Education Entrepreneur Fellowships

David Harris, President and CEO of The Mind Trust reports that applications are in for the second cohort of Education Entrepreneur Fellows.

The response was strong: 342 people applied for the Fellowship representing 37 states, Canada , China , Lithuania , Nigeria and the United Kingdom .

Of the applicants, 270 have or are working toward an advanced degree, including 75 PhDs, 50 MBAs, 169 Masters, and 18 JDs.

Applicants also represent some of the nation’s best schools including all eight Ivy League institutions, Stanford, Northwestern, Spelman, Duke, UC Berkeley, Howard, Emory, UCLA, Notre Dame, Michigan, Georgetown, Texas, MIT, and Rose-Hulman.

As impressive is the caliber of applicants, which include:

- past employees of Apple, NASA, the CIA, and the Peace Corps;
- alumni of Teach For America and Education Pioneers;
- participants in the Broad Residency in Urban Education;
- winners of the President’s Service Award and the Fulbright Scholarship;
- funding recipients and former employees of Ashoka, the Skoll Foundation, and Echoing Green, - three of the leading social entrepreneurship organizations in the world;
- a recent graduate of one of the nation’s leading business schools who won a prestigious business plan competition for the idea being proposed for the Fellowship; and
- a recipient of Fast Company’s Social Capitalist Award, which recognizes outstanding organizations and leaders in the social entrepreneurship sector.

The Mind Trust’s Education Entrepreneur Fellowship offers promising education entrepreneurs the opportunity to develop and launch their break-the-mold education ventures.

To receive a Fellowship, an applicant must present a compelling plan with the potential to transform public education, and demonstrate the capability to carry it out. The Mind Trust will provide two years of salary ($90,000/year), benefits, and customized training so fellows have the support necessary to develop, build, and launch their initiatives in underserved communities.

The Mind Trust will select fellows from this impressive pool through a rigorous process that includes telephone interviews, in-person interviews, review of applications by national experts, and a final presentation before the Fellowship Selection Committee.

Names of Fellows will be announced in early December.

I hope at least one Fellow will also be a Tableteer!

Kudos, Applicants, whoever your are and best wishes from the Tablet PC community for a productive and insightful two years. Future students will appreciate your efforts which ultimately affect their learning.

Google's Project Offers $10M

Google offers $10 million to implement ideas that can change the world by helping as many people as possible. After initial screening of ideas by both Google and Google users, a panel of judges will select will choose up to five ideas that will receive funding.

For teachers interested in performance pay, this appears like a valuable opening for making a creative contribution to the world while doing more of what you do routinely.

It's also an opening to show your students how your ideas compete in the real world.

Accept the call for your ideas. Your students will appreciate your innovative, entrepreneural spirit.

Project 10 to 100th Power

Article by Heather Havenstein.

Teachers as Bridges

Research Qs about Learning with Tablet PCs 4.1

I add these common sense and topical questions to my earlier list of precipitating questions for studies of and about learning with Tablet PCs. The prepositions of and about establish the point of view used to describe such learning.

The first list, posted earlier, describes implicit questions learners ask when faced with an unknown situation or an unfamiliar task, such as a school lesson.

The following list consists of common sense and topical questions.


1.0 Common Sense Questions

Do Tablet PCs increase learning rates in and out of school?

How do Tablet PCs increase learning rates?

What variation in increases exists according to who owns the Tablet PC?

By who controls its use?

By where it’s used?

What do these increases cost?

What does it cost to learn “A”?

Are these increases in schools worth their costs?

2.0 Topical (Nominal, conversational, word-plays, non-theory based) Questions

How to leverage Tablet PC learning into subjects?

To increase learning efficiency

To increase instructional productivity

What Tablet features in presentations increase learning rates?

What learning depends on luck, chance, timing, talent, artisanship?

How can we know that Tablets aren’t just another speculative bubble foisted onto schools by business for commercial gain/profit?

How can we model Tablet PC learning?

How does Tablet PC learning affect frictions (diversions from ideals of learning) in learning?

As teachers learn about increases in student learning rates with Tablet PCs, what premium do they place on these machines compared with their past experiences?

Do they speculate they can continue these increases, or that their past behavior/teaching should continue anyway?

Do learning results cast light on the importance of earlier assumptions about learning with Tablets.

I'll resort these Qs later. I'm especially interested in how this second list merges with other lists of questions about tech uses for learning, such as those posted by Travis Wittwer.

A previous post about research on learning with Tablets: Research Qs about Learning with Tablet PCs 4.0.

Help! My Son has ADHD and School Problems

Many parents have questions about the extent to which advanced communication technologies, such as Tablet PCs, can assist their children with disabilities learn more. Here's an excerpt from a letter to a mother addressing school problems her son faces. I wonder what other teachers would add to my comments.

Oh my, you do make a great effort for your son! I agree, he sounds like a smart person, and a credit to your family. Next, let's figure out how to help him accomplish what he seems to want to do.

So you know, I get fidgity playing electronic games and keyboarding for more than 45-50 minutes at a time. Your son can handle it longer than I can. These activities require fine muscle movements, and I'm a big muscle mover by preference. My mother would agree. :)

I haven't forgotten your questions about which Tablet PC and which software he might find useful for completing classroom assignments. Let's hold those Qs a bit longer. Let me suggest some steps without them, based on what I understand from the emails you forwarded.

1. So you know, since 1974, federal school law requires public schools to pay for and supply
lessons and materials for each student in any special education program to show learning progress. All public school educators know this requirement in order to obtain their credentials. You may have a legal case against the principal and district that refused required services to your son. If you want, I can address steps separately, but don't hold out hope that they'll do what's required. For whatever reasons, some do not meet the spirit or letter of this requirement for accepting Federal funding in that school.

2. Please consider thinking about and describing your son to yourself and others with different words. For example, think and say, "He does not sit still in one chair for very long." "He does not write promptly when requested." "He does not copy from the chalkboard, but will from a paper next to him.", etc. These describe what you and others see. These we can address directly and simply, promptly, and see progress.

3. Kudos to the teacher who uses stretches and other activities when she sees your son jittery and others slumping! When teaching, I used to stop instruction, have students exercise or file out the door quietly and then run to the furthest fence and back, line up quietly and file back into the classroom to continue the lesson. Suggest that each teacher try more scheduled exercise consistently with Benny; it's not a "cure," it's a bridge, an accomodation.

More suggestions; so you know, every state certified classroom teacher knows about these techniques; they start with his existing behavior patterns and provide ways to adapt them to more acceptable ones:

3.1 Count things you and he want to see, hear, feel (with hands, etc.) happen. ("People respond to what you inspect before what you expect!")

Your son posts these counts on a chart that he takes to school and can keep his own record. For example, count the number of seconds he sits still, in one chair, say every 5 minutes. Benny points a big blue cardboard arrow at that number. In the next 5 minutes, post that count. Point the arrow to the one closest to the behavior pattern you both want. It sounds too simple to work, but it does for many people. Good managers use it implicitly to manage even very bright adults. who sneer at the idea.

Things to count: it doesn't matter what you count, as long as you count something and change what you count when the previous count no longer changes in the direction you want. For example, start with one of these, length of time sitting still, number of writing strokes, letters, etc. in a minute, then in seconds; number of correct addition problems, number of words read (out loud, silently) correctly, number of situps, push ups, squat jumps, basketball hoops, rope skips, you get the idea. Get used to counting and recording successes!

3.2 Make sure he has enough deep breathing exercise before and after school so he is physically tired, less "jittery". Have you tried joga with him? Seriously.

3.3 Stop feeding him candies, sodas, and extra sugars (some argue against certain red dyes in foods), unless a medical doctor prescribes it. Ask his doctor what she thinks about uses of sugars, dyes in food, and if caffene will slow him down; some reports indicate it does some children until they hit pubescence.

3.4 The marking on the calendar, rewards, etc. are useful ideas, but appear to have limited use for adjusting your son's behavior patterns. Shorten the time intervals between postings, probably to seconds to start, then to minutes. Perhaps to hours for a few activities, such as playing soccer, and days, such as for practicing the drums. (Music, dance, martial arts, theater acting, auto mechanics, BMX racing, growing plants, raising a pet, etc. lessons teach disciplined behavior patterns with instant results.)

3.5 For writing, ask your son to let you put your hand on top of his when he holds the pencil and to let you guide his hand while he writes on your request. (Parallel muscle movement.) Write his name, start with big letters until he takes muscle control. Count in blocks of five strokes, then ten strokes. Note the number of correct marks to attempts. Post the numbers of correct marks on request. Don't worry about how long it takes at first or what it looks like and gradually morph it into appropriate forms and timing. Work first to shorten the time of request to response, then on morphing the marks into acceptable forms.

3.6 For reading, you read one, then two, then three words to him, then he repeats them out loud to you. Make it a game of soft response, loud response, shouting response, first on a regular schedule, then randomly. Count and post the number of correct words, and the length of time. Morph toward more words, shorter time, etc.

Start with a short elapsed time, say that he'll attend successfully, a minute? two minutes? five minutes? Let his successful behavior pattern set the first schedule, then you extend it gradually to extend his attention time in reading, etc.

3.6 For arithmetic, read the numbers to him, he tells you what to write, then you lay on hands for him to write the answers, etc. as with writing and reading.

3.7 For art, lay on your hands to help him draw a happy face, simple stick figures, then more sophisticated ones, etc. Count, ...

Well, what do you think? You've probably tried some of these steps and likely know all of them. I'm just trying to support you doing what you know. Above all, counting, consistency, and consequences manage everyone's behavior patterns, mine, yours, your son's, his teachers, et al.

Keep up the effort. Your son will appreciate it. Please let me know of your starting any of these ideas and of your son's progress. We can make adjustments on-the-fly around these learning principles.

I'm looking forward to hearing from your son, maybe in an email, to let me know how he thinks these ideas work for him and what changes he and you make to increase his progress even further.


What would you add, teachers? Parents?

World Wide Web Foundation Addresses Disinformation

Sir Tim Berners-Lee co-created and unvailed a new World Wide Web Foundation that will address a new system that would give websites a label for trustworthiness once they had been proved reliable sources. He told BBC News that he was increasingly worried about the way the web has been used to spread disinformation.

"On the web the thinking of cults can spread very rapidly and suddenly a cult which was 12 people who had some deep personal issues suddenly find a formula which is very believable," he said. "A sort of conspiracy theory of sorts and which you can imagine spreading to thousands of people and being deeply damaging."

Source: Warning sounded on web's future

I wonder how much of teacher blogs contribute, likely unintentionally, to disinformation about learning and schooling.

A learning analyst could conduct an interesting and useful study on this topic.

I wonder who might have interest in setting up a group to formulate guidelines for authenticating education blog information? Maybe something like FactCheck about learning, teaching, schooling and related publications?

Use Mouth and Throat Muscles and Receptors Memory for Speech

Researchers David Ostry and Sazzad Nasir at McGill University in Montreal on Sunday said intelligible speech is learnt in part through nerve signals from the vocal tract, a discovery that could open up an ambitious avenue of therapy for the deaf.

Source: Breakthrough in understanding of speech offers hope to the deaf, 09-14-08

WLAN More than 1Gb

“I think we’ll see a [Very High Throughput - VHT] standard in two years, and WLAN products with more than 1 gigabit per second within three years,” says Craig Mathias, principal for wireless consultancy Farpoint Group. “That is absolutely phenomenal."

Source: IEEE Readies Launch of Gigabite Wi-Fi Project, 09-11-08

Identifying Education Ph.D. Candidates

One of my first assignments in higher education was putting in rank order 350 applications for 10 doctoral study research fellowships in the then top ranked college of education in the U.S. I sorted these applications while also completing my dissertation research about how people "really" earn their doctorates. These two activities left me with several lessons that continue to guide my thinking about education and schooling, Others use similar guidelines developed from different sources.

In that spirit, I search blogs almost daily trying to identify people who appear likely to rank high in such competition. As in such selections previously, "open competition" to enter top tier doctoral level research study in education exists in appearance more than in fact even today.

I look for people who give priority to learning and calculated risk-taking; a record of independent, open intellectual curiosity with a slight edge without political axes; previous recognition for accomplishing something extraordinary through discipline and talent; and a willingness to submit to learning from those who in fact know more as an aggregate than they do. These people know how to go their own way productively as did those who created the industrialized world from subsistence and agrarian settings.

I've met a few such classroom teachers on the Internet. People with teaching as second or third careers more likely fit these criteria as do program and product developers in high tech businesses.

Of the perhaps 1K faculty and students I've met in such colleges of education, less than a dozen have influenced the course of individual learning in remarkable ways. They added what they learned from others to their own insights in order to create protocols that increased learning rates for uncounted millions of learners.

I search, because I think another person exists in a classroom who can walk successfully through that door to the unusual benefit of more millions of learners.

The season has started for submitting applications to these few top tier research universities. If you know a teacher who appears to meet these personal and admission criteria, please encourage her or him to apply for entrance to start next fall. I plan to do so with a couple of people also.

It's Not What We Teach; It's What They Learn

Alfie Kohn offers thoughtful comments in his September 10, 2008 post, It's Not What You Teach; It's What They Learn. I added a draft of these comments to his guest book.

The title says it all, an easy point for some of us teachers to miss.

And, yet, I disagree that the point holds beyond middle school. for most students. It definitely should not hold for teacher prep and inservice updates.

At some point, the duty for learning rests with the student, not the teacher.

It becomes the student's duty to figure out what the teacher/faculty member means, to delve into the literature to identify background for the lesson, etc.

At least that's the way learners appear to have risen to superior intellectual positions throughout recorded history.

Why should we extend elementary theraputic schooling and spoon feed "discovery" to those in their teens and older, just because some want to continue acting as children and have their learning catered with "interaction." Yes?

Let's let students grow up, Teacher, and accept their duty to learn. After all, this is their bootcamp for a highly competitive life, not just feel-good-about-myself, free play time.

(I wonder how much of this I accept, and how much I recite familiar rhetoric?) :)


Alfie Kohn, It's not what we teach; it's what they learn.

Digital Textbooks and Open Textbooks Compete for Student Market

Textbooks writers and publishers compete for the student market. Digital textbooks are a promising solution to lower costs, but they need to be done the right way.

A recent study by the Student Public Interest Research Groups, concludes that digital textbooks need to meet three main criteria in order to maximize their potential: they must be affordable, printable, and accessible. Two types of major players exist in the digital textbook market now – e-textbooks and open textbooks.

They assert that digital textbooks are done the wrong way (cost too much) and open textbooks done the right way (uses open source ideology).

This report holds interest among those looking for ways to cut schooling costs.

These conclusions miss the point that all books on and off line cost someone something to write and publish. If students don't pay those costs, then who pays it for them and why should they do so?


Sources:

Student Public Interest Research Groups

Course Correction: How Digital Textbooks are Off Track and How to Set Them Straight

Call for Tablet PC COVE Nominees

Ever sense the first five Tablet PCs arrived for resale in the U.S., educators have ventured forward to figure out and demonstrate how learners could use them to advantage. I've looked unsuccessfully for existing ways to identify these people.

Subsequently, I started referring to them and similar risk takers as venture educators (VEs). They are to learning what venture capitalists (VCs) are to commercial enterprise. With calculated and at other times estimated risks, they invest time, energy, and other resources into creating ways that make learning easier and more efficient in and out of schools.

In short, they have shown us how we can learn whatever we want to learn, anywhere and anytime for whatever reason we choose at that moment.

Interestingly, most early adopters have not held teaching certificates, college of education majors, or other common indicators of educators. Rather, they developed the hardware and software that allows mobile learning in and out of classrooms.

These developers followed the same detailed steps as teachers in preparing lessons: they both figure out what results they want to accomplish and then work through a detailed plan to yield those outcomes.

Tablet PC VEs joined with VCs to launch a new era of almost ubiquitous mobile learning, a reality previously only inferred from earlier dreams of the most forward looking educators. As a result, probably, conservatively speaking, uncounted hundreds of millions of learning transactions occur with mobile PCs daily worldwide. (Now there's an interesting exercise for someone to calculate! Perhaps it could be included in the proposed Tablet PC Research Agenda.)

To recognize their accomplishments, I propose a nomination process to a virtual Collection Of Venture Educators (COVE), starting with the earliest developers, evangelists, and adopters of and about Tablet PCs and other mobile Ink devices.

To each, they shall be known as Five Star Learning Efficiency Holders.

I'm assembling my list and will post it soon. I've been fortunate to know and learn from many of these people. Oh my goodness, they are smart!

Please let me know your nominees so we can add them to the list.

Read more about Venture Educators.