innovation

Innovation and Growth Diagnostic Exclusively for IIS Registrants

December 20, 2012 By Kathy Greenler Sexton

How do you facilitate heightened, sustainable performance from your team to achieve innovation and breakthrough ideas?

Whether you lead a multi national information company or a midmarket to early-stage content company, you’ll gain tremendous value from a presentation on this very topic at IIS 2013: Breakthrough on January 30 by Gifford Booth of the Tai Group.

I encourage you to register now to catch Gifford’s presentation and to join the impressive roster of media, publishing, and information services executives already confirmed to attend.

If you register by January 15, you’ll be invited to take your own performance diagnostic that will provide you with an immediate personal profile on your behavior and skills around innovation and risk. (Note: instructions for taking the diagnostic will be sent on January 21 and you will have until January 25 to complete it. The process should take no longer than 15 minutes.)

Background on The Performance Diagnostic

Breakthrough ideas, innovative products, and new ways of doing things don’t happen by accident. They’re the result of teams working in purposeful, collaborative, risk-taking ways. As leaders of an industry that relies critically on the speed and quality of innovation, it’s your job to create the chemistry, direction, and guidance to make this happen.

Take advantage of this diagnostic to experience how you can get a new line of sight into your organization and how ready you are to innovate in ways which can change your business. Based on critical factors of business purpose and risk-The Performance Diagnostic is a simple online tool that quickly reveals the innovation environment in which you and your team are operating. The tool is designed to give you insight on how you can change your team’s behavior to achieve sustained performance and innovation.

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Filed Under: Content, Information Industry Summit Tagged With: Diagnostic, Evaluation, IIS, innovation, Tai Group

Webinar – Shaping A New Era of Computing and Business Innovation

November 20, 2012 By Katie Carlson

In partnership with CloudNOW, the SIIA and CloudNOW webinar series features thought leadership and best practices from some of the greatest minds in the industry.

Companies are looking for ways to drive lasting marketplace advantage, with innovation becoming the key driver of business success. In this pre-recorded webcast, Vanessa Alvarez, Cloud Thought Leader & Director of Product Marketing at Gridstore talks with Lauren States, Vice President, CTO, IBM Corporate Strategy in an interview format. They explore how cloud and this new era of computing is fostering innovation and changing the structure of businesses and markets, and how the use of cloud technologies can enable IT to move out of the data center and into the fabric of the business.

About the Presenters:

Lauren States
As Vice President, Technology Strategy, Growth Initiatives and CTO for Cloud Computing on the IBM Corporate Strategy team, Lauren is responsible for the technology strategy for IBM’s growth initiatives, including cloud computing, Smarter Planet, business analytics and emerging markets. In her previous role in the IBM Software Group, Lauren engaged directly with clients to deliver leading edge cloud solutions globally. She joined IBM as a systems engineer after graduating from the University of Pennsylvania Wharton School.

Vanessa Alvarez
Vanessa Alvarez is the director of product marketing and an accomplished technology professional. Alvarez focuses on the go to market strategy for Gridstore’s award winning solution, the Grid. Previously, Alvarez was an analyst with Forrester Research, focused on next generation enterprise infrastructure and emerging technologies. She advised Fortune 500 enterprises on how to best leverage their IT environment to enable their competitive advantage, through the deployment of emerging technologies and operational models.

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Filed Under: Cloud Computing, Software, Uncategorized Tagged With: cloud computing, innovation

SIIA Testimony to NY Education Reform Commission Calls for School System Redesign to Personalize Learning through Technology

October 17, 2012 By Mark Schneiderman

I had the opportunity yesterday to provide invited testimony to the “New NY Education Reform Commission” appointed by NY Governor Andrew Cuomo to study and make recommendations for the reform and improvement of the state’s education system. My submitted written testimony describes a comprehensive vision for redesigning education to pesonalize learning through technology, and then makes dozens of reccommendations around each of the Commission’s seven objectives.

My October 16 oral testimony is provided below and video archived (at 02:02:40):

On behalf of the Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA) and our 500 high-tech companies, thank you for inviting me today. I am Mark Schneiderman, SIIA’s senior director of education policy.

SIIA agrees with the Commission that, “Future generations of students cannot compete unless we dramatically reform our education system.”

Our industrial-age education practices are largely unchanged over a century or more:
- Too many students are disengaged, not due to lack of technology, but from undifferentiated resources, rote one-to-many instruction, and lack of attention to 21st century skills.
- Time and place are constants, but learning is variable.

Instead, our education system must be fundamentally reengineered from a mass production, teaching model to a student-centered, personalized learning model to address the dramatic change in student daily lives, diversity and expectations.

The mandate is not for marginal change, but for: redesign to free learning from the physical limitations of time, place and paper; and instead customize instructional resources, strategies, and schedules to dynamically address each student’s unique abilities, interests and needs.

The redesign of education can take place without technology and digital learning, but not at scale. Technology is a teaching force multiplier and a learning accelerator.

This doesn’t mean computers replace teachers, or that all learning takes place online.

It does mean that we use the technology:
1. to collect and analyze extensive student learning data to a degree not otherwise possible;
2. to provide a differentiation of interactive, multimedia teaching and learning resources and student creativity and collaboration tools not possible from one teacher, book or classroom; and
3. to free teacher time from rote and administrative activities to redirect to more value-added instruction.

The result is a more effective teacher, a more highly engaged and better performing learner, and a more productive system.

SIIA’s 2012 Vision K-20 Survey of 1,600 educators found that interest in digital learning is high at about 75%, but only about 25% rate actual technology access and use as high by their peers and institutions.

Here are 10 SIIA recommendations to the Commission and state:

1. Eliminate the Carnegie unit (credit for seat time) as the measure of learning and replace it with a competency-based model that provides credit, progression and graduation based upon demonstrated mastery and performance.

2. Eliminate fixed, agrarian-age definitions of the hours of the school day and the days of the school year and instead provide flexibility for 24/7/365 learning as needed for student mastery.

3. Ensure all teachers have access to a minimum slate of digital tools and supports provided to other professionals, including instructional technology coaches and virtual peer learning networks.

4. Ensure all educators have the skills needed to personalize learning and leverage technology, including by updating the curriculum of teachers colleges as well as teacher licensure and certification requirements.

5. Encourage and support a shift from print-only curriculum to instead provide students with anytime, everywhere access to interactive digital content and online learning.

6. Create a statewide online learning authority for approval and oversight of virtual learning providers to New York students and schools, and loosen arbitrary limits.

7. Invest to ensure equity of technology and digital learning access to change the education cost-curve and provide opportunity to learn, while providing increased local flexibility in the use of state grant funds to meet unique local needs.

8. Set minimum expectations for school/teacher electronic communication with parents and families and support home access to student performance data, assignments and curriculum.

9. Support more flexible higher education policies that end seat-time requirements, allow students to demonstrate prior learning and complete course modules that fit their learning gaps, and receive student aid for study toward skills certifications valued in the job market.

10. Finally, recognize the role of the private sector, which invests hundreds of millions of dollars each year to develop and deliver educational technologies and digital learning. Support public-private research partnerships, and reform the RFP process to enable the private sector to share their expertise, vision and innovative business models.

Our nation’s continued success will require that our educational system adopt modern methods and means to remain not effective and relevant in the 21st century.

On behalf of SIIA and our member high-tech companies, I look forward to working with the Commission to further identify and advance a reform plan for New York education.

Mark Schneiderman is Senior Director of Education Policy at SIIA.

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Filed Under: Digital Policy Roundup, Ed Tech Government Forum, Education, Education Policies, Education Policy, Legislation, Personalized Learning, Policy, Postsecondary, Uncategorized Tagged With: blended learning, digital content, ed-tech, Education, education policy, education technology, innovation, New NY Education Reform Commission, online learning, Personalized Learning, policy, putting students first, puttingstudentsfirst

Leaders or Laggards: The State Role in the Shift to Digital Content

September 7, 2012 By Mark Schneiderman

The focus at the recent annual meeting of the State Instructional Materials Review Association (SIMRA) was the shift from print to digital. While paper weight and book binding standards remain on their agenda, the shift is symbolized in part by this group’s recent name change that replaced “textbooks” with “instructional materials.” I had the opportunity to present at the meeting, and had some timely discussions about the evolving state role in the digital world. Texas (see SIIA webinar), Florida (see SIIA summary) and West Virginia are among the states most proactive in helping lead their schools into the digital content future, while many states (with leadership from their SIMRA-member adoption director) are trying to catch up with their districts and understand their evolving roles and rules. A parallel but accelerated shift to digital is underway in state assessments with the leadership of PARCC and SBAC.

As background, SIMRA members administer the process used in 20+ states for instructional materials adoption, including identifying curriculum and technical requirements, soliciting publisher submissions, managing the peer review criteria and process, and coordinating the school procurement of approved materials (including with state funds to buy materials in states such as Texas, California and Florida). SIIA has advocated for years the need to update legacy rules that often create barriers to adoption of digital and online resources, and therefore limit local choice. While often this is simply about correcting for unintended consequences of legacy print rules, the issues are often far more complicated and reflect the still evolving views of instructional materials in the digital age. A leading example is dynamic content: State policies have traditionally required that content remain unchanged over the course of the six year adoption cycle, while digital resources can be seamlessly updated to remain current, accurate and meet evolving curriculum and pedagogical needs. Not surprisingly, SIIA has long advocated the flexibility for content to be updated and improved during the period of adoption.

Here are a few other trends identified at the SIMRA meeting:

State budget shortages continue, causing many states to delay adoption cycles or reduce funding and leaving many teachers and students with increasingly outdated materials.
Common Core State Standards are central to the process, but many state cycles are not aligned and adjustments are often not possible given the overall budget shortages.
Fewer states are funding instructional materials. In the traditional model, states paid for instructional materials, providing them the leverage to determine which materials are to be used. That is often no longer the case.
States are increasingly providing local control such that school districts can buy state approved materials, but can also buy any other instructional resources as well.
Some states are asking whether they should continue to target only single, primary tools of instruction (i.e., textbooks or their digital equivalents), or whether they should also adopt, for example, digital learning objects and modules to support teachers in dynamically assembling resources to differentiate instruction and personalize learning.
Some states are allowing the use of instructional materials funds for the purchase of the technology hardware needed to access those materials, though priority in general still for content.

States are working with SIIA, publishers and other stakeholders to address new challenges in reviewing adaptive instructional software and other robust digital content. For example, how do they review the full resource in cases where each student may be provided a unique, dynamic pathway through the content (compared to the relative ease of reviewing a more linear (e)textbook).

Also, as digital content shifts from supplemental to primary, format and platform are also increasingly of concern. State agencies, on behalf of local educators, seek to ensure the content they purchase is accessible from multiple platforms, as well as increasingly from their students’ personal/home devices. Some have floated the requirement that digital content must be accessible from every platform through a common format. While interoperability is a key goal, SIIA recommends for industry evolution of common standards and against regulatory mandates that could block use of many widely used technologies. SIIA instead encourages that states focus on ensuring publishers disclose system requirements to empower local decision makers with the information they need to determine what platforms and resources best meet their needs. This will enable technology innovation and competition, enhance education choice, and ultimately ensure the needs of teachers and students are best addressed.

SIIA encourages states to further lead the print to digital transition. In doing so, they must recognize that there is not yet any single best technology, curriculum or instructional practice solution for the use of digital content. Therefore, most importantly, SIIA encourages states to provide the investment, regulatory flexibility and technical assistance districts need to innovate as educators collectively and individually determine the best path forward.

Mark Schneiderman is Senior Director of Education Policy at SIIA.

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Filed Under: Digital Policy Roundup, Ed Tech Business Forum, Ed Tech Government Forum, Education, Education Policies, Education Policy, Legislation, Personalized Learning, Policy, Uncategorized Tagged With: digital content, ed-tech, Education, education policy, education technology, innovation, instructional materials, Personalized Learning, technology, textbook

Measured Progress

July 20, 2012 By Jennifer Hansen

We are excited about our partnership with the InfoCommerce Group to produce DataContent 2012, coming up October 9-11 in Philadephia. Below is a blog post by Russ Perkins the founder of InfoCommerce Group. As we lead up to the conference, we will be highlighting posts from his blog which focus on the issues and topics we will be discussing at DataContent 2012. Enjoy!

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

Monitoring what’s going on with online start-ups is not only a great way for me to identify interesting new data-driven products and new market opportunities, it’s also a touchstone for assessing how the publishing industry is doing relative to the best and brightest online innovators. Here are just three recent examples, each interesting to me in a different way. Read more…

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Filed Under: Content, DataContent, Uncategorized Tagged With: Data, datacontent, information, innovation, publishing, start-up

Ed Tech Industry Summit Guest Blog: Seismic Changes in Education

May 23, 2012 By SIIA

Recently, I attended the SIIA Ed Tech Industry Summit in San Francisco, CA, the nation’s leading education technology conference. Leaders of edtech companies came from around the country – and the world – to network, attend keynote speeches, participate in panel discussions and focus groups, and enjoy the annual CODIE Awards. The theme of this year’s conference was Bridging K-12 and Postsecondary, so the agenda addressed transitioning and leveraging edtech businesses from one marketplace to another.

One particular panel discussion that caught my attention was entitled, Adapting to the Seismic Change in Education Culture. The write up in the SIIA program read:

It’s not just about digital transformation. From teacher accountability and superintendent turnover to funding and standards — all areas across both K-12 and Higher Ed education are experiencing transformational changes in the culture of education. This is beyond a trend. Tweaking our business models and product offerings won’t be good enough to survive. How should businesses adapt to the huge shifts in education culture? Listen to a panel of industry gurus on how successful businesses recreate themselves in times of great change.

Moderator:
Randy Wilhelm, Chief Executive Officer, Knovation (formerly netTrekker)
Panelists:
Farb Nivi, Founder, Grockit
Justin Serrano, President, Kaplan K12 and College Prep, Kaplan K12 Learning Services
David Straus, Vice President Product, Kno, Inc.

The panel discussion was a guided Q & A session, and below you’ll find a summary of some of the most salient points that were made during the one-hour discussion:

What’s the key to adapting to seismic change?
Straus: Two important elements to successful adaption are: 1) Evolution, not revolution; and 2) To think international, not just domestically.

Which education trend will have the greatest impact on K-20 education in the next three years?
Straus: Mobile, because of its portability, intimate user experience, and the increased touch environment.
Serrano: As things get cheaper, that will determine which trend is most impactful. I agree with Straus – mobile will have a huge impact due to its portability.

Nivi: Social learning – peers teaching peers – will have a huge impact. For example, real-time chat rooms are changing the way test prep is done. However, I also think that a variety of trends will be impactful, including mobile, print to digital, etc. It’s important to give people options, because determining which tool is the right one, depends on the particular person, school, etc. In general, we should be trying to find ways to amplify the ways people can connect with each other. In a world where the rate of technological change is affecting our lives more than anything else, if we don’t embed technology in education, then we’re not preparing children for the world.

Which one group/thing will be most responsible for transforming K-20 education?
Serrano: The government. The government is not going to inspire transformation, but it’s the group that has to give it permission to happen. But it’s also important to remember that technology is not necessary to fix education; many charter schools are successful without using technology. But like it or not, the government is going to play a huge role.

Straus: Companies and systems need to provide a compelling argument to help students engage. However, it’s the government that will be most responsible for transforming K-20 education.

Nivi: I think students should be the answer. When I was growing up, the best technology was at school. Today, schools are technology prisons where you’re not allowed to bring anything in. Until schools are technology meccas and not technology prisons, we’re not going to get change.

Which organizations/conferences do you believe will help shape or address K-20 trends?
Nivi: ASU SkySong, because moving big things in a short amount of time will most likely occur here.
Who will benefit the most from the changes taking place in education?

Serrano: This question assumes that the changes are positive. But to answer it, I think the students will benefit most.

Straus: Teachers. The role of the teacher is going to improve and transform into that of a facilitator.

Where will the fastest evolution in education occur?
Seranno: This question is asking about speed, and to address that point, the evolution of education will happen fastest wherever you have a more focused and centralized vision.

Nivi: The fastest growth will occur in other countries, because the stakes are higher. Internationally, there is more competition. Other countries leapfrogged the table phone and went straight to the cell phone. They leapfrogged the desktop and laptop and went straight to the tablet. When it comes to technology and education, other countries have the incentives and are not tied to any existing models. Because of this, they will be able to take advantage of new technology.

When they took the movie “High School Musical” to China and wanted to remake the movie for a Chinese audience, they encountered a major problem in the storyline. In the Chinese culture, the athletes are the losers and the smart students are the cool kids, so they had to flip the story line. The reason I share this story is because we need to change the culture of the U.S. As adults and leaders, we need to be examples of lifelong learners.

It was a great discussion, wouldn’t you say? And one we need to be having more often – not just at edtech conferences, but at the federal and state levels of government, lecture halls of universities, local school board meetings, teacher gatherings, classrooms, and homes. There’s no denying that technology is changing, and will continue to change, the way we think about education – both in regards to the content and the delivery of information. However, in order to successfully adapt to these changes, we need to make it a priority to reflect on our current state of education and think about how what we’re doing now, both individually and collectively, will impact the future.

Beyond that, we should continue having open discussions, such as this one undertaken by Nivi, Serrano, and Straus at the SIIA EdTech Summit, addressing the current state of education and looking ahead to what’s to come. These conversations need to occur at all levels of society and involve a variety of key players, including the government, education companies, universities, employers, school leaders, teachers, students, and parents. In this manner, we can be assured that the future roadmap of education will be the result of a collective effort and represent a shared decision for how we should adapt and move forward with education in America.

Mandela Schumacher-Hodge is a former middle school teacher and doctoral student at UCLA. She is currently the co-founder & chief operation officer of DemoLesson, an innovative online hiring platform for teachers. In her spare time, Mandela loves to exercise, spend quality time with family and friends, and search for new adventures and experiences.

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Filed Under: Ed Tech Industry Summit, Education Tagged With: ed-tech, innovation

Innovation and Growth Diagnostic Exclusively for IIS Registrants

Calling all Young and Innovative Tech Companies

Webinar – Shaping A New Era of Computing and Business Innovation

SIIA Testimony to NY Education Reform Commission Calls for School System Redesign to Personalize Learning through Technology

Leaders or Laggards: The State Role in the Shift to Digital Content

Measured Progress

Ed Tech Industry Summit Guest Blog: Seismic Changes in Education

About SIIA