Highlights of The Week

It has come to my attention that the French Government has also embraced serious games.  This article from December 2008 discusses how France is hoping to incubate 20 serious game prototypes in 2009.  They have broken the grant up into two phases:  30,000 Euros for phase I and 150,000 Euros for phase II.  Northern France has chosen as a "region of excellence" by French government officials.  I wanted to mention this to show that South Korea is not the only venue encouraging the development of serious games.

Now back to reinventing education. As much as I'd prefer to not end the week with more disturbing research, I can't help but mention an article I saw in today's MDR email blast.  While I am taking the full 40 page report home to review thoroughly, how can this be?  How can we have an education system where only 8 of 50 states are providing disadvantaged students equitable access to even moderately proficient public education systems? This is truly amazing.  And worse yet, and I quote:  "as the nation celebrates the 55th anniversary of the landmark Brown v. Board of Education U.S. Supreme Court decision, the study shows minority and low-income students have only half the opportunity to learn in our public schools as their White non-Latino peers."

I was just speaking to someone at lunch the other day and they talked to me about how we are becoming a "welfare state" because of the stimulus package.  I have one thing to say about all of this:  education is the equalizer, period.  An educated citizen is best able to climb up the social ladder.  We must do better.  Enough is enough, everyone.  When are the American people going to get on the same page and tell our government that it's time to do something to fix this?  Again I ask if we have a strategy in place for this $115 billion stimulus.  What is the plan to reform our education system?  I know that we're not on the same page......

BREAKING NEWS: Korea, not the United States, Is Leading the 21st Century Innovation In Education

I'm still in disbelief.  How can this be?

South Korea continues to astound me in their unwavering support of the use of games as an immersive communication platorm.  This article is true:  the Korean government will invest USD 64 Million in "serious games" through the year 2012.  And I quote:

Yu In-chon, minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism, said: “The functional game market is at an early stage, but the market is an emerging blue ocean. The government is going to give support to prompt private investment in that field.”

The 21st Century has seen the United States fall behind in innovation.  This is driven largely by its inability to evolve its education system to meet the challenges of a technology-driven world.  Now it is clear that other countries are taking the lead in driving change.

I have been saying for a long time that the game-based learning niche is a market waiting to be tapped.  South Korea figured that out first.  When will our government, and our investor community, follow suit?  A colleague of mine said it most succinctly:  "What do they know that we don't know"???

While you might not thnk the investment is "significant," that is not the issue here.  This is a bold step and a first-mover advantage now goes to South Korea.  I congratulate them on their courage. 

They just answered my previous post.

Who Will Be Courageous Enough To Seed Disruptive Innovation In K-12 Education?

We continue to fund the wrong ideas.....period.

I say this because the Dept. of Education continues to get it backwards.  Their recent budget demonstrates our continued emphasis largely on the "messenger," meaning the teacher (aka:  "professional development") and not the pedagogy.  Technology areas are continuing to be de-emphasized.  Doesn't the education industry realize that it's the software that drives the hardware?

Here is an article that caught my eye the other day.  A recent survey showed that a majority of parents are not letting the recession change their plans for their children's college education.  For the first time in three years, a majority of parents are putting their children's education ahead of their own "golden years."  But they "spun" the survey results.  If you look underneath the hood, less than half of all Americans in the survey said that"saving for college education more important than retirement savings."  Now there are other datapoints in the survey, but what lessons are we teaching our kids here?  And what does this say about our economic system and distribution of wealth, if the underlying premise is that Americans fear that a college education is "cost-prohibitive."  Ponder that for a while....

I'd also like to give recognition to one of the true evangelists in the "reinventing education" movement.  His name is Jim Brazell, and he was the keynote speaker at January's Florida Education Technology Conference ("FETC").  On one call alone with him, I came away convinced that Jim's ideas are very much on the right track, and my ideas synchronize quite well with his researched-based conclusions about how to implement fundamental change.  I think everyone should read this white paper.  In fact, just read page 1.  The ITIF found that the United States finished dead last (40 out of 40 countries) in their progress toward the new knowledge-based innovation economy in recent years.  When are we going to realize that without a common roadmap, we will continue to spend more money towards sub-optimal solutions.  Not until the American people scream at the top of their lungs, or until the 21st century jobs migrate to foreign countries will we finally "get it."  In ten years, the data will speak for itself, and we will continue to follow the typical path of being "reactive" instead of "proactive."  A superpower is just like a monopolist or market leader.  They don't see change coming.  Just look at RC Cola, Xerox, Smith Corona, Brother, Prince, AOL....the list goes on and on....

So who will be courageous enough to invest and give the teachers the content they are begging us to give them? 

I'm listening.

How To Motivate Today's Graduates

As we near the end of another school year for both K-12 and higher education, I thought I would use this opportunity to promote some of the things that I believe are simple to enhance, with no incremental cost. And what is that, you say? It's using our role models to speak to students and inspire them.

What better way to build the self-confidence of today's young people than to get successful people, perhaps even from their own neighborhoods, to interact with these impressionable minds and show them the way. Regardless of what you think about our current President's policies, you cannot deny that the man is a gifted speaker. How would you have liked to have been graduating from Arizona State University and heard your president give the keynote address? The text is available online.

I had a chance to listen to large portions of it, and it was a very captivating speech. Here is one passage that was just brilliant:

When I say "young", I'm not just referring to the date of your birth certificate. I'm talking about an approach to life -- a quality of mind and quality of heart; a willingness to follow your passions, regardless of whether they lead to fortune and fame; a willingness to question conventional wisdom and rethink old dogmas; a lack of regard for all the traditional markers of status and prestige -- and a commitment instead to doing what's meaningful to you, what helps others, what makes a difference in this world. (Applause.)That's the spirit that led a band of patriots not much older than most of you to take on an empire, to start this experiment in democracy we call America. It's what drove young pioneers west, to Arizona and beyond; it's what drove young women to reach for the ballot; what inspired a 30 year-old escaped slave to run an underground railroad to freedom -- what inspired a young man named Cesar to go out and help farm workers; what inspired a 26 year-old preacher to lead a bus boycott for justice. It's what led firefighters and police officers in the prime of their lives up the stairs of those burning towers; and young people across this country to drop what they were doing and come to the aid of a flooded New Orleans. It's what led two guys in a garage -- named Hewlett and Packard -- to form a company that would change the way we live and work; what led scientists in laboratories, and novelists in coffee shops to labor in obscurity until they finally succeeded in changing the way we see the world.

That's the great American story: young people just like you, following their passions, determined to meet the times on their own terms. They weren't doing it for the money. Their titles weren't fancy -- ex-slave, minister, student, citizen. A whole bunch of them didn't get honorary degrees. But they changed the course of history -- and so can you ASU, so can you Class of 2009. So can you.

He also went through a litany of famous people who also failed, had setbacks, and then went on to reap life's rewards.  As our president said more eloquently than I can ever say:  "building a body of work is a cumulative set of achievements." 

We need to inspire our young people again, give that student a chance where others have not.  Do an act of selflessness.  Touch the life of a child - there may be no greater rewards in this life or the one to come.

Georgia Education Bills Vetoed By Its Governor

In my own state, the battle to reinvent education is an uphill one.

According to an article in yesterday's Atlanta Business Chronicle, Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue vetoed two education bills, citing one as "unfair" and one as "unaffordable."  One bill was a large incentive to continue encouraging more Georgians to contribute to nonprofit student scholarship organizations established by a bill enacted in 2008.  The second bill was a routine extension of a K-12 capital outlay program because he objected to a new provision that would have created a new career and technical education initiative in Georgia schools.

To be completely frank, I'm sick and tired of hearing our govornor, or any politician for that matter, say that spending on education is "unaffordable."  How about shifting funds from other coffers, perhaps?  I continue to say that there are very, very few initiatives more important than education.  That is not a democratic or republican point of view.  That is the point of view of a parent, and a concerned citizen. 

I'd like to think that a career and technical education initiative appears logical and timely, regardless of not knowing the implementation plans.  So I ask our esteemed governor to reconsider his veto and start articulating how he plans to improve Georgia's education system.  It's too close to the bottom.

But my guess is that he'll leave this mess for the next administration to clean up.