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From the Committee on Education and Labor here in the US. Mark your calendars! This is June 16 at 10 am EDT. "WASHINGTON, D.C. - The House Education and Labor Committee will hold a hearing on Tuesday, June 16 to examine how technology and innovative education tools are transforming and improving education in America. Immediately following the hearing, members of the media are invited to attend an education technology demonstration where they can have hands-on experience using cutting-edge education technology products. WHAT: Hearing on "The Future of Learning: How Technology is Transforming Public Schools" WHO: Jennifer Bergland, chief technology officer, Bryan Independent School District, Bryan, TX Aneesh Chopra, chief technology officer, White House Office for Science and Technology Dr. Wayne Hartschuh, executive director, Delaware Center for Educational Technology, Dover, DE Scott Kinney, vice president, Discovery Education, Silver Spring, MD John McAuliffe, general manager, Educate Online Learning, LLC, Baltimore, MD Lisa Short, science teacher, Gaithersburg Middle School, Montgomery County Public Schools, Gaithersburg, MD Abel Real, student, East Carolina University, Greenville, NC WHEN: Tuesday, June 16, 2009 10:00 a.m., EDT WHERE: House Education and Labor Committee Hearing Room 2175 Rayburn House Office Building Washington, D.C. **Note: This hearing will be webcast live from the Education and Labor Committee website. You can access the webcast when the hearing begins at 10:00 am EDT from http://edlabor.house.gov**"

This announcement came in recently: "The University of Northern Colorado is about to launch the Education Innovation Institute. University and government officials will detail plans on Sept. 24 for what is being billed as the "leading authority on education policy research and analysis." UNC has been a leader in the field of education since its founding in 1889 as the State Normal School." I hope that they will blog it, for if they truly want to influence educational innovation, they will share their findings and become part of this amazing grassroots network of educators. Be part of change or be irrelevant.

Op Ed Piece in LA times on change.

Op Ed Piece in LA times is representative of the call for innovation in schools. As with all change - you can be part of it or it can be imparted to you. Which would you rather have? The imperative to innovate is here -- and those who don't act will ultimately be the ones who lose. Unfortunately, kids aren't getting any younger -- older people will just hurt their career in a life that is already one of educational excellence -- children will never reach their potential. It is important - we cannot waste time where children are at stake. We don't waste time when it comes to our own and the travesty is that many don't see anything wrong with wasting the time of another parent's child.

This is a call out specifically to my friends out there in the Atlanta area or anywhere in Georgia to put in for a poster session at Georgia Tech's conference about the Foundations for the future. I wish I could get away but am a bit tied up at school right now. Here's the information and link: "Foundations for the Future (F3), a K-12 outreach and research program at Georgia Tech Research Institute, knows that Georgia teachers are using technology in amazing ways to inspire and engage students. One of the most frequent comments we hear is that it is difficult for educators to know what's working for other educators because there is so much going on, not everyone can afford to attend conferences, and access to technology is inconsistent across the state. We want to honor and highlight teachers and their projects. What better way to get inspired than through a fellow colleague! What better way to meet other passionate educators and share your experiences! F3 is hosting the 2013 F3 Educator Showcase during our May Explorers Guild meeting. The showcase will include a panel discussion along with a poster session. If you are interested in applying for the poster session, all you need to do is follow the guidelines below. Posters will be chosen by a selection committee of F3 partners and Georgia Tech colleagues. Chosen posters will be printed for participants so that after the event they can take the posters back to their school to continue highlighting the good work taking place there! This event helps support F3's mission to help acquire and leverage instructional technology resources for Georgia's classrooms, schools, and districts, share best practices, and establish a community of learners. We look forward to your submissions and can't wait to see you all at the event in May!   Guidelines for Poster Abstract Submission: Title: Accurately and concisely present your idea in 15 words or less Abstract: In 350 words or less, tell us about how using technology

EdReach provides a platform for passionate, outspoken educators- aiming to strengthen their voices by highlighting innovation in the field of education, through reporting critical educational news, providing commentary, and offering criticism of the educational issues of the day.

"re you a bright spark with a brilliant educational technology idea that could change the way we teach and learn in schools and drive up educational outcomes? If so Cool Initiatives wants to hear from you! Cool Initiatives, premier early stage investor in education and edtech, has just launched The Cool Initiatives Education Challenge 2019 . It's giving away a total of £17,500 - no financial strings attached - to students, teachers or early stage start ups that offer an innovative edtech solution to change the face of education as we know it today."

Speech given by Arne Duncan, May 17, 2010 regarding international collaboration and engagement in US Education

An amazing science site with a large number of magnificent animations and graphics to help you explain science principles. Content suitable for older students. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/Science

mission is to educate students in the sciences by building content-rich immersive teaching tools designed around discovery-based learning that are accessible to educators and learners at school, at home and in the general public. Spongelab Interactive builds their own products and offers custom production services for the global education community. Their unique approach around integrating educational design with advance web & gaming technology is planting the seeds for continued innovation of advanced communication and education products.

NEA Foundation and the US Department of Education Challenge to Innovate contest is requesting classroom teachers to identify and solve the current pressing issues regarding education. Smallish grants designed to help implement small pilot projects.

"The White House Office of the Press Secretary For Immediate Release September 24, 2011 WEEKLY ADDRESS: Strengthening the American Education System WASHINGTON-In this week's address, President Obama told the American people that it is time to raise the standards of our education system so that every classroom is a place of high expectations and high performance. On Friday, the President announced that states will have greater flexibility to find innovative ways of improving the quality of learning and teaching, so that we can strengthen performance in our classrooms and ensure that teachers are helping students learn rather than teaching to the test. By modernizing our schools and improving the education system, the United States can continue building an economy that lasts into the future and prepare the next generation to succeed in the global economy."

"Here are insights from the team of educational innovators at one of the most transformational schools I have visited: SCIL, the Sydney Centre for Innovation in Learning at NBCS, the Northern Beaches Christian School." (via Pekka Ihanainen)

Great reflection of a student on education!

This student has done a marvelous speech on Education and giving choices to student. My favorite quote from Andrew ( a student from New Zealand) -- "A closed book test is simply not a realistic situation in the modern world." I'm not putting this on my blog as an embedded video because I would love for you to respond on NetGen where all educators are welcome to join in with students to discuss how education should evolve. This is an excellent video, and as you can see with my comments, there are a few points I take up with Andrew -- it is one of those -- you've gotta listen to this student kinda videos. He makes some great points speaking out for his generation. He says that when he asks his parents to help him and they say "I don't know how to do this" it tells him that it is not something that will be used and thus is unimportant! Hmmm.

"Pinterest is quickly becoming one of the biggest sources inspiration and innovation when it comes to cooking, design, and education. That's right, education is a prominent fixture on Pinterest now and that, of course, means that education technology plays a starring role."

Finland is an innovator in education and now they're doing it again. Schools need a facelift. If you're building a new school - rethink school. I'd look at the designs. Also, Ewan McIntosh wrote a great "7 spaces of schools" that is in the "Choice" chapter for those of you have bought my book Flattening Classroom, Engaging Minds - he talked about this on a boat in South Africa with me 2 years a go and is an expert to follow in the area of school design. "Finnish students consistently have placed among the top countries on the Program for International Student Assessment, which gauges 15-year-old students' ability to understand and transfer concepts in reading, mathematics, and science. For example, in the most recent mathematics assessment, in 2009, Finnish students scored 54 points higher than their American peers on a scale of zero to 1,000. Pasi Sahlberg, the director general of the Center for International Mobility and Cooperation at Finland's education ministry, attributes the nation's academic achievement to a three-fold approach: quality of the academic curriculum, equity in educational access, "and the third one is the environment. How the environment and design of the school is supporting students' learning. When we combine these three things we can say something about the overall goodness of the school system."

Nominate someone you know NOW. What a great way to share up and coming education technology leaders: "Do you know educators who are passionate about using technology to transform teaching and learning; who can inspire their colleagues to embrace new tools; and who are curious by nature and always looking for how the next innovation can be applied to education? If so, please submit their names by Wednesday, December 18th for consideration as part of the National School Boards Association's "20 to Watch" recognition program. The 2013-14 "20" will be honored in Washington, D.C. during CoSN's Annual Conference, March 19th, 2014 (www.cosn.org) and recognized during the Technology Leadership Network Luncheon at the NSBA Annual Conference in New Orleans, April 6, 2014. Questions? Please email Ann Flynn."

Just received this in my inbox: "WASHINGTON DC (August 25th, 2009) - Curriki, the largest online community for creating and sharing open source K-12 curricula, was asked by the Department of Education, Office of Innovation and Improvement (OII) to provide a continuity of learning plan for states, school districts, and individuals as part of a nationwide readiness initiative for a possible resurgence of the H1N1 virus. Curriki's continuity of learning plan includes access to a free and open repository of teaching and learning resources built on an open platform that can be customized for individual states or school districts. Like an iTunes playlist, users of Curriki can create collections of free and open educational resources, along with repositories of other supplemental content. If a teacher prefers one lesson to another, he or she can easily swap content in or out to meet the individual needs of the students. States or school districts can take advantage of customized landing pages designed to provide specific information, news, resources, and links to their education stakeholders. Additionally, Curriki's group function allow members of a district, school, or community to stay connected and privately share resources, communicate and post news and collaborate on projects from any location. " I think that perhaps online learning is about to completely boom largely as a result of the growing pandemic and the need for isolation and ongoing learning. Curriki has things together for this and I'm going to take a look at this for our school.

This morning President Obama gave what I would call his 'We're-Going-to-the-Moon' speech at the 146th Annual Meeting of National Academy of the Sciences. Earlier today I wrote a post, Once-in-a-Lifetime Opportunity for Our Children, on a comment by Secretary of Education Arnie Duncan about the need to challenge the educational status quo. After listening to President Obama's speech, I realized it was a Part 2 to my earlier post so I retitled the post 'We're-Going-to-the-Moon:' Part 1 and titled this post Part 2. Please listen to the entire speech and read the full text, but here I quote the President's comments on STEM education.

Great article on Disruptive Innovation and Education