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Is Coding Over? Why Learning to Code Is Really About Learning to Learn.

We are now living in a technological world and the future of work is this: Tech workers will no longer solely work in the tech industry. Every field will hire employees with strong digital skills, and this trend will only continue to accelerate.

To prepare for this reality, there are a growing number of learn-to-code organizations exposing students as young as Kindergarten to computer science education. And it makes sense. The hypothesis operates like something of an “if-then” statement, a mainstay of computer science: If coding is the language of tech, and tech is the future of work, then young people need to learn this language in order to succeed in their upcoming careers. In essence, coding is a ticket into the party—being able to tell the computer what to do is an entryway into our technological world and, therefore, a path to upward mobility.

Simply knowing how to code does not guarantee a lucrative career. Because knowing how to code today does not mean you will know how to code tomorrow.

This is certainly true to a degree. But simply knowing how to code does not guarantee a lucrative career. Why? Because knowing how to code today does not mean you will know how to code tomorrow.

Programming languages change all the time. Teaching only coding really isn’t enough to future-proof young people’s careers. The real skill that guarantees you a job in the technological world is knowing how to learn these skills.

My constant challenge in running All Star Code, a program that teaches coding, is that technology is always changing. Programming languages like Swift, Rust, Kotlin and Typescript have all emerged in the last ten years and increased in popularity. The coding language that our students learn this summer may be out of fashion in ten years’ time.

Make no mistake, I am still all about learning to code. But it’s a means to an end. Now I believe the right approach to learning how to code is the more important objective. It’s a little like learning a foreign language. Once you know the right strategies, picking up a third or fourth language is easier. For me, the most important thing for new coders is something known as the entrepreneurial mindset.

Innovate and Grow

Recently, my organization revamped its mission statement to better reflect these ideals: All Star Code creates economic opportunity by developing a new generation of boys and young men of color with an entrepreneurial mindset who have the tools they need to succeed in a technological world.

The entrepreneurial mindset is a way of thinking that informs the way in which you problem solve. This mindset focuses on facing a challenge, daring greatly, learning from failure and trying again. The goal is to innovate—to come up with wild ideas and then try them. Through this mindset you experience growth, rapidly.

In practice, this means that coding is not the be all/end all. We use coding to provide a deeper understanding into problem solving. Coding is messy, complex and the perfect environment for young people to foster the entrepreneurial mindset. What’s important in this process is that it teaches you how to think and how to try and fail (and try and fail) and ultimately learn from it. This approach enables a coder to use these skills to turn an idea into something of value.

Becoming a software engineer or a programmer is great, but it is clear that it is not the only path to a strong job in the 21st century. In fact, some programming jobs are already being replaced by artificial intelligence. It is the ability to learn new skills that is the real superpower of our time.

To do this, we provide lessons on growth mindset, intersectionality, networking, college guidance and money management alongside the roughly 200 hours of coding. Exposure to professional norms in culture and behavior provide vital skills for any career path our students take.

In our work we have seen that an entrepreneurial mindset fosters independence and resilience, irrespective of whether they continue to pursue computer science. Our program graduates have persisted strongly in technical studies. About 84 percent of our most recent class of students reported they are more likely to study computer science because they completed our Summer Intensive.

In our work we have seen that an entrepreneurial mindset fosters independence and resilience

Researchers have begun exploring the impact of entrepreneurship education. Last year, Thomas Gold of The Acceleration Group developed an index to measure entrepreneurial mindset using metrics such as: communication and collaboration, creativity and innovation, critical thinking and problem solving, future orientation, opportunity recognition and comfort with risk. (Work proceeds on figuring out how to measure other relevant metrics, including initiative, self-reliance, flexibility and adaptability).

Gold’s work is powerful because it suggests that this mindset can be taught and has a positive effect on young people’s confidence by making entrepreneurship a more viable career path.

Similarly, in my six years of founding and leading All Star Code, I have focused on these four attributes of successful entrepreneurs: grit, creativity, problem-solving and comfort with ambiguity. If you are interested in becoming more successful entrepreneurially, I encourage you to assess your strengths and weaknesses in these four areas.

On grit: Think of a recent time you got something wrong and your behavioral response to it. Did you try again after making that mistake until you got it right, or did you give up and do something else?

On creativity: When was the last time you thought outside the box, wondered about something random or listened to a podcast on a topic totally unfamiliar to you?

For problem-solving: How often do you research a particular problem in order to understand it better? When is the last time you had an original idea and voiced it? Do people come to you with their problems? (If so, do you see a pattern in what subjects these problems are?)

And when it comes to comfort with ambiguity: How often do you enter into a situation without feeling confident of where it’s leading?

Once you’ve assessed yourself, you can consciously make an effort to improve your entrepreneurial mindset.

Learning to code is a rigorous and worthwhile new experience for most people. But instilling a passion and aptitude for lifelong learning should be the ultimate goal for educators.

Is Coding Over? Why Learning to Code Is Really About Learning to Learn. published first on https://medium.com/@GetNewDLBusiness

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Dawkins: Teaching and learning matters. But that’s not all.

Great schools offer great teaching and learning. That’s a given.

But, public school leaders are increasingly coming to the realization that great classrooms alone aren’t enough to keep families from considering—or worse, from leaving for—newer options with decidedly deeper pockets and more resources.

Recent studies have shown the decision to choose out of a public school often has more to do with the experiences of parents than those of their children. Schools must continue to invest in great classrooms. But the most successful school leaders know that academics is but one critical piece of the total school experience.

Other districts are facing the opposite problem–rapid enrollment due to community growth. This brings its own challenges for ensuring students and parents feel engaged and personally attended to.

To keep families enrolled and engaged, our schools have to demonstrate value in other ways. That includes touting their successes, listening to their communities, and providing a better, more responsive customer experience. Because, yes, schools have customers too.

Want more on school customer experience? Sign up for the TrustED newsletter.

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As a former district superintendent turned advisor, I’ve traveled the country meeting with school leaders. While many do customer service, few have committed to the cultural transformation required to make the customer experience part of their DNA.

With this in mind, here are three essentials to delivering on the promise of world-class customer service in your schools.

1. See customer service as a need to have versus a nice to have

When your schools are understaffed and underfunded, the last thing you want to do is propose another initiative. It is easy to see customer service as a cost—one more program to throw money at. But that’s not the mindset of a leader who understands the impact of their decisions downstream. The most innovative leaders understand the total economic cost of not investing in customer experience. Done right, they know that good customer service and branding will keep families enrolled and engaged, and even bring those who’ve left back. Higher enrollments translate to more funding, which can be used in the classroom, or wherever improvements are needed.

2. Create internal buy-in at every level

What you see as a stand against declining student enrollment or for greater parental involvement will be viewed as more work or more accountability to some. The naysayers might try to convince you that the current approach is working. What they’ll fail to see is that standing pat has significant costs down the road, especially as students leave. Make an unwavering nonnegotiable commitment to providing high-quality customer experiences in your schools. Take the time to answer questions, and make sure your staff understand the stakes and what’s in it for them. High-quality customer service leads to more support from parents and the community. That results in more resources for students and staff.

3. Appoint the right champions to lead the effort

Nothing promises to sink your school’s next initiative faster than failing to appoint the right champions to own it. When it comes to customer experience in schools, you need buy-in from more than one or a few key players. Assemble a committee of champions from key departments, such as IT, Academics, Communications, and Operations. Each of these people needs to embrace your vision, and understand what is required, from one end of the organization to the other, to make it work. Ask yourself, what is their experience? Can they see beyond tactical decisions to fully understand the strategy? Can they get others to buy in to the need for better customer service in our schools? Every person sitting on this committee should be capable of running a multi-departmental, multi-year project. They need to have the experience and the gut-level persistence to get the job done over time. If they don’t appreciate the importance of the customer experience or if they are saddled with other priorities that will take them away from the project, look elsewhere.

These aren’t the only essential ingredients to creating a system of quality school customer service. Our exclusive guide outlines 10 key steps for building a culture of strong customer experience in schools.

The post Dawkins: Teaching and learning matters. But that’s not all. appeared first on Trusted.

Dawkins: Teaching and learning matters. But that’s not all. published first on https://medium.com/@GetNewDLBusiness

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Data Science Programs That Set You Up for Long-Term Success

Pick from top data science courses to unlock career opportunities

There is a massive shortage of data scientists in the U.S. as companies compete for the talent necessary to unlock the benefits of big data. The University of Illinois and University of Michigan’s data science degrees provide their students with the tools necessary to take advantage of these lucrative opportunities.

Despite growing interest in data science courses across campuses nationwide, the data science pipeline is still too small to fill industries’ needs. While this is an issue for companies, it’s very clearly an opportunity for aspiring data scientists.

“There are as many as 250,000 jobs in the data sciences that will need to be filled by 2024.”

“There are as many as 250,000 jobs in the data sciences that will need to be filled by 2024,” says Professor John Hart, Director of Online and Professional Programs in the Computer Science Department at the University of Illinois. “Our Master of Computer Science in Data Science degree unlocks these career opportunities.”

Thomas A. Finholt, the dean of the School of Information at the University of Michigan, sees his role as preparing students for both the immediate next step and all those that follow. “Whether their goal is professional development in a current position or a gateway to a career in this high-demand field, students will gain real-world, practical knowledge from top-ranked faculty and a degree from one of the world’s most respected educational institutions.”

To take advantage of the increase in data science jobs requires a data science degree that goes beyond quick tricks. A degree program must teach the underlying fundamentals that help students pursue a long-term career, no matter how their field changes over the years. Coursera co-founder Andrew Ng, an early pioneer and an influential member of the data science community, says Coursera degree program partners establish a high bar and set their graduates up for meaningful and durable careers.

That’s what sets the University of Michigan Master of Applied Data Science (MADS) and the University of Illinois Master of Computer Science in Data Science (MCS-DS) programs apart. The multitude of available boot camps and short courses often teach toolkits and languages that will be out of date in the short term. “We are trying to future-proof the students we are training so they can work in the way the world is right now, but also in the way the world will be in the next five to ten years,” says Professor Robert Brunner, the key driver of the effort to integrate data science across curricula at the University of Illinois.

Both Michigan and Illinois start with a strong cross-disciplinary approach, because data science by nature touches nearly all aspects of a business. It requires a T-shaped skill profile, in which you have general knowledge of a lot of fields and then specialize based on the specific applications needed for your job. “We give learners a broad understanding of data science approaches, and use this to understand modern techniques, as well as develop the computational skills to apply these techniques to real-world problems,” says Professor Chris Brooks, in the School of Information at the University of Michigan. “[The degree] helps students situate these new skills in the areas of work or study that are important to them.”

In addition to learning how to use data skills in the context of their profession, both Illinois and Michigan students also benefit from the diversity of peers with whom they interact. “We have to work with so many classmates from so many places—from China, from Thailand, from Canada, from here,” says Gitika Jain, a MCS-DS graduate. “Everyone has their own perspectives and we get to learn from each other. That’s really unique.”

“Everyone has their own perspectives and we get to learn from each other. That’s really unique.”

To develop such a skillset, it is key that learners receive instruction from experts in each of the disciplines. With the University of Illinois online MCS-DS, for example, data mining is taught by Professor Jiawei Han, a Michael Aiken Endowed Chair, who is a well-recognized authority in data mining and an author of the well-known textbook “Data Mining: Concepts and Techniques.”

At Michigan, too, the program is taught by core professors and is no different than what students would take on-campus.

“The curriculum was developed by our own outstanding, educators with extensive experience in designing and teaching critically acclaimed online data science courses that have been taken by hundreds of thousands of students around the world,” says Dean Finholt.

Perhaps the most important way to set students up for a durable career, however, is to provide the opportunity to apply theories and fundamentals to the real-world problems and datasets of companies. This is a focus at both Michigan and Illinois. “The main thing we learn from our MCS-DS students is that they value practice,” says Hart. “These students demand more than just fundamentals and theories. They want to see how they apply to the real world.”

Bruno Ferreira, an employee of the Brazilian government who took classes with the University of Michigan through Coursera, says the practical nature of Michigan’s data science classes is what initially attracted him when he was searching for the right machine learning course. “In Brazil, we have many theoretical courses but very few with practical application,” he says. “At Michigan, each course was related to solving real problems.”

Ferreira took what he learned through Coursera and built a machine learning model to catch fraud in the Brazilian government, winning an award for his efforts and impressing his superiors so thoroughly that they funded the Coursera-facilitated education of another 10 employees. “Thanks to Michigan, I gained a data scientist toolbox, and more importantly, I think as a data scientist now,” says Ferreira.

Vinod Bakthavachalam, a senior data scientist at Coursera, says the ability to point at specific projects is key when applying for a job. “You have to demonstrate that you can apply the knowledge you’ve learned, and if you have some projects where you’ve done that before, that’s golden,” he says.

Michigan will accomplish this through its portfolio-based curriculum. “With three capstone projects and two domain application courses, [the MADS degree] enables learners to demonstrate their knowledge of data science to others, such as potential employers or university programs,” says Brooks.

The MADS program at Michigan is taught through one of the nation’s top-ranked Information Sciences schools, and one that features a 99 percent success rate in employment for grads. The program boasts one of the world’s largest and proudest alumni networks, which is helpful to new graduates’ employment prospects. With an alumni network of 500,000 strong and growing, a student is sure to find a Michigan grad to network with, regardless of industry or location.

Illinois’ MCS-DS also offers the opportunity to tap into a sprawling global network. Illinois features a computer science program that is ranked top-five in the nation, with highly regarded faculty teaching online degree seekers from all over the world.

Illinois MCS-DS students receive a thorough grounding in the tenets of machine learning, data visualization, data mining, and cloud computing. While applicants don’t need to be computer scientists already, they should be familiar with an object-oriented computer programming language (such as C++ or Java), data structures, and algorithms, and college-level calculus and statistics.

Both programs, however, welcome students from a diversity of academic and professional worlds. The goal is to provide everyone an opportunity to pursue a top-level data science degree, and to do so in a way that fits around their schedule and life. “After this course, I changed my mindset. I am now a professional that learns and extracts knowledge in order to solve real problems,” says Ferreira. “It was the turning point of my career.”

The post Data Science Programs That Set You Up for Long-Term Success appeared first on Coursera Blog.

Data Science Programs That Set You Up for Long-Term Success published first on https://medium.com/@GetNewDLBusiness

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ASU Agrees to Independent Investigation of Its Online Textbook Practices

Arizona State University agreed this week to mount an independent investigation of a professor’s allegations that students were forced to pay for unneeded software so that they could turn in their homework in hopes of getting a grant from the textbook publisher. The instructor also charged school officials with forcing faculty to fail a set percentage of students.

It all started about two weeks ago when a professor in the economics department, Brian Goegan, sent an email to students saying he was being forced out because he complained that the economics department was engaging in what he believed to be unethical behavior.

He alleged that the university was requiring students in many microeconomics courses to buy a digital homework tool called MindTap so that the university would get for a grant from Cengage, the textbook company that makes it. And he said he and other professors were told to fail at least 30 percent of students, a move that would set a baseline against which to measure a separate adaptive-learning experiment championed by the provost, Mark Searle.

University officials have strongly denied these claims, saying there was no grant from the textbook company, and that in fact the university had negotiated a discounted price for one of the MindTap products. And it said no professor was asked to fail students.

Goegan’s email went viral and led many students across the country to hail him as a hero on social media. The university pushed back with a long statement from the provost painting Goegan as the one at fault for being too lenient with students by giving “a huge percentage of A and B grades.”

Student government leaders then obtained a contract between ASU and Cengage detailing how the two would share revenue for a jointly developed adaptive learning tool for introductory economics. The agreement, forged in 2016 and signed by ASU’s provost, outlines the terms for developing a version of MindTap for a microeconomics course where the university would supply content using the publisher’s digital platform. According to the contract, the university gets a small percentage of sales of the adaptive learning tool to students on campus and a greater percentage of sales if the tool ends up being sold to students on other campuses.

A university spokesperson said that the contract simply lays out a way for the university to get reimbursed for its intellectual property if the company sold this product that was jointly built with ASU. But he stated that Cengage has decided not to sell that product to others and so the university is not expected to profit from it.

As questions mounted, the student government passed a resolution last week calling on the university to start an independent investigation.

On Tuesday, the university’s provost, Mark Searle, wrote a letter to the student government saying it would conduct the review, and that it had hired Ruth McGregor, former chief justice of the Supreme Court of Arizona, to lead the investigation.

“While I feel strongly that each allegation is false, I agree with your view that there is a need for a third party to review the facts in question in a deliberative and thoughtful manner,” Searle wrote.

In the provost’s letter to McGregor outlining the scope of the investigation, he has asked her to report her findings by May 17, and said the findings will be made public.

Meanwhile, Cengage is in the news this week for agreeing to merge with another textbook giant, McGraw-Hill. The combined companies would form the second largest textbook publisher, behind Pearson.

ASU Agrees to Independent Investigation of Its Online Textbook Practices published first on https://medium.com/@GetNewDLBusiness

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K-12 Leaders Unite for ‘Check the Privacy,’ a One-Stop Shop for Safe Classroom Tech

For years, the privacy community has been urging educators to be more intentional—and careful—about introducing new tech tools in their classrooms.

But expecting teachers to wade through the legalese of every vendor’s privacy policy may be too much to ask for. And requesting that they apply for, then wait for approval on, each new app that catches their eye? That can prove tedious and inefficient—especially with most districts now running more than 500 edtech products per month. Even efforts to rate and review products’ privacy features have been stymied, with so much competing, contradictory information now available.

But a coalition of K-12 privacy leaders promises a better solution. Called Check the Privacy, the initiative, announced Wednesday, aims to provide a one-stop shop for educators searching for safe, secure tools to use with their students.

Check the Privacy contains a searchable library of more than 7,000 edtech products, with information about their privacy protections, compliance with major student data privacy legislation and endorsements by major organizations and privacy projects.

A screenshot of Check the Privacy's searchable library of more than 7,000 edtech products.

The idea for something like this has been bubbling for a long time, says Marlo Gaddis, chief technology officer of North Carolina’s Wake County Public Schools and a founding member of Check the Privacy.

“Part of this is born out of social responsibility,” Gaddis tells EdSurge. “It doesn’t matter if it’s my kids or Miami-Dade’s—student data privacy is an important piece for us to look at as a community. We’re all trying to solve the same problem.”

Indeed, thousands of schools and districts have tried tackling this issue on their own, as have nonprofit organizations. States like California and Connecticut have developed their own hubs where educators can find software that has been vetted for compliance with privacy rules. Common Sense also maintains a database of education apps with information about their privacy practices.

But such efforts deserve more collaboration and coordination, says Karl Rectanus, co-founder and CEO of LearnPlatform, the edtech system that is powering Check the Privacy’s digital library.

“There’s a ton of repetition and redundant effort out there,” Rectanus says. “It’s a confused landscape with different sources of information in what has traditionally been a low-trust market between districts and providers.”

Thus, the need for one place that teachers, administrators, parents and providers can go for unbiased, transparent information about any edtech tool—at no cost.

The Check the Privacy website is up and running, but the library has not yet launched. It will be ready before the start of the 2019-2020 school year, Rectanus says. In the interim, edtech vendors are encouraged to update their privacy policies and terms of service, he says.

On top of those items, the searchable library will include a brief description of each product, a place for educators to write and read reviews, pricing information and additional privacy resources and snapshots from education privacy groups including Project Unicorn, Data Quality Campaign, Future of Privacy Forum and Student Data Privacy Consortium.

As companies shut down, new ones launch and others evolve, the Learn team and Check the Privacy’s advisory board of 20 state and district leaders will update the library to ensure that privacy information for products is up to date.

“Edtech [products are] flashy and exciting,” Gaddis says, “but sometimes they’re not safe. Sometimes they’re not instructionally sound either. It’s our job as district leaders to make sure we’re transparent, that we have good intentions and that we are intentionally picking things that meet student needs.”

K-12 Leaders Unite for ‘Check the Privacy,’ a One-Stop Shop for Safe Classroom Tech published first on https://medium.com/@GetNewDLBusiness

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Age of Learning’s Latest Is a $100 Million Educational Game

How much does it cost to build educational games with all the flair and polish of their commercial counterparts? $10 million? $13 million?

Try $100 million. That’s roughly how much Age of Learning estimates it will have spent by the end of this year on “Adventure Academy,” a multiplayer online game to teach elementary- and middle-school age children subjects including math, social studies and language arts. The game, publicly available today, works on web browsers and iOS and Android mobile devices.

Creating a game that is both educational and entertaining is not for the faint of heart—or capital. Age of Learning has plenty of the latter, thanks in part to a $150 million fundraise in 2016. For the Glendale, Calif.-based company, “Adventure Academy” is the culmination of three years of development work, involving roughly 250 employees, including Kevin Beardslee (one of the original developers of World of Warcraft) and more than 3,000 beta testers.

Age of Learning is currently best known for ABCmouse, an online, early-learning program for children ages 2 to 8 used by 20 million children around the world, according to the company. With “Adventure Academy,” the company expands its reach to older students through middle school.

With visual and design elements comparable to what one might expect from a mainstream online game—including customizable avatars, live chat and an explorable open world—the game marks the most intensive development effort for Age of Learning since its flagship product.

First day on the school grounds of Adventure Academy (Screenshot: Tony Wan)

“‘Adventure Academy’ is the next-generation version of the kind of interactive, engaging fun we have in ABCmouse but meant for older kids in elementary and middle school to engage them in a social, fun, educational world,” says Alex Galvagni, president of production at Age of Learning and a former mobile gaming executive who has worked on titles including “The Lord of the Rings Online” and “Batman: Arkham Underworld.”

In the game, players navigate their characters through a virtual world that includes a school campus (which bears a vague resemblance to Harry Potter’s Hogwarts), residential neighborhood and market. Along the way, in-game characters introduce quests and challenges to complete. Players earn points that unlock new activities and fashion upgrades to their avatars.

With several thousand activities in the form of narrated text, videos and challenges, the company says that game currently has enough content to engage children for hundreds of hours. The game does not offer a strictly directed instructional experience—it lets players stumble onto them serendipitously. Certain in-game locations, like the science hall, offer a more logical connection to the kind of content a player may expect. (When we played the game, we read and answered a series of questions about a T-Rex, fulcrums, tesla coils and the spoonbill bird.)

Learning activities in Adventure Academy (Screenshot: Tony Wan)

The curriculum, built by a team of more than 40 experts, covers roughly 100 topics across English language arts, math, science and social studies subjects. Most of the content is aligned to state and national academic standards for grades 3 to 6, according to the company.

Then there are the social chat functionalities, which parent can set as they feel appropriate. At the strictest level, children can only communicate via scripted messages. The other end of the spectrum is open chat, which allows them to befriend and speak to anyone in the world. An automated filter restricts kids from saying objectionable or personally identifiable things along with human staff who also monitor all messages.

Age of Learning says the game is certified with kidSAFE, an independent safety certification service that vets children-friendly websites and technologies.

The game was designed for the consumer family market—not schools—which is an emerging growth area for game-based learning companies. “We see ‘Adventure Academy’ as an augmentation to the school experience,” says Joel Kupperstein, the company’s senior vice president of curriculum. Families pay less than $5 per month for an annual subscription to “Adventure Academy,” or month to month for $9.99. Each of those plans is good for three student accounts.

For Beardslee and Galvagni, that pricing model offered a relief from designing for in-game monetization, a common (and often loathed) part of mainstream games today. “It doesn’t have ads, and there are no in-game purchases,” Galvagni adds. “From a game development standpoint, that frees you up.”

Beardslee, who joined the company last summer, says the company has plans to add more content to the game, including daily challenges and player rewards like new costumes and dance moves for their avatars. The company plans to hire even more employees—on top of its current staff of more than 500—to support those efforts.

The Math Wing in Adventure Academy (Screenshot: Age of Learning) Age of Learning’s Latest Is a $100 Million Educational Game published first on https://medium.com/@GetNewDLBusiness

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Cengage, McGraw-Hill Agree to Merge to Become 2nd Biggest US Textbook Publisher

Cengage and McGraw-Hill Education plan to join forces in an all-stock merger. The news, first reported by The Wall Street Journal, would create the second-biggest U.S. textbook publisher if the deal is approved, with an estimated combined valuation of $5 billion. Pearson, with a market cap of $8.5 billion, would still be ahead of the pack.

The new company will retain the McGraw Hill name, but will be led by Michael Hansen, currently the CEO of Cengage. Dr. Nana Banerjee, who holds that title for McGraw-Hill Education, is expected to depart. Prior to his ascension last April, McGraw-Hill had cycled through a couple of other chief executives earlier this decade, including Lloyd G. “Buzz” Waterhouse and David Levin.

Like other established textbook publishers, both companies have reoriented their businesses around digital offerings earlier this decade. That transition has not always been smooth. Cengage filed for bankruptcy in 2013, after which it reached an agreement to eliminate $4 billion in debt and secure $1.75 billion in exit financing.

Cengage is now betting its digital business on an annual subscription that gives students unlimited access to all of its digital textbook materials, along with online homework tools and study guides. Earlier this February, it claimed to have sold 1 million such subscriptions since the program was launched in August 2018.

Last week, Cengage reported $1.5 million in revenue for its fiscal year ending in March 2019.

McGraw-Hill Education is currently owned by Apollo Global Management, a private equity firm that bought the company for $2.4 billion in 2013. From that year through 2017, the company invested an estimated $700 million to bolster its education technology offerings, according to The Telegraph. Its acquisitions include Redbird Advanced Learning (a K-12 math, reading and writing curriculum provider) Area9 (an adaptive learning technology) and ALEKS (an online adaptive math program).

McGraw-Hill Education filed for an IPO in 2015 but withdrew three years later. It reported $1.6 billion in revenue in 2018, of which 42 percent came from its higher-ed business, and 35 percent from the K-12 side. (The rest is made up of international and professional markets.) Sales of digital offerings made up 63 percent and 35 percent of its higher-ed and K-12 business, respectively.

Combined, the two publishers generated an estimated $3.1 billion in revenue in 2018, and will boast a library of 44,000 textbook titles, according to the Journal. Hansen told the newspaper that the merger will save an estimated $300 million over the next three years—savings that he claims will be passed down to make college materials more affordable.

Cengage downsized its footprint earlier this year, closing its San Francisco office and cutting staff in other regions. These moves may have been teased at during its most recent investor earnings call earlier this February, when Hansen said the company is “now on the move to simplify and streamline our operations and cost structure.”

Banerjee told the Journal that taking the combined company public is a possibility.

Cengage, McGraw-Hill Agree to Merge to Become 2nd Biggest US Textbook Publisher published first on https://medium.com/@GetNewDLBusiness

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As Online Learning Grows, So Will Proctors. Case in Point: Examity’s $90M Deal

Tests these days start by making students prove not what they know, but who they are. Historically that involves bringing some form physical identification, but increasingly companies and institutions are turning to face recognition, fingerprinting and voice biometrics.

Such are the tools developed and offered by Examity, a provider of exam proctoring tools used by colleges and universities, assessment groups, professional certification boards and employers. The Boston-based company passed its own test of sorts today: securing a $90 million investment from private equity firm Great Hill Partners. As a result of the transaction, Great Hill will own a majority stake in the company.

Examity offers a menu of live and automated proctoring services. So far, says Examity’s founder and CEO Michael London, customers opt for fully-automated products for low-stakes quizzes and tests, and a mix of human-and-tech approaches for high-stakes exams.

London was formerly CEO of Bloomberg Institute, an education startup affiliated with the media company that developed a test to evaluate candidates on their financial knowledge. That test is no longer around, but he says that experience inspired him to launch Examity in 2013.

Today, more than 75 percent of Examity’s 500-plus customers are colleges and universities, including Indiana University and Texas A&M. It claims a smaller, but growing footprint among employers at corporations, including Amazon. Online education companies, including Coursera and Duolingo, also use Examity to verify the identities of students who earn certificates.

The company is also eyeing big-name standardized test providers as they start to deliver digital versions of traditional paper exams. Among them is The College Board, which has approved Examity as a remote proctor for the Accuplacer exam, a computer-adaptive test used to assess students’ readiness for introductory college courses. Kaplan also uses Examity for its nursing test-prep services.

Examity’s identity verification technologies include facial recognition analysis that checks whether a test-taker’s face resembles that of the picture on their ID card. It can also use biometric keystroke technology to track patterns in how people type, which the company claims can be unique to each individual.

Once an online test begins, the user’s computer camera can flag suspicious activities, such as odd head or eye movements, for a human proctor to check. The company employs an India-based team of 500 human proctors who work around the clock, and each of whom are assigned to no more than three students at once. All testing sessions can also be recorded, should the institution choose.

London acknowledges that no standalone proctoring technology is foolproof nor immune to false red flags. Nor will these tools ever fully replace human proctors, who are still best able to make calls on edge cases. For example, a test-taker’s child may run into the room during a session, which technically violates exam rules but is generally excusable. In such a scenario, “we have technology that works behind the scenes, and that information is shown to a proctor, who will make a judgment call” if the system detects anything fishy, says London.

Some students have complained to college administrators that having someone peer into their dorm or home environments can feel invasive. And the degree to which personally identifiable information is collected may worry others. According to London, all data collected during a test session is encrypted and stored on the company’s own servers. In most cases, he claims, information is deleted within 30 days.

Examity offers its tools on a pay-per-test model or an annual subscription that allows customers to use Examity to proctor an unlimited number of tests. On average, a higher-ed institution will spend about $50,000 per year, says London, although that pricing can vary widely depending on the institution’s size.

London says Examity is currently profitable and cashflow positive, with paying customers from its beginning. The company expects to grow its headcount—from its 100 full-time U.S. staff—alongside its business as more and more students take online courses. According to Babson Survey Research Group, nearly 32 percent of higher-ed students took an online course in 2016—a figure that has increased for 14 consecutive years.

“One of the enabling technologies in the shift to online education is being able to authenticate that the student is doing the work and mastering the skills,” says Troy Williams, managing partner at University Ventures. “The value of online credentials only exists with this technology in place.”

University Ventures is a previous investor in Examity, and sold the majority of its stake as a result of this deal. “We’re very happy with our returns,” Williams noted. To date, Examity has raised just shy of $120 million in investment capital.

Examity’s ambition to capture the growing market for proctors will not go uncontested. Other providers of similar services include ProctorU, Proctorio, PearsonVUE and Krypterion. According to Tyton Partners, an investment banking and advisory firm focused on the education sector, the market for online proctoring services will reach $4.2 billion in the U.S. and $19 billion globally in 2019.

As Online Learning Grows, So Will Proctors. Case in Point: Examity’s $90M Deal published first on https://medium.com/@GetNewDLBusiness

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Adult Students Have Moved Into the Mainstream. How Can Colleges Adjust?

Did you see the Melissa McCarthy movie last year, where a mother drops her daughter off at college, and after some unexpected personal setbacks, decides to go back to school herself? In the film, “Life of the Party,” seeing McCarthy's character at a sorority party in a mom sweater is one of the gags, as this grownup is clearly shown as a fish out of water in higher education.

This is just the latest version of a movie that Hollywood keeps making every generation, and it represents a narrative that never seems to go away about what college should look like.

But the reality is very different. That mom going back to school is no longer the rogue outsider, but increasingly the mainstream when you look at who goes to college. True, these working adult students are not showing up at sorority parties, and they’re mostly studying online or using new models that colleges have built for them in the past few decades.

These students could be the answer to how our society will adjust to the coming robot age and solve the skills gaps identified by employers. So argues Marie Cini, president of the Council for Adult and Experiential Learning, a group working to support programs for these so-called nontraditional students, the real-life versions of the character played by Melissa McCarthy.

Cini has been in the role for about nine months, so she’s just starting to implement her vision for how her organization can help shift this cultural narrative, and help colleges get better at serving this huge group of learners.

And she has a recommendation for a recent film that does do a better job of showing the realities that students face today.

Listen to the discussion on this week’s EdSurge On Air podcast. You can follow the podcast on the Apple Podcast app, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Play Music or wherever you listen. Or read a portion of the interview below, lightly edited for clarity.

EdSurge: What are some things that are different now, compared to 5 or 10 years ago, in terms of awareness and how well adults are being served with online and other digital tools?

Marie Cini: So even 5 or 10 years ago there was still this sense that adults were the exception—that the standard way to go to college was when you’re 18 to 22. And if you didn’t, there was something wrong, and we had to do some tactical things to help you move into that same model. But part of what’s changing is the pace of change itself. Now I think it’s very clear to most people that the typical student is the nontraditional student.

So it’s not the Rodney Dangerfield in that old movie, “Back to School,” where it’s this one grown-up on campus and it’s so weird.

But they still make movies like this. There have been new ones. Melissa McCarthy was in the latest one [“Life of the Party”]. She went back and joined a sorority. It is that sense of college is a very specific thing—you’re in the residence hall, you’re partying, you have four years.

But there’s this new sense that most people are not going to live in a residence hall, even traditional-aged students. Now college has to fit your life. You might not do it all at one time. You might purposely start with a certificate, and then move up the chain as you go on. I think the sense that it’s really a very different world now, and most institutions, even if they don’t know how to do it, they’re trying to serve the adult nontraditional student far better than ever before.

If the narrative has changed, how have the tools and resources changed for nontraditional students?

There are more options. I don’t know if it’s a lot better. First you have the growth of large adult-serving institutions that focus on those nontraditional students. It used to be that only a handful of universities (including my former employer, the University of Maryland University College) really focused on adult students. Now you’ve got Western Governors University, Southern New Hampshire University, and [and other large institutions] that have really reached out to these new learners.

More institutions, whether they’re small colleges or larger, they’re going online and even thinking about competency-based degrees. They’re at least offering courses in the evenings and on the weekends, which is the least you need to do for adult students. I think there are more options.

But the typical university or college needs to think in terms of transformation because what they do now is all built around the fraternities, sororities and having a party for four years.

So you’ve been at the Council for Adult and Experiential Learning for nine months. What brought you there?

It’s a wonderful organization that started in the seventies with a group of faculty who really cared about adults. And they created this rigorous methodology to help adults take their informal college level learning—the learning you get from your job [and convert it to college credit].

We have many adults who just never finished an undergraduate degree, but they’ve become a vice president of marketing. They have the equivalent of a major in marketing, so do we really want to make them come back to college and redo the major in marketing, or could we find ways to help them translate that into college credit? And that’s what the roots of CAEL really were, this prior learning assessment methodology. It’s really based on this model by David Kolb, [a pioneering educational theorist,] about experiential learning, and how you extract true learning from your experience based on reflection and connecting it with some theory.

But over time, CAEL started moving into other areas, working with employers to do advising for adult students who were getting tuition assistance. Working with workforce regions to help them think through their skills gaps and how adult students could actually help them create or move up in terms of their learning so that they could fill some of those gaps.

What is your plan for the organization?

We need a continuous process so that all adults are learning, and then in careers, and learning again, and going back to careers. So CAEL now needs to focus on the strategy and the next level of where we find ourselves in our society and our economy.

We’re right in the middle of the action. We’re not knocking on the door of higher ed anymore. We’re not saying, ‘You guys have to pay attention to adults.’ In fact, higher ed knows it needs to serve more adults, and for good reasons.

Adult students are not the exception that we somehow have to create special programs for. All of us have to see them as actually a fundamental solution to a lot of the problems we have in our society. We have skills gaps. But guess what? There are a lot of adult learners out there with some extra training, extra education. They could actually fill those skills gaps. Employers need employees who will stay. We need to help you think through how to upskill your employees as a retention strategy. Higher ed needs to think about how to better serve adult students. It’s kind of like the name of the game, adult students are where it’s at, and it will be this way forever now.

You’ve been involved with competency-based education, the idea of measuring learning by testing outcomes rather than just counting how much time students have spent in class. I don’t hear as much about that these days. Is that because maybe there is less activity in that space, and maybe other things are filling that need? What is the state of competency-based education right now?

It’s happening, but there’s always that hype cycle. CBE was hugely hyped. And then it has settled into, ‘alright so it’s actually hard work.’ You can’t just throw a program together. I think what we’re seeing now is it’s going to be another modality that many institutions will be either developing or making part of their programs. So it’s definitely moving forward.

It’s kind of like online. Everybody is doing online now, it’s not a big hype anymore. But at first, it was going to change the world. Well, it didn’t. It’s just a part of what you need to do if you’re going to serve all of your students. I think competency-based education really has moved into that arena. It’s still happening, it’s just quiet.

What is a good movie about higher ed? What is the cultural representation that gets it right?

I’m going to put a plug for a film called “Unlikely.” It’s a documentary funded by some foundations. While CAEL didn’t have anything to do with actually developing it, it really is the story of why CAEL cares so much about adult and nontraditional students. It is a story of three or four students that try to go through college when they were at the traditional age, and how our current college systems and university systems failed them. Because maybe they ran out of money. Maybe they needed childcare. One young woman was going to be a doctor, and she had a child and had to stop out, and there was no way to continue in college.

Over and over again there were barriers put in the way of these students that if we had a more flexible system—[such as with competency-based options]—they could have had a better outcome. It is a sobering look.

That is the movie that needs to be made as our new cultural representation. Unfortunately though, it’s a little sad, it’s not funny. These folks didn’t have a chance to join a sorority or fraternity. They had a very serious real life, and they still needed college. That’s the reality of college students today. If we can get that message out there, it’s very important.

Adult Students Have Moved Into the Mainstream. How Can Colleges Adjust? published first on https://medium.com/@GetNewDLBusiness

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Why Schools Need to Help Students Find Purpose — and How to Do It

I started my first college advising session with Marcus with the same question I always asked:

“If you could do anything after high school knowing that you would be successful, financially secure, and your friends and family would support you, what would you do?”

His speed of response surprised me.

By failing to take student’s aspirations seriously, we miss out on key information that may help us understand and serve our most disengaged students to help them cultivate purposeful lives

“Become a YouTube gamer,” Marcus replied.

Teenagers vocalizing outrageous and fantastical aspirations was not new to me. Countless students told me they wanted to become a professional basketball player (even if they weren’t on the basketball team), or a rapper or musician (even when they didn’t sing or rap). And increasingly, thanks to shows like “CSI: Miami” and “Bones,” they wanted to become forensic scientists (which, I confess, I know little about). But in truth, I’m with Marcus; I too would like to be paid millions of dollars to play video games all day.

When teens give seemingly fantastical answers, adults’ common response is to dismiss them, brushing off these goals as unmoored from reality. Instead, adults advise students to focus on pursuing practical and realistic careers. Take up coding, study nursing or go into engineering, they say. Become a lawyer, or an electrician. Not only are these meaningful, important and financially lucrative careers, but they also provide job security and are in high demand.

But there’s a big missed opportunity here. By failing to take student’s aspirations seriously, even if they are seemingly outlandish or far-fetched, we miss out on key information that may help us understand and serve our most disengaged students to help them cultivate purposeful lives.

With Marcus, my next step was a follow-up question—asked from a genuine place of curiosity:

Why did he want to become a YouTube gamer?

I’m glad I asked because his answer floored me.

Marcus told me that he’d been viciously bullied during elementary school, peaking in middle school. He told me of the depression and anxiety he suffered as a result. He shared how socially isolated and alone he had felt, and how he’d had no one to turn to. The pain he felt as a result of this social ostracization was the worst thing he’d ever experienced.

To cope with the pain he would lose himself in the world of online gaming on YouTube. Then, in seventh grade, he found his hero, a gamer with millions of followers named Markiplier who enjoyed immense financial success. Marcus watched Markiplier for a reason. Sprinkled throughout his gaming and sketch comedy videos, Markiplier would share stories about being bullied as a kid, stories very similar to the ones Marcus shared with me. Hearing his hero share experiences so similar to his own had a profound and life-changing effect on Marcus. It made him feel less alone, and realize that he wasn’t the only one who struggled in school. Markiplier gave Marcus something essential: he made him feel he belonged.

As a result of Markiplier’s influence, Marcus started making and posting his own videos. Marcus told me that he aspired to help others through his own comedic videos and sketch comedy the same way Markiplier had helped him: by making viewers feel less alone.

Hearing this context profoundly changed how I viewed Marcus’ motivations and aspirations. Yes, he wanted to become a famous YouTube gamer, but more importantly, he wanted to help others feel less alone, and saw vlogging as the optimal medium. Through the channel of online gaming, Marcus could pursue a sense of purpose.

This realization helped me support Marcus as we worked together to plan his next steps. We began researching colleges that had video production and editing majors. We talked about how he could have the same impact as a social worker, psychologist or middle school teacher through his work as a vlogger. By exploring college through the lens of how it could help him help others, Marcus understood the relevance and importance of college in a way he never had before. At first he didn’t want to go to college at all; but after our sessions together, he was excited.

This realization transformed Marcus. Where initially he had been apathetic and disinterested, now, he was engaged and self-directed in the college process and his academics. Before, he never saw the relevance of school. Now he saw college as an important step in pursuing his true goal of helping others. He began exhibiting all the skills education has been focused on: engagement, self-direction and future-orientation. The shift was profound; Marcus finished his senior year with the best grades of his life.

Schools and educators spend an incredible amount of time and resources trying to help students like Marcus transform. We promote a long laundry list of virtues including grit, growth mindset and socio-emotional literacy. However, Marcus’ story shows that these behaviors and mindsets can’t be taught. Rather, they are outgrowths of something bigger—identifying and pursuing a sense of purpose. Purpose dives deeper than mindsets—it taps into someone’s core motivation for choosing a path. It also taps into the belief structure and understanding of why someone wants to do something and how it aligns with their values and their unique talents, strengths and things they care about. Once students develop a sense of purpose, the mindsets follow; forcing mindsets without having a why can actually just further meaninglessness.

Marcus is now, in fact, in college studying video production and minoring in psychology. He’s still pursuing his dream of becoming a successful YouTube gamer, but he’s open to pursuing different careers in human services that would allow him to have a similar impact in preventing bullying and social isolation among youth.

It’s time for a paradigm shift from what students want to do to asking them why instead

Marcus is one of my educator success stories. But I often wonder how many Marcus’ are out there—students who have meaningful and important aspirations that, when voiced to adults, are misunderstood and met with cynicism or dismissal. How many students who declare their intentions to become a high level politician, professional athlete or music celebrity are operating from a meaningful and noble aspiration but ultimately shut down? How many students who generally want to do good in the world are going unseen and unheard because no one is asking them their underlying motivations for pursuing those professions?

To more effectively reach students like Marcus, educators would be wise to lead with curiosity when inquiring into students’ aspirations. Rather than judge how realistic and practical a goal may be, they should ask open-ended questions to understand students’ deeper motivations. Start by devoting time to understanding each student’s interest. Ask exploratory questions. What do they do for fun? What sports do they play? What music do they listen to? What are their hobbies? Once you know those basics, it’s incredibly informative to inquire more deeply into what it is about these activities that make them meaningful to students. Follow a student’s interests, and you’ll unlock the clues needed to understand their deepest, most intrinsic motivations and desires.

Of course this is easier said than done. Engaging in meaningful conversations and building relationships with students falls outside the scope of what many educators are expected to do during the course of a school day. More importantly, many educators feel they lack the tools and skills to have these types of conversations. Programs like the one I now work at, Project Wayfinder—a year-long curriculum combining the best of social emotional learning, mindfulness education, design thinking and 21st-century skills for schools—exist to aid educators in building the relationships that help young people cultivate a strong and intrinsic sense of purpose.

For students like Marcus, these conversations can’t happen too soon or often enough. It’s time for a paradigm shift from what students want to do to asking them why instead.

Why Schools Need to Help Students Find Purpose — and How to Do It published first on https://medium.com/@GetNewDLBusiness

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A 140-Year-Old School Partnered With a 10-Year-Old School. Here’s What Happened.

As Cameron and Lewis sat mulling over the final details of the wheelchair fishing prototype they had designed for Bill, they enthused about how awesome it would be if Bill could regain his enjoyment of fishing, which he explained he had lost following a stroke. Cameron reflected on how it might encourage Bill to be more sociable and make more friends in his old age.

One table over, Alex, Iain, William and Roman were working on a social finger-knitting device they designed for Mary. Their idea? To empower Mary and her friends to knit simultaneously on the same garment. Alex hoped it would give Mary the sense of satisfaction she had described during her interview on the first day they’d met.

Social finger-knitting and wheelchair golf devices; Credit: Elaine Livingstone

It had only been two weeks since these middle schoolers visited a local care home, Balmanno House, but they’d already made great strides in their challenge to design and fabricate a device that would not just restore, but augment the former abilities of the elderly care home residents.

These student-driven concepts were part of a design studio—“Super Enabling Devices”—which ran in October 2018 at Kelvinside Academy (KA), a 140-year-old independent school in Scotland. The studio was the first in a unique pilot to prepare the ground for the launching of Scotland’s first innovation school on site at KA. But what prompted Kelvinside to consider opening a center built around creativity and entrepreneurship?

Enter NuVu. Sandwiched between the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University, this full-time innovation school for middle and high school students based in Cambridge, Mass., places creativity, critical thinking and collaboration at the heart of its pedagogy.

The learning model is based on an architecture design studio, and is a far cry from the assessment and standards-based paradigm of most education systems around the world. At NuVu, groups of 10 students work closely with coaches to solve real-world challenges. Additionally, NuVu’s learning model has a profoundly empathic dimension: by addressing real-world challenges, students acquire a personal understanding of the world and how they can impact it.

NuVu first came on KA’s radar in 2017 when Ian Munro, the Scottish school’s rector, was studying at Harvard. Around the same time, I arrived at Kelvinside to take on the role of head of languages after six years as chief learning architect at Kuato Studios, an educational games company based in London. What struck us was that NuVu follows no formal curriculum. Instead, students are challenged to solve complex problems that impact real audiences.

Despite an age difference of 130 years, it was love at first sight, and a unique partnership blossomed between the venerable independent school in Scotland, and the forward-thinking innovation school in the United States.

The first proof points for the partnership took the shape of two summer schools, one in 2017 and the other in 2018. On the Kelvinside campus in Glasgow’s leafy West End, students from middle and high school explored swarm robotics, created biofashion and programmed augmented reality games. They were mentored by a team of NuVu coaches to explore their creative instincts, while expanding their capacity to think and learn analytically. The intensity of engagement through this collaborative and experimental studio process was striking.

By the end of the summer camp experiment, we were intent on embedding NuVu’s approach into our existing curriculum at Kelvinside. Plans also hatched very quickly to launch the Kelvinside Academy Innovation School for students ages 5 to 18, based on the NuVu model.

What Does a Studio Look Like in Practice?

At the heart of the studio process is iteration. It is crucial that students are able to approach and solve problems freely, without feeling bound by rules. In a sense, the NuVu model captures the essence of a child’s ability freely to view and understand the world. There is no “right” answer. It’s up to the student how to proceed to build a solution, developing from concept to prototype via a range of iterations, sketches and reflections.

Prior to visiting Balmanno House, for the Super Enabling Devices studio, students considered how to frame their questions to the residents—starting broad, putting the interviewee at ease before moving on to general questions about residents’ former lives, and then delving into more specific questions relating to the challenge. Then followed a period of brainstorming, in which students formed groups by coalescing around shared ideas, which were gradually filtered until a starting point was agreed upon by each group.

Over the next two weeks—using laser cutters, 3D printers, wood, glue, cardboard, screws and almost anything else they could find—groups progressed through the prototyping phase. Early prototypes were often quickly realized, and quite rough, ranging from pencil sketches to cardboard designs, but they weren’t meant to look polished; the prototypes tested the validity of the solution. Also during this phase, students were subject to frequent “desk crits,” in which they were prompted by NuVu coach to validate their choices or expand on design decisions. Desk crits are common practice in architecture studios, in which the critique culture guides students rigorously through the design process while discouraging them from becoming too focused on a single perspective or solution.

At the end of each studio, prototypes are presented to the larger group. The presentation stage is also a core element of the studio experience. For this studio, each group was given five minutes to present their prototype, taking their audience, which included Balmanno residents, through the various stages of the process, reflecting on lessons learned, justifying their solution and saving time for a Q&A session toward the end.

Needless to say, the residents of Balmanno were delighted to be presented with the devices and contraptions, and had such fun testing them in the care home social areas.

Finlay and Gabrielle with residents of Balmanno House; Credit: Elaine Livingstone

Following the NuVu model, studios are topically diverse. After Super Enabling Devices, the studio undertaken by the next cohort, “Navigating the City,” asked students to consider the future of cities and challenged them to create body extension tools that would allow them to interact with the city in ways they never thought possible. One group produced a prototype for mood enhancing spectacles, designed to provide different perspectives of a city through color.

A third studio, “Cyborg Enhancements,” tasked students with exploring the ethical, social and technical implications of a biologically transformed cyborg society. Another studio in our pilot, titled “Fables Retold: Beyond the Book,” challenged students to analyze the structure of favorite fables and reimagine them through augmented reality, using narratives from their own lives as inspiration. In these adventures, students looked to their own communities, current events and life experiences to retell stories in a new, accessible medium for younger students in the lower school.

One of the most desirable qualities of the studio model is that there are no limits imposed on creativity or ambition. “But how are students being assessed?” is the most common question we get asked. It should come as no surprise that there’s a forward-looking approach to assessment, too. Within the NuVu model, students aren’t graded, but rather develop something of arguably greater value: a rich and considerable portfolio illustrating a student's growth over time and the development of key academic and life skills: creativity, critical thinking, collaboration, communication, research, quantitative reasoning and analysis.

This portfolio is key. While the results of standardized tests are still the principal currency for university admission, we intend to work with admissions counselors across the U.K. to consider the KA Innovation School portfolio as an equivalent tariff to a standard course. In the U.S., over 400 colleges and universities have expressed positive interest in receiving applications from students who have attended the NuVu program, and NuVu alumni have successfully been admitted to a broad range of universities.

School models that value creativity and critical thinking such as NuVu and the KA Innovation School, serve as examples of learning experiences that require alternative definitions of success and approaches to measuring growth. The move to build such models is connected to a broader goal: to rethink the route to university.

Much like how there are multiple pathways to solving a problem in our studio learning model, we think students should have multiple routes to university and toward career opportunities. After all, there is no “right” answer. Each student must decide on a path forward and schools can help guide them toward choices that will allow them to thrive in a rapidly changing world.

A 140-Year-Old School Partnered With a 10-Year-Old School. Here’s What Happened. published first on https://medium.com/@GetNewDLBusiness

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When It Comes to Technology and Engineering, National Report Card Confirms: Girls Rule

With increased attention on technology-related subjects during the past few years, how are U.S. students actually faring? Pretty well, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP)—also known as the Nation’s Report Card.

For only the second time in its 50-year history, the test has attempted to measure U.S. students’ grasp of technology and engineering concepts. And it’s good news: Students tested in 2018 showed improvements over those in 2014, the year the first NAEP Technology and Engineering Literacy (TEL) assessment was administered. Out of a possible 300 points, students in 2018 scored an overall average of 152, compared with 150 in 2014.

Between 2014 and 2018—the only two years the NAEP Technology and Engineering Literacy assessment has been administered—student scores improved by two points, from 150 to 152, out of a possible 300. (NCES)

Of the more than 15,000 eighth-grade students who participated in the assessment, which was administered on laptops in 600 public and private schools, about 46 percent performed at or above the “proficient” level. Five percent performed at the highest or “advanced” level, while 84 percent scored high enough to reach the “basic” level. All showed slight but statistically significant improvements over students in 2014.

One of the key findings from the assessment is that, despite the well-known existence of the gender gap in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) fields, girls outperformed boys by a full five points—155 to 150.

That five-point margin is “a meaningful statement,” said Peggy Carr, associate commissioner of assessment at the National Center for Education Statistics, which oversees NAEP and is part of the U.S. Department of Education. Especially because that margin is reflected across five of the six content areas that students were tested on (in the sixth area, boys and girls scored the same).

The two categories in which girls outperform boys by the widest margin are communicating and collaborating (157 to 149) and information and communication technology (156 to 149). They were most similar on the design and systems questions.

“One of the things we discovered is that girls seem to be doing exceptionally well on content areas that relate to communication, information technology and collaborating,” Carr said during a recent call with reporters. “Maybe boys could do better if we could help them improve in this area.”

The assessment featured 15 scenario-based tasks, which incorporated video clips, audio, animation and text, as well as 77 discrete questions. In measuring knowledge and skills related to technology and engineering, the test covered subjects such as computer science, robotics, rocketry and mechanics.

From 2014 to 2018, the results did not indicate significant changes among white, black and Hispanic students, Carr said. However, Asian students achieved an overall score of 169, compared to 163 for white students.

NAEP TEL assessment results by race/ethnicity. Scores are out of a possible 300. (NCES)

In a survey questionnaire that accompanied the assessment, 57 percent of students answered that they have taken at least one course related to industrial technology, engineering or computers, compared with 52 percent in 2014.

“This is compelling,” Carr said, “because students who took at least one [related] course scored higher than those who did not.” Eight points higher (156 to 148), to be exact.

According to the survey, more boys take technology- and engineering-related courses than girls (61 percent to 53 percent, respectively), though both are taking more today than they were in 2014 (55 percent to 49 percent). Nevertheless, with or without that formal coursework, girls still manage to outpace their male classmates in these subjects overall.

When It Comes to Technology and Engineering, National Report Card Confirms: Girls Rule published first on https://medium.com/@GetNewDLBusiness

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So, you want to be a teacher leader. What’s next?

There’s a certain kind of teacher we know. We may catch him staring contemplatively out the window on a Thursday afternoon, long after the kids have left for the day, thinking “What else? What else? What else?” Maybe it’s the woman at the faculty meeting who, even at 3:30, is still buzzing with energy and enthusiasm from the day.

You know the one. Why? Because it’s you.

You’re the teacher who is always passionate about the work and the possibilities that come with it. You’re constantly searching for opportunities and solutions. You are the one who knows that lessons, professional development, and the relationships with your colleagues and community members can all be improved–and you’re actively working to do so.

You’re a teacher leader. You may not realize it or even believe it yet, but it’s true. See if any of the following statements apply:

I want to be the best classroom teacher I can be and I’m willing to do the work to become it.

I want my school to provide kids with opportunities they don’t have now and will work to make that happen.

I want my colleagues to collaborate more often and more effectively so that becoming better together is the norm, not a happy accident. I’m willing to learn how to do that.

I want to ensure teachers have the best possible learning experiences so that they can learn, grow, and demonstrate excellence daily. I’d like to facilitate some of that learning.

I want my community to know the wonderful and challenging things going on in schools and I’m excited to be a voice for my profession.

I understand the impact district, local, and national policies have on my students and co-workers. I want to be at the table where decisions are made and I want to help make them.

I want to do all of these things and still teach children each day.

If your answer isn’t “all of the above,” then we’re sure you saw yourself in at least one or two of those statements. You’re a teacher on a mission to lead, and we have some fabulous news for you. First, you’re not alone. Second, teacher leaders are more important than ever before.

There is a strong base of research to support the concept of teacher leadership–teachers leading both within and beyond the walls of their own classrooms. Katzenmeyer and Moller (2001) refer to “awakening the sleeping giant” of teacher leadership in their book of the same title as they talk about helping teachers to develop as leaders. Mark Smylie’s seminal work has shown that teacher leaders need to be trained and that the anoint-and-appoint model of teacher leadership simply doesn’t work. The work of Jennifer York-Barr and her colleagues formed a foundation for the existence of teacher leadership and they continue to explore the concept of boundary spanning. The three-part study conducted by AIR, NNSTOY, and nine other partners investigating the role and impact of teacher leaders added to this base.

Essentially, this research tells us that teacher leadership is indeed a role for educators; that it is needed to mitigate issues of teacher retention, principal overload, and the hunger of teachers to lead in policy, practice, and advocacy. Teacher leaders are vital and necessary.

Whether you’re already miles ahead on your leader journey, or just getting started, here’s some helpful advice to take with you:

Start Where You Are.

You don’t need a special title, an award, or position to begin leading in your profession. If you wait until you’ve got an official seal of approval to finally do the things you’ve wanted to do for kids or your colleagues, you’ll never begin. Start now. Gather a coalition of the willing and work with the tools in front of you. Start a club. Mentor a teacher. Bring a group together to build a school garden. March on Congress (we dare you!) If there’s something you’ve always thought would make your school, or any part of public education in general, better do it today.

Feed the hungry and don’t you dare water the rocks.

When you set out on your unique leadership pathway, you’ll notice two things. The right people will be energized by your ideas and want to jump on board immediately. Some may be hesitant at first, but once they see the tide of excitement that follows teachers who lead, they tend to climb aboard. Cherish these people. They are your people and they’ll be an endless source of ideas, cheerleading, and faithful positivity in good times and when you hit a snag (you will hit these…trust us).

You’ll just as quickly notice those who don’t want to join your adventure. They may rebuff your ideas or your enthusiasm. They may put you down to your face or talk behind your back. The haters are out there. Ignore them. Long ago, they decided it was easier (and maybe safer) to hunker down into a space that wasn’t conducive to their growth or anyone else’s. Let them stay there. Don’t spend a second of your precious energy trying to convert them or win them over.

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Stay the course.

When you are working to make change anywhere in the edu-sphere, the pace of change might drive you nuts. We are used to teaching and seeing the results with our kids in a much tighter loop, so when we’re working on larger projects or ideas, it can be frustrating to not immediately see results. That’s normal and it takes some getting used to. Remember, a ship that diverts even one degree off course will, over the course of a long journey, arrive at a completely different destination. Keep this at the front of mind as your work with teachers, administrators, community members, or your legislators. You WILL begin to see the fruits of your labor but you’ll want to celebrate the small victories along the way to sustain your passion and energy for the eventual big change ahead.

Tell our stories.

No one knows teaching and learning like teachers and no one knows the realities of our students and our work like us. The single best thing we have, besides our professional expertise, is our first-hand accounts of life inside classrooms, of life through the eyes of young people. When we bring our stories to the community and when we speak our truths, hearts and minds are moved. But too many times, we leave the narrative around education to other less noble actors. Let’s take those back and use them to make necessary and vital changes in the spaces where learning happens.

Leadership is a moment and a movement. It’s in the way you address a colleague who can be doing better and who needs to hear it. Your courage to deliver that message in a way that’s kind and comes with an offer of support makes you a leader. It’s in the way you create a space for teachers across your city to articulate around learning goals and quality student work. It’s in the way you become so frustrated by education policy being put into place in Washington that you run for Congress yourself. Leadership is collaborating with teachers around the globe to design projects your kids can do to solve the planet’s challenges. It’s everything in between.

So start wherever you are, with whatever you have. Do what you can where you’re at with the tools and the passion you already possess. Our profession–and our education system–needs folks like you who have the courage and the knowledge to make education better. All you need to do is start your adventure.

Rebecca Mieliwocki (NNSTOY Teacher of the Year 2012) and Joe Fatheree (Illinois Teacher of the Year 2007) are co-authors of Adventures in Teacher Leadership: Pathways, Strategies, and Inspiration for Every Teacher (ASCD and NNSTOY, 2019). Katherine Bassett, the founder of Tall Poppy and the former CEO of NNSTOY, wrote the book’s introduction.

Rebecca Mieliwocki

Katherine Bassett

Joe Fatheree

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More MOOC Madness? UK’s FutureLearn Raises $65M to Expand Global Footprint

Most investors shy away from bets on companies that provide similar services for an obvious reason: Don’t have one portfolio company that can cannibalize another.

But SEEK Group, an Australian operator of online educational and employment services, has doubled down on massive open online courses. Less than a week after its announced lead in Coursera’s $103 million Series E round, SEEK is at it again with £50 million (about $65 million) in London-based MOOC platform FutureLearn.

FutureLearn launched with a dozen university partners in 2012, the same year that other MOOC platform providers—namely Coursera, edX and Udacity—also launched and whose growth have somewhat overshadowed FutureLearn’s (at least here among U.S. audiences). FutureLearn was wholly owned by The Open University, a public distance-learning university in the U.K. SEEK now owns 50 percent of the platform as part of the deal, which gives FutureLearn a valuation of £100 million.

This funding is “vindication for Open University betting on a MOOC platform, for investing in a non-U.S. entry to [the online education] market when many were dismissing it,” says Simon Nelson, CEO of FutureLearn.

Today, FutureLearn bills itself as the largest online learning platform in Europe, with more than nine million users. It offers over 200 courses from 120-plus university partners and organizations, according to its website. Partners include University of York, Purdue University, Accenture and Amnesty International.

Despite its U.K. roots, FutureLearn has been casting its focus abroad. In 2017, it enlisted five U.S. universities onto its platform. Nelson says the latest cash infusion will support the company’s effort to add more content and grow its footprint worldwide. About 70 percent of FutureLearn users are outside the U.K., with the U.S. its second-largest market.

FutureLearn offers three types of courses. There are shorter courses that anyone can take for free, but which require payment for a completion certificate. FutureLearn also offers a yearly $199 plan for learners to take an unlimited number of certain short courses and earn certificates.

The platform also offers longer online programs, such as a 15-week, six-course offering from Purdue University for digital media analytics that anyone can take for free, but costs $480 for a certificate. Then there are online degree programs, such as a Deakin University cybersecurity program that costs about $7,000 for a six-month graduate certificate or about $19,000 for a two-year master’s degree.

According to The Financial Times, FutureLearn generated about £8.2 million in revenues in the first seven months of 2018.

If FutureLearn is indeed serious about expanding in the U.S., it has its work cut out. Coursera boasts 40 million users and 3,200 courses, and generated an estimated revenue of $140 million in 2018, according to Forbes. Nelson says he thinks the MOOC market is large enough for FutureLearn and other companies like Coursera to grow side by side. The market grows as universities in more places embrace MOOCs and as companies find value in MOOCs for training employees, he believes. He also adds: “Competition doesn’t frighten me at all.”

FutureLearn boasts roughly 140 employees today, about half of whom work in product development and management, and the rest made up marketing, partner support and business development staff.

FutureLearn’s new investor and co-owner, SEEK Group, operates in 18 countries. Founded in 1997, it aims to match job seekers with work opportunities. In Australia, it offers a directory of accredited courses from local universities with reviews and information about what programs are required for different career fields.

This is not the first employment company to shell out big money for educational services. Last year, staffing conglomerate Adecco Group acquired General Assembly for $412.5 million.

In a prepared statement, SEEK co-founder and CEO, Andrew Bassat stated: “Technology is increasing the accessibility of quality education and can help millions of people up-skill and re-skill to adapt to rapidly changing labour markets. We see FutureLearn as a key enabler for education at scale.”

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Why Big-Data Science Depends on Skilled Data Engineers

As the field of data science matures, a distinct specialization is emerging: data engineering. Tech giants like Facebook, Amazon, and Google are recognize the value of data engineers relative to data scientists. That’s why they’re targeting candidates with skills to build critical infrastructure like data pipelines and warehouses.

The best computer science degrees keep up with this trend by helping graduate students develop high-level data engineering skills. The University of Illinois Online Master of Computer Science in Data Science (MCS-DS) degree is one of these degrees: it offers a comprehensive full-stack data sciences education  to add this fast-growing career path to the employment opportunities of its graduates.

Why Data Engineering Matters

Data science is one of the most in-demand career fields in computer science according to LinkedIn, job openings increased 56% over the past year. These big data detectives unearth valuable insights through analysis of massive datasets. At the highest level, their skills are essential for developing machine learning algorithms and artificial intelligence (AI) applications.

However, in order to work their magic, data scientists need data. And not just any data — they need a clean dataset. That means they need raw and messy data converted to a consistent format that can be used with the data scientist’s analytic tools. As computer science students know well, this simple-sounding task becomes increasingly challenging and time-consuming as a dataset grows in scale. In fact, some data scientists spend as much as 80% of their time “wrangling” or “munging” data before it’s ready to be analyzed.

That’s where data engineering comes in. Data engineers evaluate, parse, and clean datasets, using programming languages like Python and R to build data pipelines and warehouses. This infrastructure efficiently delivers clean datasets at scale for data science to produce big data products. The data engineer’s specialized expertise becomes crucial to a company’s success as it grows; a startup that can only afford to hire one data scientist might have no choice but to direct 80% of their hours to data engineering. This inefficiency becomes a crippling as the company scales up.

Just as data scientists and data engineers can sometimes be distinct roles within a company, top professionals in these fields can sometimes come from distinct educational backgrounds. While a data scientist typically might focus on math and statistical analysis, data engineers are often system thinkers and programmers at heart. As the data industry continues to develop, it’s becoming apparent that specializing in data engineering early in your education is a significant advantage for your career.

A Data Science Education For Data Engineers

The University of Illinois is one of the top-ranked computer science schools in the country, with an incredible history of pioneering research dating back to the 1940s. Its Online Masters of Computer Science in Data Science (MCS-DS) degree provides a top-tier advanced education for data scientists, and students that want to pursue a career in data engineering have the flexibility to choose courses that prepare them for that direction. The degree requires graduate-level coursework in data mining, cloud computing, data visualization and machine learning for all students, through courses such as Introduction to Data Mining, taught by Jiawei Han, author of the well-known textbook “Data Mining: Concepts and Techniques.”

Computer science graduate students that want to become data engineers have plenty of opportunities to dive deeper as they fulfill their degree requirements. Advanced courses include data engineering-centric classes such as Theory and Practice of Data Cleaning and Data Curation.

MCS-DS students with a data engineering focus can complete their education with a Data Mining Capstone Project. In this hands-on course, students learn the latest data mining research techniques in an online seminar. They also complete a major project that applies data mining techniques to solve a real-world challenge. This kind of interactive, face-to-face learning experience puts the MCS-DS on a higher level than typical online computer science programs.  

Getting Your Degree from an Industry Leader

The University of Illinois MCS-DS degree gives you excellent preparation for a data engineering career. Illinois’ highly-ranked computer science program is known for its track record of excellence, and Illinois alumni and faculty are responsible for companies that have created entirely new industries.

Want to be a part of this legacy? Learn more about the University of Illinois MCS-DS degreeand gain access to the computational and statistical knowledge needed to turn big data into meaningful insights

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Bringing Computers to Life

The new BSc in Computer Science will offer students the opportunity to learn core computing skills and apply those skills to any area or subject they feel passionate about. Music, art, sociology, education: the possibilities are endless. Through exciting project-based learning, the course encourages students to express themselves creatively and develop new links between technology and life.

“Our ethos is that we want students to demonstrate that they understand the theories and concepts we teach by applying them in whatever creative way they like.”

The new degree has been developed by the University of London and member institution Goldsmiths, whose academics have extensive experience in applying computer science to a wide range of fields.

Dr Rebecca Fiebrink is a Senior Lecturer in Computing at Goldsmiths. She is also a musician. She explained how she has never needed to choose between her two interests:

“One of the biggest reasons I came to Goldsmiths to teach is that all the people teaching here really look at computing as something that has strong links to society and to the arts, and many of us explore those links in our research. For me that’s one of the great things about Computer Science – you can apply it to anything that you care about and that interests you.

We don’t make students and staff choose between being technical people or creative people. We teach students who are studying creative computing and music computing and games programming right alongside students who are studying computer science.”

All the people teaching here really look at computing as something that has strong links to society and to the arts. One of the highlights of my career has been making software for machine learning in creative work – called Wekinator – that a lot people have used. It hit around 25,000 downloads this year and I recently had someone knock on my door who had put on an opera in Bristol about Frida Kahlo and had used my software.”

Dr Sarah Wiseman, Lecturer and Programme Leader at Goldsmiths, co-authored the Web Development module in the new BSc programme. She described how students will be encouraged to be creative within their computing practice:

“Our ethos is that we want students to demonstrate that they understand the theories and concepts we teach by applying them in whatever creative way they like. For example, students on the Games Development course won’t be asked to produce the exact same game – we will give them a brief and ask them to interpret it in an exciting and creative way. In some modules there are marks specifically for creativity and it’s a chance to add personality to the project.

Having this creative element in the degree gives students a chance to really care about their projects and their work. They want whatever they’re creating to be as brilliant as it can be because it’s something they own. If they hadn’t created it, it wouldn’t exist. Their projects are individual and unique to them and that gives them the enthusiasm to do it right.

With seven different specialisms on offer – from Games Development to Artificial Intelligence and Virtual Reality – students are able to build on their interests and develop the programming skills they need to innovate in any field.

Example projects produced by students studying the Goldsmiths on-campus degree include a DJ training system that uses machine learning to automatically rate scratching ability; an educational resource to teach physical computing and electronics to primary school students; a robot designed and controlled by a student as part of a play he produced; and an interactive games controller developed fora sensory game.

Dr. Wiseman adds: ”One of the best parts of my job is interacting with students: honest, enthusiastic, and unpredictable people. They challenge me and inspire me, and it’s great to be able to play a part in lots of different creative projects that are meaningful to each student.

Having this creative element in the degree gives students a chance to really care about their projects and their work.” The University of London Bachelor of Science in Computer Science degrees are designed to provide those passionate about computing with instruction in computer science fundamentals. Whether you have high school qualifications or you’re already working in a computer science field, you can earn a valuable degree that will help move your career forward.

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This Research-Backed Toolkit Helps Youth Organizations Integrate Digital Learning

The Beam Center in Brooklyn is an out-of-school maker program that teaches teenagers technical skills like welding, woodworking and microcontroller interface design; they collaborate on a range of cool projects from mushroom fruiting environments to giant, hand-cranked flipbooks. But perhaps the most important skills kids learn at Beam are empathy, communication and self-expression. “When we have 23 kids from seven different ethnic backgrounds who speak seven-plus different languages, we experience some tension in our space,” says Beam Director of Teen Programs Calvin Stalvig. “We have the opportunity to establish a community where youth feel safe to be around one another, to talk about things that are challenging them, to talk about being from another country or struggling to learn English or being gay or trans.”

We wanted to understand more about preparing youth for the changing workforce, and for civic participation.

Susan Crown

Beam’s emphasis on youth development in conjunction with technical learning is one reason it was chosen to partner in the collaboration behind the recently published Reclaiming Digital Futures toolkit. The free web-based guide is designed to help educators at out-of-school youth organizations leverage five strategic areas to integrate technology and digital learning into their programming and practices. One resource in the toolkit, for example, explains how to incorporate digital tools that align with an organization's specific goals.

The project’s partners—which include the Susan Crown Exchange, researchers at University of California Irvine and New York University, and eight exemplar youth-serving organizations, including Beam Center—gathered for three “digital learning convenings” as well as several group digital meetings and multiple individual onsite visits over an 18-month period. Their goal was to share best practices and “explore important questions about what it means to be a 21st-century citizen,” says Susan Crown, founder of the Chicago-based social investment organization that funded the project. “We wanted to understand more about preparing youth for the changing workforce, and for civic participation.”

An overview of the Reclaiming Digital Futures project. Full size video on YouTube.

They help them find their passion and help them deal with daily challenges and trauma.

June Ahn

The eight exemplar programs each focus on different subjects, from arts to engineering to journalism, but they have a few things in common: They all integrate digital learning and 21st-century skills into their practices, and they are all deeply rooted in their own communities, many of which are marginalized neighborhoods. “A lot of times when we think about technology or digital learning, we tend to start with the technology, the hard skills,” says June Ahn, an associate professor of education at UCI and the project’s research lead. “With our partners, it's not an either/or question,” he explains. “They all have nicely developed youth development practices that coincide with their technical programs. They focus on building trust with young people. They help them find their passion and help them deal with daily challenges and trauma. Those kinds of things are just as important as infusing digital learning into projects that are really relevant for them.”

Every year the Beam Center tackles a massive maker project based on designs from an international call for entries. This year’s project is a set of giant hand-cranked flip books that will be displayed in Brooklyn’s DUMBO neighborhood. Expert metalworkers on the Beam staff break down the large project into small projects that individuals or groups of students can create together while learning about animation, woodworking, metalworking, kinetics, solar power and storytelling. There are also smaller projects going on at any given time that teach similar skills. This spring Beam students are learning about mycology while creating fruiting environments for mushrooms. Stalvig says he could swap out mushrooms for hip hop music and the kids would be learning a lot of the same things: how to use digital as well as old-school tools, how to collaborate, how to plan a project and see it to completion. “Only the conversation will be different,” says Stalvig. “And the conversations always relate to—how does this connect to your life? How does this connect to your community? How does this connect to social justice?”

Source for all photos: Reclaiming Digital Futures

. . . they quickly care for one another in ways that they're not able to care for one another in their schools because of the divisions of class, race, gender, sexuality, etc.

Calvin Stalvig

To help bridge potential divides among his students, Stalvig created a slideshow he called “Five Minutes of Me”—and shared it with his students. With the help of 27 pictures, from old family photos of his hometown in Wisconsin to pictures of him and his husband on their honeymoon in Iceland, he told his students who he was. Every week thereafter, different students would make five-minute presentations about their lives. “When I—a black, gay man from northern Wisconsin from a white family—do that first, I model that I'm not ashamed of any single part of my identity,” says Stalvig. "Five Minutes of Me” doesn’t just help students with public speaking and other career-readiness skills, “it helps them celebrate who they are and helps them find an audience that will listen to them. Afterwards, they ask each other questions like, ‘What is your favorite anime manga comic book?’ Then it changes the whole tone of our space, and they quickly care for one another in ways that they're not able to care for one another in their schools because of the divisions of class, race, gender, sexuality, etc.”

A commitment to human dignity and expressing oneself are also central to the mission at Free Spirit Media (FSM), a journalism-focused exemplar organization where kids from mostly low-income and minority backgrounds in Chicago produce a thousand pieces of media content a year. At FSM, kids don’t just learn how to identify good local stories and how to operate cameras, microphones, and editing programs. “They make media content that is intended to contribute to the civic discourse by reaching an audience and starting meaningful conversations,” says founder Jeff McCarter.

Along with technical skills, kids learn things that foster, as McCarter puts it, 'interpersonal fluency'—such as media literacy and personal accountability.

Along with technical skills, kids learn things that foster, as McCarter puts it, “interpersonal fluency”—such as media literacy and personal accountability. At the beginning of each new program cycle, students brainstorm a code of conduct and write it on a poster that everyone signs. “If somebody were to show up late and something is on there about tardiness, a peer is likely to say, ‘Hey, you signed on to this. You need to do better,’” says McCarter.

As they gain experience and move through the five program levels of FSM, students get opportunities to earn money with their skills while telling stories that are relevant to them. The short film "A Tale of Two Cities" was created by advanced FSM youth as a commissioned companion piece to "Romeo is Bleeding," a poetic documentary about Richmond, CA. In Tale, young people from Chicago’s North Lawndale neighborhood, a mostly black, mostly low-income community, talk about how their neighborhood is perceived from the outside—thanks to a steady stream of media reports of violence and police activity—and how they know the neighborhood from their own personal experiences. The FSM students hashed out ideas, set up a series of shoots, worked on their script and voiceovers and captured archival footage from both outside media and Free Spirit’s archive. They then produced a beautiful and moving four-minute piece that was shown as the opener to a Chicago screening of Romeo.

More Project Info

Find the toolkit here: DigitalLearningPractices.org

Video: Learning, Interest, and Voice

Video: Learning How to Distribute and Share Media

That commitment to mining the assets of the local community—whether it’s story material or expert advice—is “a really important flavor to this project,” says Ahn. “We're not just talking to partners in highly-resourced areas; we’re talking with partners who work in low-income communities and build from assets in those communities.” Determining how to spread the rich practices highlighted in the Reclaiming Digital Futures project to the communities that could most benefit from them will be an ongoing process, he adds. “That equity agenda is important, and it’s something that we’ll have to continue to work on.”

Adds Crown, “One thing we know for sure; kids with a sense of purpose, a sense of competence, and a sense of community fare much better in life than kids who lack these three things. Technology offers remarkable new ways to cultivate these qualities in kids.”

This Research-Backed Toolkit Helps Youth Organizations Integrate Digital Learning published first on https://medium.com/@GetNewDLBusiness