Breakthrough Learning in a Digital Age: Hosted by Google

Connie Yowell (Director of Education - MacArthur Foundation) introduces a panel of digital media entrepreneurs in this video. Her introduction, in which she explains what the Foundation has learned in their grant making, is excellent. It is worth watching the first 18 minutes of this video. Here are some excerpts...

Data Point: "Kids today are learning differently, socializing differently, and engaing civically differently as a result of their participation with digital media."

Learning Point: We are in the process of making several conceptual shifts, these include...

1. Shift from education to one of learning (learning happens anywhere and anytime). If we are going to make the shift to a 21st century learning system we need to start operating in the best interests of the learners.
2. Shift from consumption to participation. This is a core ambition of a learning system for the 21st century
3. Shift from institutions to networks.

Breakthrough Learning in a Digital Age.

Old-School Innovation No Longer Cuts It

In August I wrote about the Deloitte Center for the Edge and the Shift Index. Yesterday the ITBusinessEdge wrote up an interview that they conducted with John Hagel the director of the Center. They suggest that the real opportunity is in moving beyond product, technology and even process innovation to institutional innovation. As I understand it, this will require a more holistic approach that involves everyone in an organization increasing their Edgility.

Here are are a few quotes that I found interesting...

"One of the issues I think is preventing companies from responding more effectively is they tend to divide their labor forces into knowledge workers and everybody else. One of the things Toyota did was take the front-line assembly workers and converted them into creative problem solvers."

"The real purpose of the firm is to provide an environment where you can learn faster than you could on your own."

I learned something today...

I was talking to my brother on the phone today about "learning" (he is a corporate trainer) and we started talking about production of learning content... and how easy it is to produce short instructional videos like the following on YouTube.

I now know how to peel a banana - my entire life I have been doing it wrong. Yes, I continue to learn. Who would have guessed that I would learn to peel a banana on YouTube.

Kunskapsskolan Shools

DW TV - European Journal | Kunskapsskolan - Watch more Videos at Vodpod.

The Blue School: by the Blue Man Group

Parents are lining up in New York for their children to enter The Blue School. The Blue School was created by the founders of the Blue Man group as an alternative the New York city schools.

Here is an excerpt from a Time.com article / interview about The Blue School,

The original Blue Men--Matt Goldman, Phil Stanton, Chris Wink--came together as "sort of a support group for people whose creativity had been all but squeezed out of them by education," says Wink. "At one point, we asked, What if there was a school you didn't have to recover from, that didn't make you question the idea of being creative?"