Knowledge Garage Unleashing knowledge and innovation for the next generation of learning

Tiger and Toyota --- We had a fascinating chat with Tim Waters, the visionary leader of McREL, the other day about the sudden fall of Toyota this past week. It reminded Tim of the similarly stunning decline of Tiger Woods.  It also conjured other collapses of leaders and innovators like Enron, Lehman Bros, Bernie Maldof, Gilbert Arenas, and, yes, the Roman Empire. In this era of innovation in education and the emergence of new kinds of leaders/entrepreneurs, are there lessons to be learned from the erstwhile stalwarts in other industries?  hmmmm. Seems like there is ample for fodder here for a ..

Collective efficacy and baking a cake  --- We really liked this piece by blogger John Thompson on the important interconnected components for school turning arounds. We were particularly fascinated by one of his quotes from Tony Bryk and friends who "likened their 'essential supports' (for school turnaround) to a recipe for baking a cake: Without the right ingredients, the whole enterprise just falls flat. 'A material weakness in any one ingredient means that a school is very unlikely to improve.'"

R&D for 3-D Learning --- The other day when we read this clever Maureen Dowd piece about the rise of 3-D movies we instantly thought about two things: is there some kind of equivalent innovation in education to immerse students in learning?; and are there any education innovators out there who are probing far-out and far-beyond ideas to really transform instruction? hey, how about developing an R&D "knowledge garage" to develop 3-D learning.

As Ellen Goodman says in this terrific retirement editorial, "January, after all, is named for the Roman god of beginnings and endings. He looked backward and forward at the same time." So, on this morning full of ones (1/1/10) we do the same.  For our retrospective-prospective from our Knowledge Garage perspective, we have chosen to take the long view gazing  way back 10 years ago to the start of the Aughts and then leaping way forward to the beginning of the next Roaring 20's with a stop in the here and now. It's an interesting time-journey. Jump on board and ..

For those of you who participated in our Knowledge and Innovation summit last summer will recall the important words by both Jim Shelton and John Easton about the critical importance of repositioning the education R&D infrastructure and creating dynamic link between R&D and innovation in advancing education transformation. Well, the two seem to be working well together now. See this terrific blog discussion in the National Journal which demonstrates Shelton and Easton's combined efforts as well as the limited understanding among reformers of this knowledge-innovation dynamic. We have a long way to go but the start is promising.    ..

My grandson, 9, is suddenly wikiing in the real world at his public school. I've written about him in the past, especially how intrigued he is with computer games, especially those his grandparents allow him to play at our house because we're suckers. Anyway, now his school has entered the wiki world. He and another third-grade girl have been assigned to critique each other's writing via a wiki. At first I was suspicious , knowing the schools' habit of doing tech for tech's sake, but this seems to be quite a success, based on what I've seen. Michael, grandson and great-grandson ..

Health care prototype for education? --- Those of you who attended our summit  last summer and/or have read our white paper know that we are mighty intrigued by the Institute of Healthcare Improvement(IHI) and how its networked design approach to R&D and innovation could be applied to education.  To find out more, a small team of Knowledge Alliance members and Carnegie folks made a site visit to IHI a several weeks ago. We found an organization exploding with ideas and enthusiasm. We are working on some very interesting ideas and activities in this arena for next year.      ..

Amplified Policymaking --- Read this spot-on issue brief by McREL and KnowledgeWorks Fdn that "examines a series of cultural shifts and how we are developing new ways of organizing, constructing, and managing knowledge. They describe a world in which we will increasingly collaborate, improvise, and work together to assemble meaning from vast arrays of data, while also creating new learning experiences combining physical and digital realities." Heavy topic, great stuff tied to many of the issues at last summer's summit in New Mexico.

See this thought-provoking report by Bowler and Siegel about the summit. Great insights and great ideas  Knowledge_Innovation_Summit_report_9-22-09.pdf

The Department is really trying to push the envelope for evidence-based innovation with today's release of its proposed priorities for the Investing in Innovation Fund. It is a bold step in the right direction in building from and on a knowledge base for reform. Might this be the real start of a new knowledge era in education reform? It captures the essence of our discussions during the summit. Bravo!