On March 26 and 27, 2014, SRI hosted an intensive two-day workshop on “partnering for impact,” assembling a diverse group of 49 Cyberlearning researchers, entrepreneurs, teachers and school leaders, and government and foundation decision makers.
Recap of the Workshop
The participating experts called attention to the timeliness of identifying ways to work together to achieve deeper and more important educational impacts, especially given the rapidly changing landscape of learning technology. Tom Kalil, White House OSTP, addressed the group remotely about the power of “pull” in evoking innovative solutions to complex problems. While acknowledging the range and “blue sky” potential of current Cyberlearning research, the Workshop drilled down on the persistent issues that make progress slow, including: differences in priorities and communication among different stakeholder communities; intellectual property and data ownership issues; Balkanized market structure; school and district policy; and integration of systems with regard to both data and pedagogy.
Small teams were formed to devise innovative approaches to the identified challenges. For example, one team defined a broad public awareness campaign to help educators and the public understand “what learning looks like today,” especially in the way teachers and learners use technology. Another team conceptualized “EdKicker.com,” a crowd-sourced approach to funding innovative curriculum products, along the lines of KickStarter.com. Teachers with innovative ideas would get a small “kick” of seed funding from the broader community of stakeholders (developers, authors, teachers, researchers, parents, technologists, and other investors) to partner and support projects they would actually like to use to address recently adopted standards.
Other systemic solutions explored by workshop teams included addressing teachers’ need to build powerful communities around the work of integrating technology into school; the role of government and programs such as ARPA-Ed; and mechanisms for making Cyberlearning expertise available to innovative product developers, teachers, and schools. The CIRCL team plans to facilitate follow-on activities, including a Partnering for Impact panel at the upcoming Cyberlearning Summit and another panel about Cyberlearning’s potential at the Content in Context meeting of the American Association of Publishers.
Program
Download the detailed Workshop Program [PDF]
Wednesday March 26
| 8:00 | Breakfast and registration |
| 8:30 | Welcoming remarks, Program overview and goals |
| 9:00 | PechaKucha (rapid fire presentations) |
| 10:00 | Networking (speed dating exercise) |
| 12:00 | Working lunch |
| 1:00 | Project team formation (design project) |
| 2:45 | Brief check (snacks, compare notes) |
| 4:00 | Reconvene and take stock |
| 5:00 | Adjourn |
You’ll be on your own for dinner, but we can help organize groups. There are many good restaurants nearby.
Thursday March 27
| 8:00 | Breakfast |
| 8:30 | CIRCL discussion (lingering issues, overnight realizations) |
| 9:00 | Stakeholder Panel |
| 10:00 | Design team wrap-up |
| 12:00 | Lunch and Look Ahead |
| 1:00 | Adjourn |
Meeting Location
SRI International
333 Ravenswood Ave
Menlo Park, CA 94025
See detailed Directions to SRI [PDF] and Parking Map [PDF].
Hotels
Participants have received hotel information via email. Please contact CIRCL staff if you need additional information.
Nearby Restaurants
See Yelp recommendations near SRI. A few examples are listed below.
Downtown Menlo Park
Downtown Palo Alto
Organizers and Sponsors
SRI’s Center for Innovative Research on Cyberlearning (CIRCL) is chartered by NSF to support the cyberlearning research community. In 2013, CIRCL organized a committee composed of researchers, educators, entrepreneurs, and industry experts to explore the issue of impact: How can cyberlearning research results more directly influence new ed tech products and the ways they are used in the classroom? This workshop is the first event in the community’s efforts to address the issue and begin to build bridges between members of the several stakeholder communities.
Workshop Chairs
- Jeremy Roschelle, SRI International, Menlo Park
- Avron Barr, Aldo Ventures, Inc.
- Judi Fusco, SRI International, Menlo Park
Steering Committee
- Ola Ahlqvist, Ohio State
- Anish Arora, Ohio State
- Benjamin Bell, AQRU Research & Technology
- Karen Cator, Digital Promise
- Melanie Cooper, Clemson
- Dean Cristol, Ohio State
- Andrew Heckler, Ohio State
- Nick Jackiw, Key Curriculum Press
- Michael Jay, Educational Systemics
- Lewis Johnson, Alelo
- Mike Klymkowsky, U. Colorado, beSocratic
- Hea-Jin Lee, Ohio State
- Joyce Malyn-Smith, EDC
- Cathie Norris, U. North Texas, Collabrify
- Scot Osterweil, MIT
- Rajiv Ramnath, Ohio State
- Alex Repenning, U. Colorado, AgentSheets
- Robby Robson, Eduworks
- Elliot Soloway, U. Michigan, Collabrify
- Carolyn Sommerich, Ohio State
- Tamara Sumner, U. Colorado
- Beverly Woolf, U. Massachusetts, OSTP