Edsurge On Air

Enid Rey is no stranger to controversy. A powerhouse and a lawyer by training, she's currently the head of the School Choice Department in Hartford, Connecticut's public school system. In a city like Hartford, where most people of socioeconomic background and race don’t mix neighborhoods, Rey’s job has been, at least recently, to market magnet schools to parents and students from both neighborhoods, encouraging them to integrate. Her responsibilities came to prominence when she was interviewed for the Peabody award-winning podcast "The Problem We All Live With," created by This American Life. When it comes to issues of equity and diversity, it’s everyone’s problem—like the title says, it’s a problem that we all live with. EdSurge had the opportunity to sit down with Rey at the recent NewSchools Venture Fund conference to hear how she proved innovative in her approach to segregation, and to ask what it really takes to turn efforts in one district into a viral movement.

Every month or so, EdSurge hosts a summit to bring educators and edtech companies together (there might be one coming up near you). Sometimes, we're lucky enough to have students join us, and when we do, our student panel on edtech use is the highlight of the event. Educators, administrators and entrepreneurs alike love frank talk about what works for students and what's just annoying them. In Episode 61, we showcase a video made by the Youth Development Program, an after school program within Los Angeles Unified School District, where the students sound like us! They're interviewing each other about the Kids Marathon using their best newscaster voices. We also talked to a student journalist duoAt our Los Angeles summit about the craziest things they've done with technology and what their school would be like without it. Tune in!

The Obama Administration recently admitted its work in higher education is far from done. Undersecretary of Education Ted Mitchell, the president’s No. 1 authority on higher education, said he’d give his team an “incomplete” grade. Why? Mitchell previously served as CEO of NewSchools Venture Fund, president of the California State Board of Education and president of Occidental College. In his role with the federal government, he’s been been focused on improving college completion rates for first-generation, low-income students. Mitchell’s tenure will end this year when Obama leaves office. EdSurge recently had the chance to sit down with him to ask what kind of legacy the administration will leave in higher-ed innovation. Here’s our conversation.

This week, we spoke to two teams who scientific acumen brought them all the way to the White House for the nation's annual science fair. Second in our series is a team from Baruch College Campus High School in New York City that built a semi-automatic vacuum to ride on the back of subways to clean up trash.

This week, we spoke to two teams who scientific acumen brought them all the way to the White House for the nation's annual science fair. First in our series is an automotive technology class from James Logan High School in Union, California that built a charging station for solar cars.

This week, the EdSurge On Air podcast features three "Extra" editions focusing on investors: how they choose what to invest it, where the money is flowing, what personalization in schools means to them, and more. On this episode, we speak to Brigette Lau of Social Capital. Brigette shares how her organization, Social Capital, measures and evaluates the health of the companies that she invests in, as well as the reality of free/freemium business models. Does she believe free products will work out in the long run?

This week, the EdSurge On Air podcast features three "Extra" editions focusing on investors: how they choose what to invest in, where the money is flowing, what personalization in schools means to them, and more. On this episode, we speak to Brian Dixon of Kapor Capital. Kapor Capital holds a significant role in the space of investing: they do about 20 investments per year, and the average investment size is anywhere from $100,000 to $250,00. Dixon gives an inside peek into how Kapor makes its decisions.

This week, the EdSurge On Air podcast features three "Extra" editions focusing on investors: how they choose what to invest in, where the money is flowing, what personalization in schools means to them, and more. On this episode, we speak to Jennifer Carolan, a former educator who started a vertically-focused seed fund under New School Venture Fund as a non-profit back in early 2010, and has since made more than 15 investments. She talks impact investing, venture capital, and what efficacy really looks like in reality.

On April 5th, the city of Newark and Gadget Software, a company that aims to teach people how to build mobile apps, launched a joint venture to make mobile app development classes available to the entire Newark community. Using community centers as classrooms, both the city and the company hope to interest young students and adults alike in mobile programming. The question is, how many residents will take the time to participate in a 10 week class outside of school or work? We interviewed Seth Wainer, CIO of the Newark Office of Information Technology, about his hopes for the program, the problems he aims to fix, and what this initiative will do that a $100 million investment in education couldn't.

Technology can bring great benefit far outside the ecosystem of a city. Rural schools are often understaffed and underfunded, so digital courses can bring extra faculty in from afar, and inexpensive digital materials can provide much needed resources to students. That said, bringing technology infrastructure to a school far from a city is no easy task. However, one individual in particular knows a lot about how to run a rural school. Daisy Dyer Duerr is a former principal from Arkansas who’s now working with rural schools across the country on technology initiatives and training for teachers and administrators. She transformed her floundering Title I school without any technology into a top-performing school with cutting edge devices for its students. Check out the podcast to hear her story.

There are few people who know teachers and the art of teaching as well as Barnett Berry. He’s the founder and CEO of the Center for Teaching Quality, a national nonprofit that advances a high-quality public education system for all students, driven by the bold ideas and expert practices of teachers. Barnett’s two books, Teaching 2030 and Teacherpreneurs, frame his bold vision for the teaching profession’s future. But is it too bold? Perhaps downright impossible? A few weeks ago, The Center for Teaching Quality put out a new paper commissioned by the Ford Foundation, all about the concept of “deeper learning.” Barnett stopped by EdSurge to share some of the papers’ findings, but we wanted more. Barnett and his team make the argument in the paper that if we want to achieve deeper learning in the classroom, we need to do a better job developing teacher leaders. But does that mean they have to leave the classroom to become administrators? And where does technology play a role in all of this?

This week on the podcast, Betsy Corcoran interviews Eduardo Briceño, founder and CEO of Mindset Works, a company that takes university research and turns it into programs for schools. He's bullish on the growth mindset; that's what his company is named after. It's a concept that's becoming increasingly common in education debates today, and as it does, it becomes vulnerable to more misconceptions. We asked Eduardo to come and clarify somethings for us and talk about his own journey with the concept through the nine years Mindset Works has been around. Don't forget that you can subscribe to the podcast on all of your favorite podcast apps! To follow us on iTunes, just follow this linkinto iTunes and hit "subscribe"—if you have the podcast app on your phone, the show should automatically download the next time you open it. You can follow us on SoundCloud here or search for us on your favorite podcasting site.

With all this talk about candidates for Election 2016, it can be easy to forget that there’s someone else that’s had quite an impact—from a presidential perspective. And no, we’re not talking about Barack Obama. About three years ago, a 9-year-old donned a suit, gave America a pep talk, and became a viral sensation with his fresh take on dancing, politics and joy. That young fellow is Kid President, the central character of a popular YouTube channel produced by SoulPancake. In real life, Kid President is Robby Novak, a current 6th grader from Tennessee whose brother-in-law, Brad Montague, created the concept of Kid President with Robby back in 2013. During the recent CUE conference in Palm Springs, CA, Montague gave the opening keynote on March 17th to an auditorium overflowing with teachers and administrators from up and down the West Coast. His theme? How to be “awesome”—specifically, how Robby’s worked to bring joy into people’s lives, and how some of that joy gets lost when kids turn into adults. EdSur

When the popular children’s television show "Reading Rainbow" graced TV sets across America in the 90s, host LeVar Burton took students through a world of literature and storytelling. Today, he’s back at with the Reading Rainbow app. Back in 2014, LeVar announced that he would be returning to the reading game. Since then, he claims that readers have enjoyed over 20 million books and videos about reading. We spoke with LeVar to see what’s next for the app, what he’s reading and what he’s learned about adults from reading so much children’s literature.

On this week's podcast, Blake Montgomery has some lessons from his first SXSWedu and senior editor Mary Jo Madda interviews Eric Sheninger, a former principal of New Milford High School and current Senior Fellow at the International Center for Leadership in Education. After overcoming serious skepticism of edtech, Sheninger was responsible for implementing highly effective technology programs at New Milford. He’s since moved on to helping other schools do the same at the International Center for Leadership in Education. He emphasizes efficacy, data and accountability. Stay tuned till the end to hear his one essential piece of advice for edtech companies. Enjoy!

Sound the alarm! We’ve got a big, big dose of edtech trends for you, and we’re serving them up on a silver platter. On Wednesday, EdSurge launched the first round of our Edtech Trends 2016 report, sponsored by AT&T. Unlike those trend articles that pop up around December, when people share their guesses about what’ll be big in the new year, we talked to 20 administrators, 17 teachers, 24 companies, 16 investors, and 16 other edtech voices to figure out—what are people thinking and planning around right now? We have technically have eight trends in the report. However, for the sake of this podcast, we’re focusing on one big theme, and one that we hear about a lot. What’s the benefit of free products… vs. freemium? You know, those products where you get a part for free, but have to pay for other features? Listen in to find out.

In Episode 51, we're bringing you the edtech news and a deep dive into sexual assault on college campuses, specifically technology’s role in reporting it. Increasingly, survivors of sexual assault and the federal government are demanding that universities provide more prevention, reporting options and counseling. Can tech create scalable and useful solutions even as some universities sweep accusations and convictions under the rug? We interviewed chief development officer of Sexual Health Innovations (SHI), a company that makes an online reporting tool for survivors of sexual assault in college, and a Stanford student involved with the company. You'll hear their thoughts on tech's current and future role in reporting the crime and the sharp criticisms they face.

Larry Cuban—whose been a teacher, a superintendent, and more—is an academic whose thoughts and feelings about edtech are the ones we’re featuring on the EdSurge podcast today. Cuban’s writings have great impact and reach in the education. Every year, Rick Hess put out an “Edu-Scholar Public Influence ranking.” The metrics recognize university-based scholars in the U.S. who are contributing most substantially to public debates about education. And Larry Cuban, a former Stanford university professor, makes the top ten list every single year. Talking with him in person reveals a whole new light about who he is as a voice and as a teacher. In this interview, we hear his thoughts on venture-backed companies, technology in education, and more.

EdSurge has been all over the place these last few weeks— from the Educon conference in Philadelphia to Washington D.C. for Teach for America’s 25th anniversary Summit. And in each place, the conversations have been anything but boring. When it comes to big themes, one particular conversation caught our attention. Summit Public Schools CEO Diane Tavenner and founder of Deans for Impact Benjamin Riley went head to head on whether “personalized learning” is the answer to solving the achievement gap. We were there to catch a few sound bytes.

The term on everyone's lips these days is “adaptive learning:" Proponents promise the technology has the ability to improve educational experiences in personal, efficient and scalable ways. It's unclear, though, what the inner workings of the technology look like. We called some of our expert friends and asked them to talk about how adaptive learning works in their fields, and they spoke at our recent meetup in San Francisco. We heard from EdSurge's president Tyler McNally about our recent research on adaptive learning and several others: Jennie Dougherty—Associate Director of Innovation, KIPP Bay Area Angela Estrella—Teacher, Instructional Coach and Parent James Harrell—Talent Development Manager, Oakland Unified School District Johann Larusson—Lead, Center for Digital Data, Analytics and Adaptive Learning, Pearson Elena Sanina—Senior Manager of Blended Learning, Aspire Public Schools Esther Tricoche—Associate Partner, New School Venture Fund Missed the meetup? Not to worry. We recorded the talks along wit