Knowledge in the Public Interest (KPI)

This organization works with New York City public schools to establish innovative strategies that make success more likely for struggling students. The organization offers a website, The KnowledgeBase (https://knowledgebase.newvisions.org), that offers toolkits, strategies, resources and networking.

This project ran for 12 months, beginning in June 2008. It was part of the Information Society Policy Research Unit of the European Commission Joint Research Centre.

By Nicholas Wade in New York Times, October 5, 2009. Recipients include Elizabeth H. Blackburn of the University of California, San Francisco; Carol W. Greider of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine; and Jack W. Szostak of Massachusetts General Hospital.

Part of the Information Society Policy Research Unit, from the European Commission Joint Research Centre Institute for Prospective Technological Studies Centre (EC - JRC - IPTS). This is a resource page that looks innovative ways to use Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in education.

By CC (Community College) Times, published April 21 2010. This article reports on Bill Gates's visit to Foothill College to observe the Math My Way program. From the article, "Math My Way groups cohorts of students who have similar math skill levels." Students then work in small groups, and one-on-one with instructors, as well as using both computer and paper drills and games.

By Pete Plastrik on nuPOLIS, April 15 2010, 2 quick facts relevant to social innovation.

By Claudio Sanchez on Morning Edition (NPR), April 22 2010. The Boston Teacher Residency program (BTR) models itself on medical residency programs. Prospective teachers take education classes and work directly with mentor teachers to gain on-the-job experience.

By Doug Lederman in Inside Higher Ed, May 12 2010. Review of the Action Analytics Symposium, which was co-sponsored by the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities (29 public 2-year and 4-year institutions) and Capella Univesrity (a for-profit, online institution). The concept is "a multi-dimensional effort aimed squarely at fundamental and strategic education reform in the context of massive economic, social, and technological change... [A]ction analytics strategically uses data, statistics, predictive modeling and visualization to promote student success, achieve institutional efficiency, and demonstrate transparency."

Information about a case study on Cirque du Soleil in Harvard Business Review. Case study publication date: June 1, 2009.

Provided by Futurelab, Education Eye "brings you a wide range of exciting, relevant and useful innovations which are selected from the best of the web and updated daily." (from About page). At first blush, the site might seem tricky to navigate, but it is loaded with interesting ideas. Entries are color-coded (key is on the left), and you can also search for specific terms.

Brooke Gladstone, On the Media (NPR), May 14, 2010. This page offers both an audio podcast and a transcript of the story. Gladstone reports on the Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP)'s spring 2010 show, and interviews Clay Shirkey, a teacher in the program.

on TED.com, April 2010

By Charles Ehin, September 2, 2009 on Knowledge Board. Author "explains why knowledge workers who want to expand the innovative capacities of their organisations need to pay much closer attention to human nature."

A blog by the Chronicle of Higher Education that started in May 2010, Innovations brings together several regular bloggers on the topic of innovations. Bloggers include Sandy Baum (Skidmore College), Michael McPherson (Spencer Foundation), Marybeth Gasman (Graduate School of Education, University of Pennsylvania), Richard Kahlenberg (Century Foundation), and Richard Vedder (Center for College Affordability and Productivity/Ohio University).

By Betty Ray, on Edutopia, July 8 2010. This is a post by guest blogger Rob Jacobs, a recent participant in twitter group #edchat's topic, "What actions are needed to move the education reform movement from conversation to action." This guest post is on the same topic. Not only is this an interesting post, but #edchat sounds like a great twitter to follow.

Website of the MIT Media Lab. From their Mission and History page, "Now, in its third decade, the Media Lab continues to check traditional disciplines at the door. Future-obsessed product designers, nanotechnologists, data-visualization experts, industry researchers, and pioneers of computer interfaces work side by side to tirelessly invent-and reinvent-how humans experience, and can be aided by, technology."

From Wikipedia, essentially "Diffusion of Innovations is a theory of how, why, and at what rate new ideas and technology spread through cultures."

By Steve Lohr, July 7, 2009 in Technology section, The New York Times. A contest set up by Netflix offered a $1 million prize for improving its movie recommendation system.

This Center began as a collaboration between Columbia University Law School and the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. From "What We Do," "The Center works primarily through projects in different institutional settings, such as higher education, low-wage work, criminal justice, and housing. Each of the projects brings together creative and committed researchers, practitioners, and students to address problems involving structural inequality, and to do so through examining innovation."

Posted by Robert Jacobs in Education Innovation (blog) on September 2, 2010. The model for school change that Jacobs outlines looks very similar to the GSCC project, in that both look at what's working and how it might be replicated, focusing on the positive (solution) rather than the more negative (problem). NOTE: The Harvard Business Review article that Jacobs refers to was published in 2005.