyped an attendee at today’s Networks & Neighborhoods in Cyberspace conference at the University of Minnesota today. “Even worse – yesterday is tomorrow.” The irony is that this conference is supposed to be related to a Minnesota Futures grant project. This conference is highlighting a key problem at the University of Minnesota [...]