Recently Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology announced a partnership to make some of their classes freely available online. The move, which attracted widespread attention in the United States, is the latest development in the open courses movement, which over the last few years has prompted growing numbers of universities to put videos and transcripts of entire lectures up on the Web, where anyone can have access to them at no cost.

MIT’s online courses already have a huge global following. In March, for example, some 120,000 people signed up for its circuits and electronics class. According to some observers, we are witnessing the emergence of a new model of postsecondary education that will change the way universities operate. “There’s a tsunami coming,” Stanford University president John Hennessy said recently. Online courses will never replace the crucial elements of a university education. But Canadian universities, which have been lagging in this area, must get into the game and reap the benefits that this new technology offers.

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From Marketwire

The Honourable Gary Goodyear, Minister of State for Science and Technology, and Suzanne Fortier, President of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), were at the University of Toronto today to announce over 3,750 significant, new investments in research programs and scholarships that will further our knowledge in fields such as botany, zoology, physics, mathematics, and Earth sciences.

“Our Government’s top priority is jobs, growth and long-term prosperity. To remain at the forefront of the global economy, our government is investing in the people and ideas that will produce tomorrow’s breakthroughs,” said Minister Goodyear. “Through these investments, we are creating the best-educated and most skilled workforce in the world.”

Scientists, engineers and students at universities across the country will receive more than $410 million in grants and scholarships over terms ranging from one to five years. These awards comprise the 2012 competition results for NSERC’s Discovery Grants, Discovery Accelerator Supplements, Alexander Graham Bell Canada Graduate Scholarships, NSERC Postgraduate Scholarships, and Postdoctoral Fellowships.

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We’re beginning to see the EdTech start-up trend emerging in Canada. After a dozen or so years in this space, it’s rewarding to finally see the sector gaining the respect it deserves and going beyond the tipping point. When Google, Facebook  and Apple declare they’re venturing into the EdTech space, we know it’s one that cannot be ignored. This especially presents opportunities for the vast number of unemployed aspiring new educators to explore other career options.

Best cities for startups: Toronto ranks 4th on global list of best places to launch a tech company
13/04/12, Huffington Post Canada
California’s Silicon valley is still the world’s best — and most renowned — place to start a tech company, but Canada’s largest city is giving it a run for its money, according to a new survey.
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University of Waterloo awarded $1.6 million to establish virtual incubation program
17/04/12, University of Waterloo
The Conrad Business, Entrepreneurship and Technology Centre (Conrad) at the University of Waterloo today received a US$1.6 million grant that will boost countless student businesses.
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The great disconnect: Funding fails to keep pace with start-ups
27/04/12, Globe & Mail
It’s a simple supply and demand problem: As more startups are created, the amount of financing to support them has not kept pace. It means there are many promising startups that struggle to succeed or, for that matter, survive.
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Manitobe Education is introducing “Scientists in the Classroom” grants to support teachers in their efforts to collaborate with scientists who agree to engage with students in the classroom.

The grants, of up to $1,000.00, will cover expenses such as teacher release time for planning, professional development, and teaching/learning resources. Specifically, they are intended to

• support schools in their efforts to encourage students to develop a critical sense of wonder and curiosity about scientific and technological endeavors
• contribute to exemplary practices in science education
• provide students with opportunities to interact with people working in the field of science
• Collaborating scientists must play a significant and active role in any proposed project.

Learn more

From University of Toronto News

A recently opened laboratory in the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering invites members of the University of Toronto community to explore the new possibilities smart applications for smart phones and tablets can offer. Called the Mobile Applications Lab – or Mobile APL for short – the new lab is led by two faculty members from The Edward S. Rogers Sr. Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, Professor Parham Aarabi and Professor Jonathan Rose.

“We want to welcome minds from across the University to partner with us. Intelligent Apps – which combine the sensors, processing, and user interaction capabilities of smartphones – are not just for engineers, but also for many other fields including the arts and medicine” said Aarabi, noting just a few of the fields that can harness the potential of this technology.

The lab is open to all faculty, staff and students at U of T, regardless of their field of study. The intention, Aarabi explained, is to harness the multidisciplinary power of the university to identify new needs and new approaches for intelligent mobile apps.

Apps have become the cornerstone of mobile computing. Now an ingrained part of the information age, apps offer entertainment or specialized support for all of life’s needs, from measuring your performance during a workout to staying in touch with friends and family. More than 500,000 apps are available through Apple as well as 350,000 for the Android market, with new ones being added every day.

The new lab is the first of its kind in Canada and joins just a small number of institutions, including MIT and Stanford University, in providing such a facility.

The new lab builds upon a course launched last year by Professor Rose on app development. Aimed at graduate students from across the university, the goal of the course is for students to produce a working app. Students with computer programing experience are matched with students from other disciplines. In teams of two or three, an app is developed that centers on the field being studied by the non-programmer.

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TED-Ed’s commitment to creating lessons worth sharing is an extension of TED’s mission of spreading great ideas. Within the growing TED-Ed video library, you will find carefully curated educational videos, many of which represent collaborations between talented educators and animators nominated through the TED-Ed platform. This platform also allows users to take any useful educational video, not just TED’s, and easily create a customized lesson around the video. Users can distribute the lessons, publicly or privately, and track their impact on the world, a class, or an individual student. Visit ed.ted.com
 

Mathaliciousprovides teachers with lessons that help them teach math in a way that engages their students-in a way that helps students understand how the world works. This site is created for an American audience which means you’ll have to sift through the content that is not metric however it’s a great inspiration for ‘spicing’ up your math teaching. It contains some great ideas and wonderful interactive content and media to stimulate your classroom instruction and increase student achievement. This is a pay site but the cost is very reasonable. Visit mathalicious.com

I can’t think of a better way – at least online – of allowing students to explore 3D creation in a simple, easy to use environment. I think Tinkercard’s explanation of their service is apropos: Learn to design the products of your life.Design in 3D what you’ve always dreamed of, but never thought possible. With Tinkercad you’ll be designing your dream products within minutes. Just drag and drop basic shapes on the workplane. Combine and carve them with holes to form 3D objects. Visit tinkercad.com

From University of Waterloo News

The Conrad Business, Entrepreneurship and Technology Centre (Conrad) at the University of Waterloo today received a US$1.6 million grant that will boost countless student businesses.

The Graduate Management Admission Council® (GMAC®), owner of the GMAT® exam and the leading membership organization of graduate business and management schools worldwide, announced the award today. Waterloo was the only Canadian university to receive funding this round.

“Waterloo is internationally recognized for student innovation and entrepreneurship, and for educating the leaders of tomorrow,” said Feridun Hamdullahpur, president & vice-chancellor of the University of Waterloo. “This generous grant will do much to enable our students to develop their cutting-edge ideas into meaningful, profitable ventures.”

The funding will support the implementation of a Virtual Incubation Program (VIP). It will establish a global, online network of students, community groups, local entrepreneurs and international university partners, and is designed to support the development and launch of new businesses.

The GMAC Management Education for Tomorrow (MET) Fund awarded more than US$7.1 million in grants to 12 organizations across six countries in this round of its Ideas to Innovation (i2i) Challenge. GMAC’s MET Fund, a US$10 million initiative to advance business education around the world, created and managed the i2i Challenge.

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From the Huffington Post Canada

California’s Silicon valley is still the world’s best — and most renowned — place to start a tech company, but Canada’s largest city is giving it a run for its money, according to a new survey.

According to Startup Genome, a research company that collects data about “entrepreneurial ecosystems,” Toronto is the fourth best place in the world to launch a new tech company.

Check out the 10 best cities to launch a tech company

That places Toronto behind Silicon Valley (the San Francisco Bay Area), New York City and London, but ahead of many other major cities known for their tech companies, such as Los Angeles and Seattle.

Two other Canadian cities made the top 25 as well — Vancouver in 16th place, and Montreal in 25th place.

With its financial sector growing in global importance and a knowledge economy replacing traditional industrial jobs, Toronto has been increasingly recognized as a center of innovation. Australian consultancy 2thinknow last year named Toronto the 10th most innovative city in the world, out of 331 measured.

Yet how cities rank on innovation can vary greatly, depending on the criteria. For instance, Calgary didn’t make Startup Genome’s list, but in a report from the Toronto Board of Trade last month, the Alberta city bested Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver as an information and communications cluster. (That study also placed Paris ahead of Silicon Valley.)

Startup Genome collected data from more than 16,000 fledgling companies to compile its list. Started in 2011, the project is meant to give entrepreneurs insight into their business environments and a way of measuring how their startups are doing compared to others.

“The goal of the project is extremely ambitious – to map, model and analyze what makes startups tick, what helps them succeed and why many of them fail,” the project’s founders wrote on their blog.

As the researchers told TechCrunch, startups tend to cluster near “support networks” — places where they can find the money and people they need to succeed. And while, for tech companies, that has traditionally been Silicon Valley, in recent years the options for locating a tech startup have grown considerably.

With cities all over the world becoming better incubators of tech companies, Silicon Valley’s competitive advantage is eroding, the researchers said.

Researchers looked at a long list of factors in compiling their list, including startups’ success rate, availability of capital, revenue and even work ethic.

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The Connectors, Leaders, and People on the Move

I feel blessed to do what I do for a living. I like to say that every day is a learning day for me. While I’m immersed with technology on a daily basis, I’m also surrounded by incredibly smart and successful people…hopefully it’s rubbing off on me! I’m seeing a trend when it comes to leadership skills, be it in education, or industry. Striking a balance in how one uses tech to teach and work is extremely challenging and and a key ingredient to leading successfully.

The awards keep piling up for Joyce Public School. The were recently the recipients of the TDSB award of Excellence for Teachers helping Teachers. Cheryl Paige, Principal is a great case study for a high performing leader who empowers her teachers to perform at their best while providing essential classroom tools to support teaching and learning.

Speaking of tools, SMART Technologies veteran western Canada regional manager, Darcy Ling, my conference buddy, shared some exciting news while we were recently at ERDI in Montreal. He’s been promoted to western regional manager in California. Congrats Darcy…I look forward to visiting in your new surroundings!

California Dreamin'. Darcy Ling, SMART Technologies, is all smiles as he shares with MindShare's Publisher, Robert Martellacci, his new post as SMART's regional manager covering California.

Staying with SMART… they recently announced the New Vice President Marketing appointment of Jeff Lowe as Vice President, Marketing.

On the University front, UOIT Faculty of Education welcomes Dr. Suzanne de Castell from Simon Fraser University.

Canada’s national science and technology museums are now on Canada’s fastest digital network
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CIX Top 20 – Canada’s Innovation Leaders – Clean Tech – Read more

The Canadian School Boards Association (CSBA) is pleased to announce the election of its new President, Sandi Urban Hall of the Saskatchewan School Boards Association. Presidents of the eight provincial school board associations participated in the election at the Board of Directors Spring Meeting in Montreal, where they unanimously selected Ms. Urban Hall to a one-year term, effective July 4th, 2012.

Here’s an interesting stat: IWBs Used in 29.5% of Classrooms for At Least 5.1 Hours (U.S.). I’m told by my friend and colleague, Anita Townsend, consultant and former Superintendent in Simcoe County District School Board shared a very exciting international initiative she’s currently working on. The Global Teenager Project (GTP) is a dynamic online resource which provides students with the opportunity to research curriculum-connected topics using Learning Circles and Web 2.0Tools. The Learning Circle is a methodology designed and researched by Dr. Margaret Riel of Pepperdine University in California. There are two Learning Circles in a year, commencing in September and again in February, lasting for ten weeks each. These are created by connecting groups of 8 to 12 classes from all over the world online in a Wiki environment. Participating teachers select a theme which connects to their curriculum from the circle topics listed on the GTP website. These topics enable cross curricular study and are those which impact the lives of most students around the world such as the millennium development goals.

Teachers are able to choose appropriate curriculum topics for students to become more globally aware and create 21 century learning experiences. Visit the website at globalteenager.org and contact anita@globalteenager.org for more information.
They’ve got the spirit! An amazing visit to Beverley Public School, Winners of the MindShare Learning Digital Classroom Challenge Spirit Award. Featured on 60 Minutes this past year, it was incredible to see the magic of students with disabilities using iPads for various learning activities and to communicate with teachers. Principal Alana Grossman (pictured left with students for the cake cutting ceremony), was most welcoming and toured me around the school situated in downtown Toronto. Thanks so much and congratulations once again for the excellent work of the teachers and Ms. Grossman.

Top Tweet! Asking “why” you want iPads is a critical question… – iPads in Education | goo.gl/zOIav via @GMontgomery10

Late breaking news

This just in! StatsCan: Education Matters: Insights on Education, Learning and Training in Canada, May 2012
http://t.co/VlnFhTFB

Until next time, walk the digital talk! Cheers, R.M.

By Timothy Gard, K-12 Editor, Educator, Toronto District School Board
Twitter: mindsharek12

Part 1 of 3

Howard Gardner in his book entitled, Five Minds for the Future, writes about what he thinks will be the kinds of minds that are most important today and even more so tomorrow (Gartner). This book has a lot to say about each ‘type’ of mind however it’s two particular types of mind that I’m interested in bringing to the fore in this short article – The Synthesizing and The Creating Mind. If you understand that innovation is really a symphony of those two types of minds then you’ll readily understand the purpose of understanding these two ‘minds’ with regards to innovation. To innovate at its very basic level means to ‘renew’ or to alter so as to make something new. It can also mean to introduce something that is new. In short, an innovator is someone who introduces a new idea, or recreates or repackages an old idea so as to effect change in any given context.

Most everyone would agree that education seems to be in a constant flux of change. You can either ‘go with the flow’ or get swallowed up in the tsunami of change that is happening, and is going to happen at a much faster rate than it is now. We need teacher-innovators. These teacher-innovators are the individuals who adapt to change. I would argue that in many regards these individuals flow seamlessly with change because change is by nature disruptive and innovation lives alongside disruption.

Teacher-Innovators are teachers who have the synthesizing and creative minds; they have the ability to integrate ideas from different contexts into a coherent whole and they communicate the result to other teachers effectively and cogently. They also have the capacity to uncover and bring clarity to new problems, questions and phenomena in education. The two minds work in synchronicity in a teacher-innovator; the two minds when they are allowed to grow and flourish bring renewal to a school, and if they are harnessed as a unified cadre they can bring renewal to a district. But they are hardly encouraged and cultivated in our current system of education. There are barriers and I have too often seen those with the capacity to become these types of teachers – the teacher-innovators – leave the profession or close up and develop very small pockets of change in a very small context. Or worse, they become part of the ‘framework’ of ‘business as usual’ because their spirits have been crushed under the weight of bureaucracy and educational polity and they themselves become part of the problem.

To become an innovator in education at the practitioner level is difficult at best. Teacher-Innovators are few and far between. This is not because teachers are by their nature incapable of innovating. Quite the contrary – Teachers are by nature innovators if you let them innovate. Let me outline below some key ideas about innovation in education. These ideas can cultivate a teaching environment that creates, encourages and sustains teacher-innovators. These fertile grounds are more easily created then one would suppose; we need these people or we’ll never move out of the flux of shallow thinking into a culture that is dominated by bureaucrats who encourage the adage, ‘business as usual’. The right factors for fostering innovation among teachers can be found below. This is in no way exhaustive, but I do believe that these ideas are necessary building blocks for fallow ground in the chance to build ‘redwoods’ instead of ‘ragweed’. And at the very least they should stimulate discussion at a higher level about our need to cultivate schools where teachers are free to change, to innovate, to inspire students to themselves become change leaders and innovators wherever they may find themselves contributing to society.

We Need Change Leadership

You cannot hope to encourage innovation at your school if you don’t embrace the simple fact that we cannot continue to embrace education in its current form. The world is changing and without belabouring to death the details about 21st Century learning and all of the nuances of that movement we know inherently that the world is moving at a much faster clip and ideas are a dime a dozen. As Canadians we tend to move at a much slower clip when it comes to change and innovation. This is in itself not necessarily a bad thing because you do tend to learn from the mistakes of others, but you also tend to lean on the ‘coat-tails of others’ as well. We are not a nation of ‘movers and shakers’ because I believe we have been cauterized by the huge risk-taking that happens to the South of us. Why innovate? We can just wait and see what happens next door to us and then assimilate those ideas into Canadian terms and forms. I’m being a bit harsh. Indeed, we do have innovation happening however I think as a nation with the highest percentage of post-secondary educated people in the world we can do much better. But perhaps therein lays the problem. Are we not creating environments in education where students feel that the world is theirs to change for the better; where they can make a difference with new and exciting ideas? Perhaps not. And perhaps we need to realize that the world is changing quickly; there is no room for ‘business as usual’. If you don’t believe that, look at what happened to the behemoths of technology in this country – NORTEL and RIM.

What we need is a clear understanding of what is at risk if we don’t manage the change that is happening around us. Again, Michael Fullan has written laborious amounts on change management in education and so I won’t get into any great detail here. I will say however in light of the fact that we are in a changing world where other nations and peoples are making every effort to innovate so as to adapt to a world that is changing our schools are mired in yesteryear. Why? I do believe that part of the reason is that we are in need of a whole new transformational paradigm for teachers. You might wonder what this has to do with the sub-title but let me explain. Generally, the leaders in our educational institutions were former teachers and they more often than not carry forward the ideologies that they have lived in during their tenure as teachers. In fact, I have noted on more than one occasion that if these leaders are not changing with the times by getting involved in professional dialogue, keeping up with current research and applying it to their leadership of a school or district then the result can be devastating. This is simply because they are often carrying forward outdated and outmoded ideas that have been tested and found wanting in schools and districts that are led by true change leaders.

We like to think that the ‘gatekeepers’ to our school are principals but really the ‘gatekeepers’ to our schools are the contexts that these leaders have been exposed to and have either knowingly or unknowingly adopted. The ‘gatekeeper’s then are thought patterns that have never been challenged or changed; change is simply a word that gets bandied about when you want to impress your professional colleagues. If we change the teaching paradigm and encourage teachers to be practitioners on the move; innovators who are on the ‘watch for a new and powerful way to do something’ than we will after a decade of this attitude see that schools will also become much more likely to be innovative and students and teachers learning and teaching in exciting environments. These innovators are synthesizing and creating; like will produce like – teachers will produce leaders who are change leaders. And change leaders love innovation and innovation loves change.

Risk Taking is Not a Bad Thing

I remember my supervising teacher during my second practicum as a student teacher encouraging me to take risks in my teaching. That was liberating! I thought that teaching was about a set way of doing things in a very controlled context and that my many years of exposure to many different teachers was about emulating their behavior without challenge. Wrong! She was wise enough to see that I was not giving what I could give and that I was full of the fear of failing. But we all know that failing is inevitable and so we should simply embrace it as a means to change ones thinking about something; to reorient an approach and try again. But how do we encourage risk taking in education when so many teachers are bound by ‘covering the curriculum’. Indeed, it really does come down to what you mean by ‘covering’ because simply making sure that you touch all of the key points in the curriculum does not necessarily facilitate good teaching and learning. If every student starts at his or her own point of learning then we can pretty much assume that he or she will not gain or move forward if we ‘fling’ the curriculum at them ad nauseum.

If we want to encourage risk taking in teaching and allow teachers to innovate we must ensure that they have an environment that is supportive, encouraging and free of red tape. The last two words of the previous sentence are my personal nemesis. Red tape is often a cover for ‘we-have-no-idea-what-we’re-doing-so-we’ll-hide-until-it –becomes-clear’ ideology. Or red tape is the cumulative result of dealing with broken ideas and the resultant back-lash. Regardless, we need to free the working environment so that teachers can explore fresh ideas alongside colleagues who can question, challenge and refine those ideas. We know and have often heard that that one great idea came out of a myriad of ideas that failed to materialize – but that one great innovative idea will not materialize if we don’t take the risks, plunge headlong into the upstream swim.

This headlong swim against the stream means that teachers can and should bring their life experiences into the classroom. In my experience teachers who have had a previous career tend to have a more dynamic classroom. The reason is fairly simple: real life experiences bring previous knowledge into a deep intersection with pedagogy. In short, new ideas come from a breadth of knowledge and once the new teacher gains expertise in pedagogy then you have a dynamic that can easily become innovative (Dyer, Gregersen, and Christensen 33) Breadth of knowledge plus specialized knowledge in a particular field will facilitate a higher probability of innovation. This is all wonderful of course but it cannot and will not happen if teachers don’t take risks. And this cannot happen if the administration at a school doesn’t encourage risk-taking.

True Innovators Are Disruptive

Disruptive? Really? You can imagine the disdain creeping across an administrators face if you mentioned this in a meeting. But it’s true, especially in education. And to make matters worse if a teacher disrupts his/her environment you can only imagine what his/her peers think. They don’t like to have their ‘boats rocked’ especially if it grabs attention and changes the learning environment so that adaptation is not easily attainable. We are creatures of habit and if we don’t encourage the innovators around us then we’ll easily sink into the abyss of boredom and ‘business as usual’. We simply cannot risk this especially for students who by nature are explorers and survivors. They want to be challenged; they want to look at information from different ways and from different perspectives. But if we don’t innovate and if we don’t create a culture of innovation at our schools then it will be ‘business as usual’ and the learning environment will not flourish but it will become stagnant which unfortunately is an all too common context for far too many students.

By disruptive I certainly don’t mean that we abandon everything for the sake of change. By disruptive I mean we change up our way of teaching and leading. If you keep doing the same thing over and over the same way you’ve always done it in the past then your assuming that the world isn’t changing and that the students you received ten years ago are growing up in similar contexts with similar world views. Of course that’s ludicrous. Or you may have the idea that ‘what’s not broken shouldn’t be fixed’. In fact, Canada does relatively well on international standardized tests compared to other nations. We’re normally in the top five or so and we think that because of our decent scores we don’t need to change a thing in our teaching and learning environments. All is good in the Land of Oz. Well Dorothy, technology is rapidly changing the whole context of our world. Let me give you a very small example. In one of my media classes I had tasked grade 5 students with presenting a non-fiction topic of choice in a non-linear format. At the end of the presentations the other grade 5 students are given the opportunity to question and challenge the presenter’s material with good, solid high-level critical thinking. Their ‘job’ was to make the person who was presenting ‘think’ about their topic. In one particular case, one of the students in the audience questioned the use of an image that the presenter claimed he created. Various students weighed in with their opinions both for and against the presenters claim of ownership. In response the questioner did a quick query by using a reverse image search query and then pulled up on his computer that very same image from a website that the presenter had ‘borrowed’. An interesting dialogue ensued with the presenter attempting to challenge this claim by stating that it was possible that the image on that particular website ‘borrowed’ his image from his gaming website. Issues of intellectual property rights and copyright became the focus of the balance of the class and students got a first-hand look at the wealth of information they had available to them in both positive and negative ways. My point? I couldn’t have scripted this same scenario without allowing the students to disrupt the standard ways of thinking that often stagnate our classrooms. That particular student decided – as a ten year old – to do something rather innovative. He decided to become a bit disruptive by ‘thinking outside of the box’ and to find out for himself whether the image did in fact belong to the other student. I’ll leave the rest of that conversation to your imagination.

As you no doubt noticed at the top of this article, this is part one of three parts. I cannot possibly bring it all together in one long article and to be honest I’m still thinking about how to put all of my thoughts down in these three pieces. Regardless, stay tuned for the next two pieces in the June and Summer editions of The MindShare Learning Report!

If you feel that you have some interesting stories to share about innovation at your school please feel free to send me an email at my address below! I’ll be sure to digest them and I just might share your story in my next two pieces!

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References

Jeff Dyer, Hal Gregersen and Clayton M. Christensen. The Innovator’s DNA: Mastering The Five Skills of Disruptive Innovators. Boston: Harvard Business Review Press, 2011. Pg. 33.

Howard Gartner, Five Minds for the Future, Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2006.