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Newswire – April 18, 2018

LIVE FROM SAN DIEGO… IT’S THE ASU+GSV SUMMIT!

TRANSFORMATION. It’s the thread that ties together all engaged in this, the 9th annual summit. University innovators, coding zealots, edtech investors, developers, advocates and educators have spent the past two days pitching, conversing and launching what may become the latest innovation for students. What makes this confab great is the openness of everyone here in rethinking everything, including how to do what we do know even better.

“We know what works in education,” said Timothy Renick, a Senior Vice President at Georgia State University and the winner of the Harold W. McGraw Jr. Prize in Higher Education. “They need individualized education,” but universities are not set up to deliver more personalized learning, he said. “Why not?”

WHY NOT? That’s the attitude that Phyllis Lockett had one summit that made her stay an extra day and develop the business plan that became LEAP Innovations, a Chicago-based, edtech nonprofit that works with schools to develop personalized learning approaches supported by new innovations and edtech tools. Phyllis won the summit’s “Innovator of Color” award this year.

ASU INNOVATIONS. Each year attendees are regaled by ASU leadership who offer compelling visions of how to deliver higher ed here and abroad in more effective and efficient ways. The thought-provoking ASU president Michael Crow, who helped launch the summit, offered his view that the students of today no longer are wired to sit and listen but to engage. As Summit attendee and founder of VIDASHARKS, Eric Chagala, put it, Crow’s message is critical “as a new generation of leaders in education and policy stand to rise against the rigidity of a system that still sorts winners and losers.”

“History is determined by the people who stand up at a particular place and time.” —Michael Crow

NEW COLLEGE? Chegg Founder Dan Rosenswig is among the many here who believe we have to turn college on its head if we want to ensure completion with a purpose. “If you can binge watch [Netflix], you can binge watch college,” he told his audience. As Wyatt Cash reported, It’s time to abandon the two and four-year college model.

HELPING RURAL EDUCATION was also a theme, sparked in part by CER’s leadership on this issue before and during the summit. (Check out our session video here.) If bandwidth is the issue, companies like Nucleos.com can actually bring the internet to schools via a portable cloud! Looking for content? Try the hundreds gathered who are using data to demonstrate student learning, likeCarnegie Learning, Waterford and Nearpod, to name just three.

ARE HIGHER ED ACCESS AND WORKFORCE your jam? You should look up Burning Glass, Ellucian, Noodle and Strada, each of which are leading and providing tools and resources to help us all rethink the path from the early years to productive engagement in life.

TAKING ED INNOVATION INTO EDREFORM. We met new friends, strengthened old alliances and connected with education dignitaries and leaders like President George W. Bush and Angela Duckworth, who our CEO had the pleasure of introducing before her keynote address on Tuesday morning.

As CER approaches its 25th anniversary, we’re moving our focus from reform to innovation, and working to ignite the efforts of all the innovators here to ensure that the next 25 years of education efforts produce dramatically more results than the first. We will convene and coordinate actors across the thousands of efforts present to ensure that the best of all make their way into the nation’s schools, homes and learning environments of every level, shape, size and scope.

JOIN US THIS YEAR in doing just that! Stay informed with updates here.