Reimagining K-12
Matt Greenfield is the managing director of Rethink Education, a venture fund focused exclusively on early- and growth-stage education technology startups. Tom Segal, an analyst for Rethink Education, has written extensively about innovation and educational technology issues. This blog is no longer being updated.
Standards
Opinion
2020: What's the expiration date on YOUR textbook?
In today's market, each principal and superintendent purchasing new content for his or her schools must ask themselves: How long will this textbook stay relevant? The age of justifying the paper purchase has officially passed us by.
Education Funding
Opinion
Turning Theory into Action: The Role of the Foundation in Education
During a recent Twitter binge, I encountered an op-ed from 1970 scolding the efforts of the United States to implement technology into the learning experience. It held up shockingly well to today's environment. For Government theory to turn into Government action, the Foundation must act as the intermediary.
Teaching
Opinion
Can Classroom Games Improve Learning?
Gamifying the classroom is a hot topic in ed-tech these days, with myriad arguments in its favor. But what does the evidence have to show?
Classroom Technology
Opinion
Social Media: The New King of Content
Semi-coherent ramblings on social media's role in content generation gives way to a discussion on Bill Gates's latest report and measurement in education. How can we leverage social networks to create a generation of student sleuths? How can adaptive learning engines empower new methods of measuring achievement?
Student Achievement
Opinion
Get to Know a C.E.O., with Tiffany Cooper Gueye
Dr. Tiffany Cooper Gueye is the leader in charge of BELL (Building Educated Leaders for Life), a national non-profit organization that partners with schools and school districts to deliver high quality out-of-school time programs to underserved youth in grades K-8. Let's get to know her.
College & Workforce Readiness
Opinion
Symbiotic Brands: Borrowing the Prestige of Stanford
The brands of both Udacity and Coursera, like many academic brands, are composed out of affiliations with many other academic brands. What else do you think of when you think of these companies? Above all, you probably think of Stanford University. The founders of both companies were Stanford professors, and, in the usual story, the foundational event was when Sebastian Thrun taught an online artificial intelligence course at Stanford that attracted 160,000 students, of whom 23,000 finished the course. In this version of the story, the MOOCs leaped into the world out of the brow of Stanford University, much as the goddess Athena leaped fully formed and armored from the forehead of her father Zeus. Another god had to split Zeus's skull open with an axe to facilitate the birth, but so far the rise of the MOOCs has not been particularly traumatic for Stanford. The spawning of Udacity and Coursera has enhanced Stanford's reputation for both pedagogical and technological innovation.
IT Infrastructure & Management
Opinion
Reimagining Blog Posts: The Best That 2012 Had to Offer
2012 saw a wave of change in the ed-tech landscape, and the blogosphere was there to track the movement along the way. Here are some of my favorite posts from the year past.
Classroom Technology
Opinion
Quality Access to Learning: Teachers and Technology
Wendy Heckert explores technology implementation in the classroom, and makes a plea to start-ups to help train teachers to best use new tools
Curriculum
Opinion
Living on Amazon's Planet
Strangely, Amazon has not yet disrupted educational publishing or educational technology. They have not yet gone after Pearson or Cengage or McGraw Hill Education or Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Amazon does not really publish its own textbooks, and Amazon has not to date focused on selling textbooks to K-12 school districts. This may be because Amazon has traditionally focused on direct-to-consumer sales.
IT Infrastructure & Management
Opinion
CommaSpaceErgo: Crowdsourcing Education's Trends, Stats, and Facts
We, the education community, are in desperate need of a repository for statistics and trends of all sorts in the learning landscape. Why not build it together? CommaSpaceErgo is born...
IT Infrastructure & Management
Opinion
Meekerpalooza 2012: How shifts in Internet usage will transform the education landscape
Let's take a look at the many ways that Internet trends in 2012 (as defined by the great Mary Meeker) may affect the K-12 landscape.
College & Workforce Readiness
Opinion
Facilitating the Learning Experience
The results are in! As tuition rates rise through the roof, it turns out all that money is going to... rock climbing walls! What role should physical equipment and facilities play in education, both at the Higher Ed and K-12 level? How can we optimize these resources?
Early Childhood
Opinion
The SIIA ETBF: I laughed, I cried, I fell in love (with a few start-ups)
The SIIA Ed-Tech Business Forum featured presentations from a number of start-ups making moves in the learning community: let's take a look at the finalists!
Education
Opinion
Infographics: Because Tumblr Feeds are so 2010
Infographics can be visually stimulating, powerfully succinct narratives. For Ed-Tech advocates in particular, this presents a great new medium to convey its thesis of the new world order.