Sit down with Darin Eich in his first ever Innovation Education Conversation. Today, Darin speaks with Roger Osorio, founder of Studee-Lounge, to discuss innovating education with a focus on the tools available to teachers today. Toward the end, they speak a bit about HighSchoolInnovation.com, Google+ Hangouts, Evernote and Foldit.
SAN FRANCISCO – The Conrad Foundation‘s annual Spirit of Innovation Awards program is underway with unprecedented support from aerospace leader Lockheed Martin. Student teams will be tasked with designing innovative products using science and technology that address real world challenges. Top teams are invited to attend the Innovation Summit in April of 2011, hosted at NASA Ames Research Center, where they will participate in workshops and present their ideas to some of the world’s leading minds in science, business, government, media, and academia.
Read the whole article here. How are you using project-based learning to innovate?
Check out this great piece at NPR about a high school in Vermont that teaches outdoors all year long. The Walden Project focuses on environmental studies and the works of Henry Thoreau. Talk about innovating by going back to your roots!
Matt Schlein, the founder of the Walden Project, came up with these four key principles:
– Place-based classroom; 260 acres of land make up the school.
– An integrated curriculum; all subjects are taught together as one program.
– The philosophy of H.D. Thoreau; students think about their relationship to self, to culture and to the natural world.
– Stay outside; students stay outside two days a week in the winter and three days a week during the spring and fall.
Learn about the Entrepreneurship and Innovation Program at the University of Maryland – College Park from students in the program. This program helps University of Maryland Honors College freshmen and sophomores “build the entrepreneurial mindsets, skill sets, and relationships invaluable to developing innovative, impactful solutions to today’s problems.” It’s great info for graduating high school students looking to continue innovating in higher education.
Another great story from NPR – this time, they discuss how public schools are using innovative online teaching to increase their curriculum. This allows smaller schools to give students the benefits of big school topics. The article focuses largely on Virtual Virginia, a state program offering dozens of classes to middle and high school students in Virginia.
Most of the 3,000 students in the Virtual Virginia program enroll in online advanced placement courses. And thanks to the program … Rappahannock County High, can offer more AP classes, allowing it to compete with local private schools, which often use AP courses as a selling point.
The 2012 CT Student Innovation Expo happened last May, showcasing great innovations from high school students. Connecticut and Massachusetts high school students participating in Center for 21st Century Skills & CT Career Choices programs will be joining middle schoolers from the CT Pre-Engineering Program in celebrating a year’s work of innovation, creativity, and imagination at the XL Center in Hartford, Conn.
This is a quick reminder to those of you moving on from high school to college: learn your options and avoid falling into uncontrollable debt. What can we do as educators, parents, students and citizens to remedy this issue?
Dr. Tony Wagner, co-director of Harvard’s Change Leadership Group, discusses the “global achievement gap” and the seven skills students can develop to combat this gap.
The 7 Skills Students Need For The Future:
Read the article here at Asia Society, or check out the full lecture here on YouTube.
Another great video entry from the UIST Student Innovation Contest, this time from 2010. Here, students have developed a handy Adaptive Input Device.
