Saturday, September 22, 2012

Another MOOC

Sometime in the last two weeks, a friend pointed out the Stanford MOOC called Designing a New Learning Environment and thought I might like it.  I signed up and got the introductory letter today.  In addition to the usual lectures and discussions students will "ultimately design and pitch a new learning environment as your final team project. Examples include learning management systems that do more or are better than existing tools, mobile learning models or e learning pedagogies, a technology that supports learning and assessment, new school system models, or a blended learning program."

This seems like it's more in line with my idea for Edstartup 101, so I may decrease my involvement in that MOOC so that I can devote more time to the Stanford one.    Just realizing that is possible is informative to me of the MOOC phenomenon in general.  I would never consider dropping one class for another if I had paid for it.   Free, open classes are kind of like an all you can eat buffet-- take what you want and leave the rest.  It also has some interesting ramifications for the teacher-- how do you make it worthwhile to people to stay- or do you even care?

Saturday, September 15, 2012

My Edstartup Idea

This week in Edstartup 101, we've been asked to explain our idea in no more than two screens full of text. My idea is a non-profit, but non-profits have to start up, too, right?

Summary

I would like to create a non-profit which promotes a new vision of the K-12 education system by collecting and disseminating research in best learning practices, running a demonstration school to model our vision, and producing open resources that allow other districts and states to scale the curriculum and practices of the demonstration school.  Key components of the vision would include: multiage and developmentally grouped classes; competency based core curriculum; technology used both to learn and to create; and an emphasis on collaboration and lifelong learning skills.

What problem does your idea solve?

In one of his blog posts, Will Richardson sums up the problem by saying, "...if we don’t start writing and advocating for a very different vision of learning in real classrooms, one that is focused not just on doing the things we've been doing better but in ways that are truly reinvented, one that prepares kids to be innovators and designers and entrepreneurs and, most importantly, learners, we will quickly find ourselves competing at scale with cheaper, easier alternatives that won’t serve our kids as well."

How does your idea fix the problem?

In order to reinvent education in K-12, we have to make more changes than will happen in a public school under current conditions.  Thomas Carol says, "If we didn’t have the schools we have today, would we create the schools we have today?"  Only by separating the school from current state and federal legislation can we actually answer that question with a model.  The non-profit will run a grant funded, zero tuition demonstration school with exceptionally transparent practices to serve as a blueprint for bold changes.

Why do you want to fix the problem?

I've been in education for most of my life, as a student, a teacher, a consultant, and a parent.  I believe we as humans are curious, self directed learners, that we are better together than apart, and that caring mentors are essential to the learning experience.  I am disheartened by the relentless emphasis on high stakes testing and scripted teaching.  I want to model a bold change that scales without being standardized.

Sunday, September 9, 2012

The Edstartup Space

There have been so many great posts during the second week of Edstartup 101, that I'm not sure I have anything original to add.  Below is my visual for how I roughly sorted the startups we were asked to look at for the class:


The_Edstartup_Space title=
easel.ly

The most exciting startups for me are mostly ones that didn't make it on the list.  The startups that are creating open ended tools like Easel.ly (above) or that are looking at education from a very different perspective are the ones that I like learning about.  I'm concerned about startups like Knewton that seem to be trying to remove human beings from being a part of the learning experience with the student.  And I'm disappointed by startups like ClassDojo that are based almost entirely on poor pedagogy (anyone there read Punished by Rewards by Alfie Kohn?).

I don't have a clear idea for a startup.  I've thought about a few iPad apps that I think would make the classroom a better place.  Those aren't big ideas like Knewton or Dreambox, more like Goalbook in scope.  What I'd really like to do is start a zero tuition private school that leveraged all these new ideas and created something very different than a public K-12 school of today.  However, what I see in the startup examples is that the most successful may also be what is most familiar.  Even when the ideas are new they still work within the comfortable boundaries of what we expect from education.

The problem with different/disruptive ideas in education is that the experiment always takes many years to evaluate.  And then we have to decide how to evaluate it-- happier people, more productive people, more money, more success (and by what measure?).  When it comes to disruptive innovations in education, no one except those who have been utterly failed by the current system wants to be experimented on.  I think the disruptive innovations are going to happen on the edges of education among homeschoolers and among students with very different learning needs.


Wednesday, September 5, 2012

Betsy Corcoran on Edstartup

Just finished watching the live Google Hangout chat with Betsy Corcoran for Edstartup 101 this morning.  As a teacher and curriculum consultant participating in Edstartup, here are some of the points she made that stuck out for me.


She said new businesses change the way you do things, the time and place you do things, or the way organizations allocate funds to do things.  When Edsurge reports on new companies, they look for products that change the game, have a new idea, or affect a lot of people.

Betsy thought there was a shortage of technology based curriculum products that really teach curriculum with lots of input from teachers, and I've noticed that, too, in looking at the startups for this course.  She thought there was lots of room for people with research and pedogogy background to create genuine innovation and creative approaches.  Don't I hope so, too!

My favorite quote, "Demonstrating mastery is far more important than what you score on a test."

Edstartup and my Introduction, take two


Note: Edstartup had a glitch with midweek joiners like me, so I'm reposting this to see if it gets in the feed....

This week I started participating in the Edstartup 101 MOOC.  I'm not sure that I have any sort of "cunning plan that cannot fail" (one of the choices in the participant survey) but I feel that the experience might be useful to me.

I have a love/hate relationship with educational entrepreneurialism.  On one hand, I see it as sort of a scary part of what seems to be increasing privatization of education.  On the other hand, it's where some of the greatest innovations I've seen are being made.

I made this quick introduction video for that community.