No Such Thing: Education in the Digital Age

Back in Episode 67 we had our first conversation with this group. In a close community in the central valley of California, once, long ago founded by the timber industry, there lies a school district that's building one of the most important school experiences that any 12 or 13-year-old student in the country will experience this coming year.  For those unfamiliar with the jargon - "Career an...

Dan Meyer taught high school math to students who didn't like high school math. He has advocated for better math instruction on CNN , Good Morning America , Everyday With Rachel Ray , and TED.com . He earned his doctorate from Stanford University in math education and is the Chief Academic Officer at Desmos where he explores the future of math textbooks. He speaks internationally and was named one...

Dr. JD LaRock Dr. J.D. LaRock is President and CEO of the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE), a global nonprofit organization that activates the entrepreneurial mindset and builds startup skills in young people from underserved communities. Reaching more than 100,000 middle and high school students annually, NFTE works with 2,000+ schools and community partners in 10 metropolitan regions...

A Keynote from the 2020 To Code and Beyond event at NY's Cornell Tech . Kamau Bobb is a national authority in STEM education. He is the founding Senior Director of the Constellations Center for Equity in Computing at Georgia Tech. He is an engineer and science and technology policy scholar whose work focuses on the relationship between equity for students and communities of color in the STEM enter...

A Keynote from the 2020 To Code and Beyond event at NY's Cornell Tech . Kamau Bobb is a national authority in STEM education. He is the founding Senior Director of the Constellations Center for Equity in Computing at Georgia Tech. He is an engineer and science and technology policy scholar whose work focuses on the relationship between equity for students and communities of color in the STEM enter...

Travis Thul is the Founder of Bicycle Design & Fabrication at MN State College Southeast. Thul was also the engineering technology program coordinator at the Community College of Baltimore County in Catonsville, Md., but he didn’t stop there – he went on to become an electronics engineer at the Federal Communications Commission in Washington, D.C., in charge of research on wireless power trans...

Our conversation here takes place at the National Summit for Excel In Ed - from their website, Launched by former Florida Governor Jeb Bush in 2008, the Foundation for Excellence in Education (Excel in Ed) supports state leaders in transforming education to unlock opportunity and lifelong success for each and every child. I was grateful to join my colleagues from NAF (known widely as the National...

In Project Invent, high school students invent technologies that solve real-world problems. We train mentors, publish resources, run events, and connect communities to ensure students are getting a transformative learning opportunity through inventing a change. "Inventing Change," doesn't that sound more like the class you'd envision for young learners in the digital age? Project Invent empowers s...

Ryan Craig is the author of The New U: Faster + Cheaper Alternatives to College, which was called one of the books of the year in 2018 by The Wall Street Journal, and College Disrupted, the Great Unbundling of Higher Education. He's a decades-in veteran to the worlds of business consulting and venture capital, and is the Co-Founder of University Ventures, which funds projects working to better sou...

I'm fascinated by this analogy that came up in a recent episode about being dropped in a new place without language. So I want this episode to be a travel guide. Let's drop into different places and talk about what makes the languages of code relevant in that space. Meg Ray is a computer science education consultant. Meg teaches education courses at NYU and Hunter College. She was the founding Tea...

A discussion among a unique group of K12 leaders in CA building a brand-new middle school with future pathways at the center of their design.

Dr. Christopher Emdin is an Associate Professor in the Department of Mathematics, Science and Technology at Teachers College, Columbia University; where he also serves as Director of the Science Education program and Associate Director of the Institute for Urban and Minority Education. He is the creator of the #HipHopEd social media movement, and author of the award winning book, Urban Science Edu...

Jacob Martinez  is a social entrepreneur, tech educator, keynote speaker and cutting-edge community collaborator. Martinez believes technology has the potential to break down socioeconomic barriers and unlock economic growth for youth and their communities. As the founder and executive director of Digital NEST (Nurturing Entrepreneurial Skills with Technology), Martinez turned a vis...

This conversation is with a group of founders designing novel learning experiences to engage learners. The conversation explores each approach, and what values they bring to what they design and build for learners. How does "engagement" relate to what skills, identities, and dispositions these experts hope that learners attain including but not limiting to computer science. Armando Somoza is a new...

Brian Sweeting is a Digital Publishing Manager and Content Strategist for New Learning Times. He manages a team of writers whose goal is to create and curate compelling digital content that deepens an understanding of forward-thinking learning, teaching, and research. This episode, Brian and I consider a sort of "unboxing." He brings us four recent articles covered by New Learning Times. It's the...

Guest Bio: Bernard Bull My work focuses upon educational innovation, learner-driven communities, futures in education, social entrepreneurship in education, and the intersection of education and digital culture. Dr. Bull most recently served as Chief Innovation Officer, Vice Provost of Curriculum and Innovation, and Professor of Education at Concordia University Wisconsin. There he led a Universit...

Here's a cool episode for you. Before I get started let's talk about these tracks. It's easy to overlook, when we talk about Maker Ed, that a lot of the greatest maker educators I know are makers themselves. Lou Lahana is also known on the interwebs as Techbrarian, and he wrote and produced tracks at the beginning and end of this episode. He's a great inspiration to remind us all, as Tasker Smith...

My guests are experts in this space that you wouldn’t have seen quoted in recent coverage but maybe should’ve. Davin Sweeney is an independent college counselor with Collegwise who worked for ten years as an admissions counselor at the University of Rochester. He also hosts a podcast called “ The Crush ” featuring interviews with people who have interesting perspectives to share on the college and...

A discussion with Kate McGregor of Mountain View’s Computer History Museum about women we should all know from computer history. Kate McGregor: Kate is a STE(A)M advocate, museum educator, content developer and curriculum designer striving to help students, families and educators to explore concepts of problem-solving and innovation through the lenses of computer science and computer history, with...

A conversation with Dr. Chris Emdin and Dr. Edmund Adjapong. Dr. Edmund Adjapong, a rising star of education leadership at Seton Hall University, who also coordinates #HipHopEd, is also a protege of Dr. Emdin, who was his high school physics teacher, then continued mentoring him as a professor when Dr. Adjapong went to grad school at Columbia University's Teachers College. We discuss their work in...

Erik Martin was a guest on Episode 10 of this show, and I'm pretty excited that he's back. In February this year he wrote an op-ed for the Washington Post titled, We need a PBS for the Internet Age. Erik is a graduate student at the Oxford Internet Institute, and was a policy adviser at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. He also worked as Sr Education Program Manager at the g...

In addition to a ton of interesting things we discuss about the learning design that happens in a 1,700 acre arboretum, we dig into their new podcast called, "Planted: Finding your roots in STEM careers," an adorable title for an interesting show that's attempting to shed light on the professional world of an entire area of science that, previously, I honestly have no idea how people would've lear...

Brian Sweeting is a Digital Publishing Manager and Content Strategist for New Learning Times. He manages a team of writers whose goal is to create and curate compelling digital content that deepens an understanding of forward-thinking learning, teaching, and research. The New Learning Times (NLT) provides daily coverage of the transformation of learning opportunities in the information age for tho...

Sylvia Libow Martinez was an aerospace engineer before becoming an educational software producer and vice president of a video game company. She spent a decade as the President of Generation YES, the groundbreaking non-profit that provides educators with the tools necessary to place students in leadership roles in their schools and communities. In addition to leading workshops, Sylvia delight...

Ashley is a design thinker, brand strategist, and educator passionate about bringing design thinking into K-12 schools and mission-driven organizations. She consults with organizations and teams to bring human-centered strategy, mindsets, and content to their work. We cover a ton of ground in this conversation. If you're a current or aspiring design thinking educator I think there's a lot here for...