Dr. Margaret Honey joined The New York Hall of Science as president and CEO in November of 2008. Among her current interests at NYSCI is the role of design-based learning in promoting student interest and achievement in STEM subjects. She is widely recognized for her work using digital technologies to support children’s learning across the disciplines of science, mathematics, engineering and technology. Prior to joining NYSCI, she spent 15 years as vice president of the Education Development Center (EDC) and director of EDC’s Center for Children and Technology. While at EDC, Dr. Honey was the architect and overseer of numerous large-scale projects funded by organizations including the National Science Foundation, the Institute for Education Sciences, The Carnegie Corporation, The Library of Congress, the U.S. Department of Education, and the U.S. Department of Energy. She also co-directed the Northeast and Islands Regional Education Laboratory, which enabled educators, policy-makers, and communities to improve schools by helping them leverage the most current research about learning and K-12 education.A graduate of Hampshire College with a doctorate in developmental psychology from Columbia University, Dr. Honey’s work has helped to shape the best thinking about learning and technology with special attention to traditionally underserved audiences. She has directed numerous research projects including efforts to identify teaching practices and assessments for 21st-century skills, and new approaches to teaching computational science in high schools. She has collaborated with PBS, CPB and some of the nation’s largest public television stations, has investigated data-driven decision-making tools and practices, and with colleagues at Bank Street College of Education, created one of the first internet-based professional development programs in the country. From her early involvement in the award-winning and groundbreaking public television series The Voyage of the Mimi to her decade-long collaboration on the education reform team for the Union City (NJ) school district, she has led some of the country’s most innovative and successful education efforts.Dr. Honey has shared what she’s learned before Congress, state legislatures, and federal panels, and through numerous articles, chapters and books. She currently serves as a board member of National Academies’ Board on Science Education and on behalf of the National Research Council has chaired the workshop report on IT Fluency and High School Graduation Outcomes, and co-authored a report on Learning Science: Computer Games, Simulations, and Education. Her recent book, Design, Make, Play – Growing the Next Generation of STEM Innovators, explores the potential of these strategies for supporting student engagement and deeper learning. Dr. Honey also serves as a member of the National Science Foundation’s Education and Human Resources Advisory Committee. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Christina Katopodis, PhD, is a Postdoctoral Research Associate and the Associate Director of Transformative Learning in the Humanities, a three-year initiative at the City University of New York (CUNY) supported by the Mellon Foundation. She is the winner of the 2019 Diana Colbert Innovative Teaching Prize and the 2018 Dewey Digital Teaching Award. She has authored or co-authored articles published in ESQ: A Journal of Nineteenth-Century American Literature and Culture, ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment, MLA’s Profession, Hybrid Pedagogy, Inside Higher Ed, Synapsis, and Times Higher Ed.The learning process is something you can incite, really incite, like a riot. - Audre LordeCathy N. Davidson is the Senior Advisor on Transformation to the Chancellor of the City University of New York (CUNY), a role which includes work with all twenty-five campuses serving over 500,000 students. She is also the Founding Director of the Futures Initiative and Distinguished Professor of English, as well as the M.A. in Digital Humanities and the M.S. in Data Analysis and Visualization programs at the Graduate Center (CUNY). The author or editor of over twenty books, she has taught at a range of institutions, from community college to the Ivy League. She held two distinguished professor chairs at Duke University, where she taught for twenty-five years and also became the university’s (and the nation’s) first Vice Provost for Interdisciplinary Studies. She is cofounder and codirector of “the world’s first and oldest academic social network,” the Humanities, Arts, Science, and Technology Alliance and Collaboratory (HASTAC.org, known as “Haystack”). Founded in 2002, HASTAC has over 18,000 network members.Davidson’s many prizewinning books include the classics Revolution and the Word: The Rise of the Novel in America and Closing: The Life and Death of an American Factory (with photographer Bill Bamberger). Most recently, she has concentrated on the science of learning in the “How We Know” Trilogy: Now You See It: How the Brain Science of Attention Will Transform the Way We Live, Work, and Learn; The New Education: How to Revolutionize the University to Prepare Students for a World in Flux; and, co-authored with Christina Katopodis, The New College Classroom (due August 2022).Davidson has won many awards, prizes, and grants throughout her career including from the Guggenheim Foundation, ACLS, NEH, NSF, the MacArthur Foundation, and others. She is the 2016 recipient of the Ernest L. Boyer Award for “significant contributions to higher education.” She received the Educator of the Year Award (2012) from the World Technology Network and, in 2021, the Council of Colleges of Arts and Sciences presented Davidson with its annual Arts and Sciences Advocacy Award. She has served on the board of directors of Mozilla, was appointed by President Barack Obama to the National Council on the Humanities, and has twice keynoted the Nobel Prize Committee’s Forum on the Future of Learning. She lives in New York City. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Anurupa's entry point to Education began as a Physics and Math teacher in the Boston Public Schools. For 10+ years since then, Anurupa has led STEM curriculum and teacher preparation across the largest educational systems in the US including the NYC DOE, Boston Public Schools and Success Academy Charter Schools. Through her experience as a district and charter administrator, she found that she did not have the learning tools to deliver the outcomes her leaders and teachers were accountable for, and the personal sense-making journeys that students deserve while developing foundational mathematical reasoning & proficiencies.She was awarded a National Science Foundation SBIR grant to build a scalable learning platform that actualizes pedagogies that we know work best, but weren't possible until recent advances in IVR and AI technologies. Her mission is to rapidly improve student performance and engagement in the mathematical sciences while crafting the instructor aids and training required to operationalize innovative technologies in the classroom. Anurupa holds a BS & M.Eng in electrical engineering from MIT and an EdM in Curriculum & Teaching from Boston University.Links:https://www.prismsvr.com/https://twitter.com/PrismsOfReality https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/bob-moses-algebra-math-black-students/2021/07/27/74e41f24-eef5-11eb-81d2-ffae0f931b8f_story.htmlhttps://www.businessinsider.com/prisms-vr-startup-edtech-a16z-oculus-kids-stem-virtual-reality-2022-5 "Every profession depends upon a virtual world. Every kind of professional education requires a virtual world in which you can practice and do it again and again and which you must learn to manipulate in such a way that it becomes transparent to you. " Donald Shon, 1989 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Gael Aitor is the creator and a host of the “Teenager Therapy” podcast, a teen mental health podcast with over 700,000 followers. At 19 years old, he has five years of experience in the podcasting space and is an expert at growing engaged Gen Z audiences on social media. Previous guests of “Teenager Therapy” include Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, Adam Mosseri, and Loren Gray. Aitor is a fellow at On Deck, an educational and accelerator community, and was a contract community specialist at Pearpop, a creator collaboration platform. Additionally, he’s on the advisory council of the UCLA Center for Scholars & Storytellers. He has been featured in The New York Times, Teen Vogue, and the TIME100 Talks for his work at “Teenager Therapy.” He graduated from high school in 2021. From https://www.aspenideas.org/speakers/gael-aitorTeenagerTherapy on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUkviaHlWmRWTICxNBMAxpA/featuredBio: https://www.aspenideas.org/speakers/gael-aitorhttps://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/29/style/teenager-therapy-podcast.htmlhttps://twitter.com/okaygaelhttps://www.forbes.com/sites/jessicagold/2020/10/20/heres-what-five-teenage-podcasters-want-parents-to-know-about-mental-health/?sh=7c95cfdb73d4https://medium.com/@pineapplelabs/gen-z-leader-gael-aitor-from-teenager-therapy-341e7ecc484d Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jonathan Finkelstein is founder and CEO of Credly, a leading digital credential service provider which enables organizations to recognize, reward and market skills, competencies and certifications. Previously, as founder of LearningTimes, Jonathan helped mission-driven organizations produce and launch innovative online programs, products and platforms that impacted the lives of millions of learners. Previously, Jonathan was a co-founder and led product strategy at HorizonLive (acquired by Blackboard). He is author of Learning in Real Time (Wiley), co-author of a report for the US Department of Education on the potential for digital badges, and a frequent speaker on digital credentials and the future of learning and workforce development. The son of New York City public school teachers, Jonathan graduated with honors from Harvard University.Credly, a Pearson business, is helping the world speak a common language about people’s knowledge, skills, and abilities. Thousands of employers, training organizations, associations, certification programs, and workforce development initiatives use Credly to help individuals translate their learning experiences into professional opportunities using trusted, portable, digital credentials. Credly empowers organizations to attract, engage, develop, and retain talent with enterprise-class tools that generate data-driven insights to address skills gaps and highlight opportunities through an unmatched global network of credential issuers.Previously, as founder of LearningTimes and before that as co-founder of HorizonLive (acquired by Blackboard), Jonathan worked with thousands of organizations to launch online workforce development programs and learning platforms at global scale. His work helped bring about a digital transformation in how people develop skills that lead to in-demand jobs and careers that did not exist just years ago.He is author of Learning in Real Time (Wiley), a frequent contributor and speaker on HR and learning technology, a former board member of the American Alliance of Museums Media & Technology Committee, and producer or host of thousands of online events and programs for talent development, learning and HR audiences. Jonathan co-authored a report for the US Department of Education on the impact of alternative forms of credentialing. He is a frequent keynote speaker and sought-after advocate for more accessible forms of credentialing, digital transformation and up-skilling, and workforce equity. The son of two New York City public school teachers, Jonathan graduated with honors from Harvard University.Bio: https://members.educause.edu/jonathan-finkelsteinDo digital badges really provide value to businesses?IBM Case Study: Exec SummaryIBM awards its three millionth digital badge (and disrupts the labor market in five big ways)Learning During Lockdown: IBM Case Study Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

"Redefining Geek takes a new and surprising look at what it means to be good with technology at a time when technologies are rapidly changing. Based on empirical evidence from a decade-long study with a diverse group of students across the country, Cassidy Puckett shows that being tech-savvy in the digital age isn’t about having a natural ability, but instead is a process of continual learning that requires five simple habits."Cassidy Puckett is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at Emory University. She received her Ph.D. in Sociology from Northwestern University. She is the author of Redefining Geek: Bias and the Five Hidden Habits of Tech-Savvy Teens (University of Chicago Press, 2022). Her research has also appeared in sociological and interdisciplinary journals, including Harvard Educational Review, Qualitative Sociology, Social Science Computer Review, and Social Science & Medicine.Cassidy’s research focuses on the relationship between technological change and inequality. More specifically, she uses a mixed-methods approach to explain differences in adolescents’ ability to learn new technologies—what she calls their “digital adaptability” and measures on a 15-item Digital Adaptability Scale—and looks at how differences in digital adaptability influence educational, occupational, and health inequalities.Links from the episode:Her Website: https://cassidypuckett.com/Order: https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/R/bo137270726.html Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dr. Joel Breakstone directs the Stanford History Education Group (SHEG). He leads the group’s efforts to research, develop, and disseminate free curriculum and assessments. His award-winning research has been covered by outlets ranging from the Washington Post to NPR.  Breakstone has conducted professional development workshops for school districts and professional organizations across the country. He received a Ph.D. from the Stanford Graduate School of Education. He previously taught high school history in Vermont.Links from the episode:Stanford History Education Group: https://sheg.stanford.edu/Students’ Civic Online Reasoning: A National Portrait, Breakstone et. al: https://journals.sagepub.com/stoken/default+domain/WNGEUNNHYYWWPAVKS37M/full#abstract or https://purl.stanford.edu/cz440cm8408Civix, Control - F: https://ctrl-f.ca/Teaching Systems Lab, MIT: https://tsl.mit.edu/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Game-based assessments (GBAs) have been shown to be a powerful context to measure students’ 21st century skills. By eliciting evidence of skills in an embedded, authentic and playful environment, they present the potential for assessments to go beyond measuring outcomes of content knowledge to shed light on thought processes.Yoon Jeon (YJ) Kim is an Assistant Professor of Design, Creative, and Informal Education in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at UW–Madison. Before joining UW-Madison, she was the founder and director of MIT Playful Journey Lab where she led an interdisciplinary team of game designers, developers, and researchers to create playful assessment tools. Her work centers on the topic of innovative assessment and application of playful activity design to challenge what and how we are measuring learning. YJ’s playful assessment research ranges from a computer game using evidence-centered design and analytics techniques to paper-based embedded assessment tools for making. The core of her work is close Louisa Rosenheck is a thought leader in the ed tech field, with a passion for game-based learning and playful pedagogies. She works to promote deeper learning through designing playful experiences, developing creative ways to assess learning, and building capacity in other organizations to implement innovative digital learning and curriculum in their own contexts. She is a co-author of the book Resonant Games and teaches a graduate course on ed tech design at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. She spent over a decade doing research on digital games and creative learning at MIT, and is now the Director of Pedagogy for the Kahoot! Group.Nancy Tsai is a 4th year postdoctoral research fellow at McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT where she collaborates with cross-functional teams to translate cognitive neuroscience research to inform the development of learning products/programs. Her expertise is on the effects of stress on prefrontal development and function (e.g. Executive Functions). She teaches graduate level coursework at Harvard Graduate School of Education and at MIT, and collaborates with outside organizations such as Accenture and UNICEF to translate cutting edge cognitive neuroscience research to real world application. Links from this episode:https://fielddaylab.wisc.edu/play/shadowspect/https://playful.mit.edu/About NSF programs including Cyberlearning: https://beta.nsf.gov/funding/opportunities/research-emerging-technologies-teaching-and-learningGame-Based Assessment: The Past Ten Years and Moving Forward: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/337038333_Game-Based_Assessment_The_Past_Ten_Years_and_Moving_Forward Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

David Risher is the CEO and co-founder of Worldreader. After a career as a general manager at Microsoft and an early stage executive at Amazon, David recognized early on how e-readers and digital books could give kids in under-served parts of the world better access to the life-changing experience of reading. Since co-founding Worldreader in 2010, David and the Worldreader team have expanded the organization to have impact in more than 46 countries, delivering high-quality books in 52 languages to over 19 million children. Together, they’ve demonstrated how digital technology–combined with high-quality books, smart programming, strong partnerships–can accelerate reading around the globe and unlock the potential of the world’s next scientists, teachers, innovators, and explorers.David has degrees from Princeton University and Harvard Business School is a Schwab Foundation Social Entrepreneur of the Year Awardee, a Draper Richards Kaplan social entrepreneur, an invited member of the Clinton Global Initiative, and a Microsoft Alumni Foundation Integral Fellow. He has two daughters and lives in San Francisco, California, with his wife– author Jennifer Risher.In my conversation today I'm chatting with David Risher, a guy who helped grow Amazon from a 15 million dollar company to what it is today, and founder of the non-profit, Worldreader who as a team have opened those new doors through reading that i mentioned to more than 19 million kids globally. Since we talked I've been thinking about what a privilege it is - reading, I mean. I've been reading authors and genres that are pretty new to me lately but it all started with access and David and I talk about how, in spite of the digital age, accessing books is still an issue. According to UNESCO, in 2021 over 100 million kids and 700 million adults are non-literate.Links from this episode:Read David’s full bio here.Twitter: @davidrisherWRhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Risherhttps://www.worldreader.org/https://en.unesco.org/sites/default/files/ild-2021-fact-sheet.pdfUNESCO, International Literacy Day 2021 - Literacy for a human centred recovery: Narrowing thedigital divide https://en.unesco.org/sites/default/files/ild-2021-fact-sheet.pdf Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

My favorite conversations are the ones where people whose ideas I admire get comfortable enough in a conversation to share beyond what you might've already heard from them. Jaime's a great example. If you work in or around K12 education chances are you've bumped into Jaime at some point. As a 15+ year Google'r as Chief Education Evangelist, Jaime's keynoted and shared on more stages than I can count. But at this, an important transition for Jaime from a role at Google where he had a hand in launching arguably the most consequential hardware and software for educators of the last decade, I was honored to chat with him completely free of an organizational role with Google, to pull from him some of his experience and ideas about where we're headed that you might not have heard. I hope you'll hear from our chat that, while he's moved on from the role at Google, his title as an Evangalist seems like a lot more - I think you'll hear from what he has to say that he cares deeply about this topic and talking about it isn't so much a choice as a way of being. I feel really lucky to have people like that accessible through this show, and I hope you do to. I hope you'll consider, in honor of our 100th Episode Milestone, heading back to wherever you downloaded the show and give us a rating and review. IF you really want to go above and beyond, share the show with a friend over social media and let me know so I can say thanks personally. Links from the episode:Jaime's Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/JaimeCasapFront Lines of Justice: https://frontlinesofjustice.com/Gems Education: https://www.gemseducation.com/Follow Jaime on Twitter: https://twitter.com/jcasapAbout Jaime:Education Evangelist, Ghetto People ProductionsJaime Casap served as the Chief Education Evangelist at Google for more than 14 years and was the second member of the Google for Education team. In that time, Jaime launched Google’s GSuite tools into higher education and K12. He also launched Chromebooks into education and was the creator of the Google for Education Transformation Framework, a holistic approach to education transformation. Jaime is now partnering and collaborating with higher education institutions, school systems, and businesses around the world, helping them build transformational policies and practices to elevate education and bring equity, diversity, and inclusion into their policies and practices.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.