• Tiger and Toyota and...

  Written by Jim / on 02/10/2010 / 2 Comments

  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 ..

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• Baking a cake or a piece of cake?

  Written by Jim / on 02/10/2010 / 0 Comments

  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.'"
  

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• R&D for 3-D Learning

  Written by Jim / on 02/10/2010 / 0 Comments

  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.

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• Good bye Aughts. Hello Oughtta Be

  Written by Jim / on 01/03/2010 / 0 Comments

  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 ..

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