Edsurge On Air

THE US DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY was out in force at Maker Faire Bay Area. The Department hopes to demystify the goings-on at its various national labs in the Bay Area by portraying its scientists as makers. Those scientists also hope to excite kids about the advanced technology they get to use. We spoke to three scientists about sensors, supercomputers and cybersecurity to learn more:

THE US DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY was out in force at Maker Faire Bay Area. The Department hopes to demystify the goings-on at its various national labs in the Bay Area by portraying its scientists as makers. Those scientists also hope to excite kids about the advanced technology they get to use. We spoke to three scientists about sensors, supercomputers and cybersecurity to learn more.

DEMOS APLENTY: One of the most crowded tents at Maker Faire was the “Learn to Solder” tent, which allowed young makers to learn what holds circuit boards together. Would-be makers were tasked with soldering a circuit that would allow a Makerbot pin to light up. We spoke to one volunteer in the tent to learn why it’s important for makers to learn how to solder.

“IT’S LIKE THE STATE FAIR FOR NERDS:” Many families return to Maker Faire year after year. We spoke to one family that’s been attending Maker Faire for many years to find out what keeps them coming back. Meet the Bakers from Menlo Atherton, CA:

Mitchel Resnick (or Mitch, for short) knows his making—from a lot of different angles. And he’s not too bought into the whole “electronics and gadgets” side of the maker movement. Resnick has been in this business for more than 30 years, and it’s safe to say that he’s seen the maker movement—and the state of STEM education, in general—go through its phases, its ups and downs. He’s currently the LEGO Papert Professor of Learning Research and head of the Lifelong Kindergarten group at the MIT Media Lab, where he and his team have developed products familiar to many a science educator: the "programmable brick" technology that inspired the LEGO Mindstorms robotics kit, and Scratch, an online computing environment for students to learn about computer science. Is making something that every school should be doing—and are all interpretations of “making” of equitable value? EdSurge sat down with Resnick in his office at the MIT Media Lab to learn more, and to find out how he and his team are working to bring more c

The question on everyone's mind at NewSchools Venture Fund's 2016 Summit: How will we know when education has become more equitable?We interviewed Dreambox CEO Jessie Woolley-Wilson and Democrats for Education Reform President Shaver Jeffries for their takes on the most contested issue in education.

In addition to this week's regularly scheduled podcast programming, we're bringing you an exclusive conversation between executives. At the NewSchools Venture Fund Summit, EdSurge's own CEO Betsy Corcoran interviewed Edgenuity CEO Sari Factor about Edgenuity's rapid expansion to 17,000 schools, Factor's definition of blended learning and what makes a good implementation. Edgenuity, formerly known as Education2020, was originally created, as Factor put it, for students who "couldn't be in the classroom, for one reason or another." Now, after five years of rapid growth, the company is expanding its products, services and focus this fall; tune in to hear more.

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