I like talking to people here at the Fest because they're so open. Maybe it's because they see my Ask me about ISKME button, but they often give me their opinions about the Fest before I get a chance to ask. And what they say always makes me think. I heard that the Action Collabs seemed scattered and nebulous at moments, but that this is a good thing. Like any good innovation and design process, there are moments when the conversations can seem ambiguous. But overall, it seems that chaos and complexity are good for creativity.

During her rapid fire, Neeru Paharia showed us that the creation of Peer 2 Peer University worked like this. A handful of people, including a lawyer, a doctoral student, and a couple of nonprofit leaders all met each other at a conference in Croatia two years ago, and decided to do something about access to education and standard learning models. Neeru's story was about crossing boundaries, finding common intrerest, and brainstorming to come up with new ideas.

Comment (0) Read More...

It's the end of day two of the Big Ideas Fest, and I’ve been inspired more times than I can count. I'm struck by how the participants are driving the conversation, working on designing and prototyping new solutions to education challenges in their Action Collab sessions. I’m also still thinking about last night’s keynote speech by Brewster Kahle, founder of the Internet Archive. In addition to archiving the entire Internet, he’s also working towards archiving the Library of Congress and the world of film, television, software, and audio recording.

Brewster described his goal in life as “universal access to all knowledge [so] that anyone, anywhere can access anything that’s ever been published, including music, lectures, articles, books, software, and more.” He sees this as an achievable goal, both financially and technically, and that we also have the political will to live in an open society. A few highlights from Brewster on this:

Comment (0) Read More...

As a researcher, when I hit a wall in my thinking, I step outside of my cube and grab a colleague. We sit at the flip chart and draw and wrestle with a problem. Sometimes I look out the window or take a walk to catch a glimpse of the ocean (I am lucky enough to work in Half Moon Bay). Doing this always gives me fresh eyes. It helps me make new connections, and I go back to my desk a little wiser and more creative about the wall I am trying to move past.

I'm seeing this process embodied and pushed further at the Fest. The first day we moved from a personal storytelling exercise about an educational experience that influenced our lives, to discussing challenges of education and areas that we as educators, policy makers, foundations, nonprofits and others need to think about in moving things forward. We listened to an artist playing his piano, while sitting next to a piano he had deconstructed. We watched a silent dance where we could let our day's thoughts wash over us.  During the breaks, I talked to a couple of participants who helped to create meaning around this process. They said that for them innovation is about creating new ideas by making connections between old ideas. It's about stepping outside our old ways of thinking. It's about waking up, and art helps us to do that. Time to put these thoughts to the test in the action collabs, which start now...

Comment (0) Read More...

Big Ideas aren’t just about heady, abstract ideas. Some of our recent conversations with teachers who plan to attend the Fest provide a glimpse into their school site challenges and what they hope to take away from the Fest. For example, two of these teachers explained that their school is struggling to support the learning needs of its English learner population. They plan to use the Big Ideas Fest to develop a prototype plan for improving outcomes for English Learners, specifically focused on a non-traditional approach to teaching vocabulary and academic concepts to this population. They hope to take this plan back to their school site and refine and finalize it through collaboration with their colleagues and principal.

The Big Ideas Fest is meant to encourage knowledge sharing among participants. The idea is for participants to think about how they can best leverage what is working in their own environments, and explore new options for meeting educational challenges that we face as change agents in the education systems we serve. Come roll up your sleeves, and join us.

Comment (0) Read More...