Tag Archives: globalizing

The 6 killer apps of prosperity – 2011 TED Talk

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The world is constantly changing, only now it’s changing ever more rapidly. This 21 minute talk can give you an idea as to how you, your children and grandchildren may be affected. Here’s a summary from the TED Talk page:

“Over the past few centuries, Western cultures have been very good at creating general prosperity for themselves. Historian Niall Ferguson asks: Why the West, and less so the rest? He suggests half a dozen big ideas from Western culture — call them the 6 killer apps — that promote wealth, stability and innovation. And in this new century, he says, these apps are all shareable.  (My underlining)

History is a curious thing, and Niall Ferguson investigates not only what happened but why. (Hint: Politics and money explain a lot.)”

View the talk here.

This talk has been viewed 993,860 times.

Financial Education Paradox?

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Great little article by economist David Laibson delves into, “Most Americans know they should save for retirement and pay off their debts. Yet they often don’t do those things. Why?”

And why it’s so difficult to consider and create effective “Financial Eduction” curricula and classes – and that’s frustrating because “finances” is such an integral part of everyone’s real-world experience!

His last couple of paragraphs, I believe, speaks volumes about what an effective education looks like:

What does this tell us about the best way to teach financial education? 

What this means is that you should get the financial education you need when you need it. If you enroll in a 401(k) plan today, you should take the 45-minute educational seminar on it during the enrollment process. The time to learn about credit cards, borrowing and compound interest is when students are 18 and starting adult life.

The human memory is so fallible. If I tell you something and expect you to remember it five years from now, that’s a big ask. So I would focus on teaching skills that translate immediately to practical application.

(My underlining – teach around ideas and stuff in a real-world-ish application context. Tie math and English and science into such things as, how do your folks buy and pay for your clothes, where in the world do they come from, what do your parents/guardians do for a living, how long do they have to work to pay for a pair of new shoes, why was a textbook written, by whom, how much does it cost, how much is that for the whole class, where does that money come from, …)

Read the whole article here.

Back from the polls with interesting article

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Whew! Sixteen hour election day poll work took a couple of days recovery time. Definitely not as young as I used to be.

Because this article on reverse engineering in healthcare seemed to have a number of interesting parallels with Education I thought I’d pass it on in the blog. Just substitute “education” for “healthcare” in the article. Here’s a summary:

Reverse innovation works because the different conditions in higher- and lower-income settings change the ‘push’ and ‘pull’ factors that drive innovation.

What happens when you create health care solutions specifically for patients in low-income settings? It turns out that learning from and investing in these settings can be powerful ways to tackle problems at home that require out-of-the-box thinking. These differences include:

  1. Higher volume for lower price. Radical approaches are often needed to achieve acceptable performance at ultra-low price points.
  2. Less developed infrastructure allows rapid implementation of new solutions.
  3. Sustainability is important in resource-limited areas, favoring “green solutions.”
  4. Fewer regulations quicken the pace of innovation.
  5. Preferences are different, inspiring creative design.
  6. Overwhelming need increases the ‘purpose motive,’ fueling innovators who want to make a difference.

These six attributes make lower-income settings appealing places to create, test, and scale new ideas (In ABQ/BERNCO, think ABC Community Schools Partnership for pre-K-12 and Mission Graduate: 60,000 for K-12 and beyond).

So, just how do ideas move through a reverse innovation pipeline?

  1.  Identify a high priority problem shared between lower- and higher-income settings. For example, affordable, user-friendly diagnostics, or a mobile health information technology solution to a pressing health care issue.
  2. Innovators in lower-income settings must create a solution that spreads to the first 15% of the population, or the “early adopters.” This usually happens only if the idea is better, relevant, simple, easily tested, and visible to others. Endorsement by early adopters pushes an innovation past its tipping point, where it is then likely to spread to the population at large.
  3. The idea must cross-pollinate from lower- to a higher-income settings. Here the critical link is between lower-income early adopters and higher-income innovators. Whether these parties connect in-person or online, the quality of the interaction must facilitate sufficient trust to allow the idea to cross over. Building relationships over time helps create “spannable social distances,” such that the two parties find each other credible enough to take a risk on the other’s idea.
  4. The idea has to spread in the higher-income setting. Again the innovation must be better, relevant, simple, easily tested, and visible to others. It must also overcome the resistance of existing infrastructure and other established solutions. If the idea is clearly effective in lower-income settings, this can help lower the barrier to adoption.

The article provides three very interesting real-world examples in Diagnostics, Health IT, and Service Delivery.

In short, reverse innovation has tremendous potential to align incentives and disrupt existing systems and technologies. We’re just seeing the tip of the iceberg (or, as their African colleagues like to say, the ears of the hippopotamus – I just love that analogy).

Also … beware the resistance inherent in disrupting existing systems.

What can we do to increase the pace of reverse innovation? For starters, we can:

  • Identify high-priority problems that could potentially be solved in lower-income settings.
  • Empower lower-income innovators and early adopters through seed funding, competitive “innovation awards,” or other mechanisms.
  • Bring lower-income early adopters and higher-income innovators together through conferences or learning collaboratives (live or virtual).
  • Track reverse innovation activity globally, identifying and removing barriers to spread.

Many intractable problems in health care could be solved if we accelerated the spread of ideas through the reverse innovation pipeline. To do this, we will need to think differently, invest in reverse innovation, and work together to solve common problems.

Again, think of the work being done today by ABC Community Schools Partnership for pre-K-12 and Mission Graduate: 60,000 for K-12 and beyond.

Read the complete article here.

Flipboard for Educators – cool!

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As students and teachers head back to school all over the country, we wanted to share some ideas on how Flipboard can be helpful this school year. Since the launch of Flipboard 2.0 this past spring, our readers can collect articles and turn them into shareable magazines. We’ve found that educators are doing this a lot—for class reading assignments, student projects and their own enlightenment.

Here’s how you can use Flipboard in teaching and learning:

1. Keep up on current events: Flipboard has more than 125 publishing partners, including the BBC, New York Times, TechCrunch, Vanity Fair and Harper’s Bazaar, as well as sections curated around topics such as News, Tech, Travel and Design—”one-stop shops” for authoritative news on a subject. Tap on the red ribbon to explore great magazines, newspapers and blogs in the Content Guide.

2. Create a class syllabus: Plan out the semester for your students by making your syllabus available in a magazine. Include articles and editorial content that your students need to read throughout the semester to ensure success in your class. You can supplement it with your own notes by using a blogging platform such as WordPress, and flipping your posts into your magazine. Encourage students to comment on articles to track engagement.

Things AP Econ Students Should Know: by Michael Brody

3. Class projects: Task your students with creating a class-project magazine. Have them compile editorial, images and YouTube videos around specific subject matter they’re studying in your class. They can do this individually, or in groups (tap “Invite Contributors” from the magazine’s front page.)

Government Class: by kimberleyscox

Mike McCue: by Brian Pinkston

4. Educational Resource Guides: The education process is never ending. Create a resource guide by compiling articles and educational materials on a single topic or general areas of inquiry and share that with your colleagues.

Science class: by Zach Morrow

EducAtion: by Brendan Gilligan

Early Childhood Education: by Jacqueline Mezquita

5. Collaboration: Teaching is all about teamwork. Invite other educators to collaborate on a resource guide or have your students collaborate on a magazine for class. Compile articles, teaching resources or how to videos related to the subject you teach or education in general and share that magazine with other educators in your school or district.

Student Blogging Challenge Sept 2013: by suewaters

Education & Educapability: by Joshua Hostetter

6. Keep parents informed: Stay in touch with your classroom parents by creating a magazine with curriculum examples, class readings, suggested at home projects, images from class and classroom updates flipped in from a personal blog. Encourage your parents to subscribe to the magazine to stay up to date on everything going on in your classroom.

7. Your school, on the go: For administrators—Flipboard is a great way for your school to stay in touch with students, parents and the community. As long as your school paper, newsletter or event images are available as an RSS feed or via social media, you can search for it on Flipboard. You can also use our Web tools to flip your school’s posts into new magazines—into which you can even mix in other content—around any topic you like.

The Paly Voice: by Callie Walker

Flipboard has previously teamed up with both TeachThought and EdReach, two great educational organizations, to teach their networks how educators and students can best use Flipboard. Check out both of these resources for some additional tips and tricks.

And to learn more about how educators are using Flipboard, from educators, check out these blog posts:

Happy school year to everyone!

~CarolynG
/flipboard
@flipboard
+flipboard

 

Silhouette man wonders what’s wrong with America

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Interesting comic strip comparing Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden approach to education spending priorities and reasoning to our apparent priorities.

I couldn’t figure out how to embed or copy the actual comic image, so you’ll have to go to Silhouette Man to see and enjoy this one,

Employers increasingly emphasizing ‘soft skills’

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A recent Associated Press article by Paul Wiseman says that top employers want college graduates with skills that don’t show up on school transcripts. I am hearing the same thing from local small and medium businesses about high school and community college graduates. So it’s across the board national and local.

Good potential employees have acquired the necessary knowledge and/or technical skills; exceptional potential employees also have ‘soft skills.’

So, just what are these ‘soft skills?’

  • works well in a team environment – gets along with co-workers
  • can write and speak with clarity and be understood – articulates ideas
  • adapts quickly to changes in technology and business conditions – solves problems on the fly – thinks on their feet
  • can interact with colleagues from different cultures and countries

And that’s the disconnect between what can be taught in a classroom and tested for to show progress for students, teachers, principles, school systems to state agencies and legislators – and what can’t be easily classroom taught or tested that employers are looking and needing to hire.

Solution: above my pay grade, but I can see and appreciate the problem.