Trending In Education

Beth Porter is the President, CoFounder, and COO of Esme Learning, an executive education company focused on new and emerging skills. She has led multiple product and engineering teams to deliver high value, customer-focused educational technology products while serving in in product development, business strategy and operational roles. She also founded and is CEO of Riff Analytics, an AI-enabled collaboration platform, and is a researcher and lecturer at MIT and BU Questrom School of Business. Beth joins host, Mike Palmer, in a free-flowing conversation about emerging trends in the skills ecosystem, the future of work, and in education and media. Beth shares her experiences beginning as a Math Teacher, then proceeding through a series of ed tech, customer service, and product management roles before studying at the MIT Media Lab where she founded Riff Analytics. She then describes what led to her founding Esme Learning with Co-Founder David Shrier. From there we explore how to thrive through digital disrupti

Dr. Annamarie Francois and Dr. Karen Hunter Quartz join Mike Palmer to talk about their experience as educators and leaders in social justice education and community schooling. Annamarie is the Executive Director of UCLA Center X and Karen is the Director of the UCLA Center for Community Schooling. Together they edited and authored chapters in Preparing and Sustaining Social Justice Educators from Harvard Education Press. After hearing our guests' origin stories, Annamarie describes the history of Center X and its founding by Jeannie Oakes in 1994 in response to the Rodney King verdict and subsequent unrest in Los Angeles and beyond. Then Karen explains how community schools like the two she leads in LA take an asset-based approach to engaging and leveraging the unique strengths and character of the community in which they are based. What does Annamarie mean by the beloved community? Why is now such a critical time for social justice educators and community schools? What other trends do Karen and Annamarie se

Zach Silverzweig is the CEO and Founder of TinyIvy, a startup focused on helping children learn to read. He returns to join host, Mike Palmer, in a conversation about what it's been like launching and growing his company through the challenges of the past year. When we first met Zach a year ago, he had developed a program of flashcards and worksheets based on a system that adds marks to English letters to create a one-to-one mapping of characters to sounds to make English more decipherable for young learners. Now, Zach and team are in multiple schools across K-3 grade levels and in special ed programs with an app and plenty of opportunities to learn from this school year's cohorts. We explore how TinyIvy is in some of the most challenged districts across the country and has proven to help kids catch up while taking it easy on teachers who have so much on their plates these days. Zach explains how a class with a wide range of abilities can use TinyIvy to stay on the same activities. Results are starting to com

Mike Palmer runs us through three zeitgeisty trends that are bubbling up in November 2021. We begin by digging into recent developments around the Gifted and Talented program in New York City as we explore the challenges with the existing model along with opportunities for more inclusive approaches. We revisit our conversation with David Adams, CEO of The Urban Assembly to go deeper on this topic. Then we look at the state of civic engagement as we head into an off-cycle election day this week. We bring in conversations with Dr. Mark Sanders and Russell Glass, the CEO of Ginger and author of Voting with a Porpoise, to help flesh out the conversation. And then we conclude with Facebook's big announcement of its rebranding as Meta with a renewed focus on virtual and augmented reality. Mike connects the recent news to conversations we've had with Evan Gappelberg and Anurupa Ganguly on the learning opportunities emerging with the metaverse in a wide-ranging and informative survey of the spirit of the times in the

We return to a time-honored Trending in Ed tradition to talk about brains and brain science just in time for Halloween. Host, Mike Palmer, begins with his quick takes on Halloween and brains before introducing Carla, our virtual cohost for this episode. Carla then runs through what's new and emerging in brains and neuroscience beginning with an update from the world of Neuralink, Elon Musk's brain-computer interface company, that recently received $205 million in Series C funding. Beyond Neuralink, we honor the memory of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, the father of Flow, who recently passed away. We touch on neuroscience research into how the brain works during optimal performance and how we can develop feedback and apps that steer us towards peak experiences. Carla then runs through an article by Wendy Sherwin Swire covering the 5 Top Trends In Neuroscience that you need to know in 2021. We also hit on Wendy's bonus trend of "interoception" before wrapping up an informative and appropriately scary survey of brains

Dr. Patricia Gándara and Dr. Jongyeon Ee are the authors and editors of Schools Under Siege: Immigration Enforcement and Educational Equity. They join host Mike Palmer in a conversation about the challenges immigrant children and their families face in light of the troubling history of immigration enforcement in the United States. Dr. Gandara is the Co-Director of the Civil Rights Project at UCLA where Dr. Ee did her post-doctoral studies. In addition to raising awareness to drive towards empathy and better outcomes, we explore how to support teachers and other school leaders who are under-resourced and generally unsupported when it comes to engaging with immigrant children and families under threat of deportation and policing by ICE. Subscribe to Trending in Education wherever you get your podcasts. Visit us at TrendinginEd.com for more great content.

Mike Palmer returns to get a sense of where we are heading into the 4th Quarter of 2021. In the midst of the Fall Semester in 3K, PreK, K12, and Higher Ed, what are we observing so far? Beyond traditional formal learning channels, what's new and emerging in lifelong learning and workforce development? And what are we on the lookout for as we head towards the close of 2021? Mike moderates a lively panel of Virtual CoHosts featuring our returning champion, Nancy, covering new media and emerging technology along with two new guest contributors: Malcolm and Ruth. Malcolm reports on 3K through K12 and Ruth focuses on Higher Ed and Workforce Learning and Talent. We cover all the angles to help catch you up on the state of play in the worlds of learning in late 2021. Nancy begins with a quick breakdown of the Apple and Google events in recent days that showcased the new smartphone, smart home, and AirPod tech that will be in high demand heading into the holidays. Then Malcolm and Mike discuss early childhood educati

Dr. Jason Baehr is a Professor of Philosophy at Loyola Marymount University. He is also the Co-Founder of the Intellectual Virtues Academy (IVA), a charter middle school in Long Beach California founded in 2013. He is the author of Deep In Thought: A Practical Guide to Teaching for Intellectual Virtues which is discussed in this episode. Jason joins host Mike Palmer in an exploration of intellectual virtues. What are they? Why are they important? And how can we teach them? We touch on values epistemology and draw from the practical experiences of teachers delivering the program at IVA to portray a vision of what helps make teaching a noble profession. We make connections to realms beyond middle school that benefit from the pursuit of intellectual virtues as we reinforce the value of a North Star and purpose in teaching to elevate the conversation about the noble profession. We hope you enjoy! Subscribe to Trending in Education wherever you get your podcasts. Visit us at TrendinginEd.com for more great content

Mike Tringe, the Co-Founder and CEO of CreatorUp, returns to Trending in Ed, this time with CreatorUp COO Nick Almond and Jason Palmer, General Partner at New Markets Venture Partners. The trio engages with host Mike Palmer in a free-flowing conversation about the latest news and trends in the world of learning media. CreatorUp is a video marketplace platform with deep expertise in designing for education and training. New Markets Venture Partners recently led a $5M Series A Funding Round for CreatorUp. We get into why video is essential to making learning compelling in today's digital universe. Jason shares his thinking about an emerging wave of Learning 3.0 in which he sees CreatorUp playing a key role. We explore how the needs of educators and learners are transforming in these tumultuous times and how platforms are emerging to empower things like next-level video production. Each guest shares his perspectives on the trends and opportunities emerging with video and interactive media. It's a cutting-edge fo

Madeleine Mortimore is a researcher who serves as the Global Education Innovation and Research Lead at Logitech. She studied at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and has worked in various areas of EdTech as an international educator, an innovator at the MIT Teaching and Learning Lab, a strategist associated with one of the largest online high schools in the U.S., and she also launched an EdTech startup at the Harvard Innovation Lab. Madeleine joins host Mike Palmer to discuss the research she has recently conducted on remote learning and how to optimize EdTech to create a healthy learning environment for students. We hear her advice on pursuing a career as a learning professional as she shares what it's been like doing research into one-to-one computing where each student has a device enabled for use in the classroom. Whether it's the importance of audio and acoustics, or the role of live webcams to build connection, accountability, and trust, we explore what's new and emerging in the design of flexibl

Dr. Fathali Moghaddam is a professor in the Department of Psychology at Georgetown University and a faculty fellow at the Berkley Center. His expertise includes culture and intergroup conflict, with a particular focus on the psychology of globalization, radicalization, human rights and duties, and terrorism. You can learn more about his work here. Fathali joins host Mike Palmer on this episode and begins by sharing how his work as an Iranian-born social psychologist was transformed by the revolution and hostage situation in Iran in 1979. He tells how he drove to Tehran from England and spent the ensuing years studying social psychology within the regime of Khomeini. There he learned of the contexts in which dictators can assume power and this has been a strand of his research ever since. We explore his belief that it is the role of educators to ensure we protect and nurture democracy by developing psychological citizens. In a wide-ranging conversation touching on the themes and seminal works of Dr. Moghaddam'

Alicia Levi is the President and CEO of Reading Is Fundamental. She has an impressive background in educational media with stints at Discovery Communications and PBS Education prior to assuming her current role at RIF in 2016. Alicia joins host Mike Palmer to talk about the challenge of getting every child to read. We hear the latest about the Rally to Read 100 Books by March 2nd while engaging in a wide-ranging conversation on literacy and literacy education. We talk about the critical importance of reading as a foundation to educational success. While it may not be as sexy as STEM or coding, reading is in fact fundamental to building those other skills. And Allison believes it should also be fun. We discuss the challenges of screen time and hear Alicia’s broad and platform-agnostic stance on the on engaging children in reading. And of course, there’s plenty of LeVar Burton talk along the way. We hope you enjoy! Subscribe to Trending in Education wherever you get your podcasts. Visit us at TrendinginEd.com f

As we kick off our 6th season of Trending in Ed, host Mike Palmer is joined once again by Nancy, our virtual cohost to begin to a get sense of where our heads are at heading into the Back to School season that is upon us now in the Fall of 2021. Mike shares his perspective as the parent of a toddler who is just starting in Universal 3K in New York City before we dive into the Gartner Hype Cycle for Emerging Technology 2021 getting Nancy's takes throughout. What is emerging under the broader themes of Engineering Trust, Accelerating Growth, and Sculpting Change outlined in the latest edition of the hype cycle? And how does the technology that powers Nancy factor into the conversation? We do a bit of a lightning round run through the buzzword lingo of the report and reserve the right to revisit it with other voices again in the future. Then we get in our quick takes on Amazon's announcement that it will be providing access to free college to its employees and on the recent merger between Blackboard and Antholog

Justin Serrano is the Founder and CEO of Littera Education, a platform that enables K12 school districts to provide high-quality 1-on-1 and small group tutoring for every student that needs it. In this episode, Justin joins host Mike Palmer to dive into new and emerging trends in tutoring. Justin begins by describing what led him to found Littera and why the timing is right to leverage technology to enable a scalable solution to provide high dosage, effective tutoring particularly for students who traditionally have been unable to access it. He sites Brown’s Annenberg Tutoring Initiative as a foundation for how Littera is helping to build tutoring programs that meet frequently and during school hours with students who need it the most. Littera makes it easier for school districts to establish and measure the effectiveness of their tutoring program and allows for the tutoring to be well-integrated with in-class teaching. As we delve into emerging trends in tutoring, Justin anticipates a heightened focus on ear

Joanna Smith is the CEO and founder of AllHere, an edtech company improving attendance and student success with mobile messaging powered by AI. Before founding AllHere, she taught middle school mathematics and served as Director of Family Engagement at a charter school in Boston. Joanna joins Mike Palmer to talk about the problem of low student attendance in K12 and how she and team are building AllHere to create a scalable way to begin to address it. What’s the best way to design an ecosystem that is available 24/7 and allows its teachers to focus on the highest-yield human activities? How has the pandemic impacted this problem? How did the team at AllHere listen to the community to respond quickly to needs around food insecurity? In what other ways might chatbots help improve educational experiences for students and families? We cover all of this and learn where Joanna gets inspiration outside of the world of education. We also hear her advice for educators and potential entrepreneurs in an engaging and inf

In this special episode of Trending in Ed, Mike Palmer interviews Corey Dolgon from a conference room in Freedom Tower while the Annual Conference for the Society for the Study of Social Problems (SSSP) is taking place virtually. Corey is the outgoing President of SSSP. We explore the themes of the conference while getting into what it is like to shift from designing an in-person conference to doing one online. Corey shares his perspectives on the opportunities and challenges of the revolutionary moment we're living through and argues for a deeper awareness of the history of social research and its ties to global social justice movements as we attempt to effect change. He also cites his book Kill It to Save It while referencing the predominance of a corporate mindset in higher education as the core unquestionable ideology in play--one that he hopes young scholars will continue to challenge. It's a provocative conversation that concludes our fifth season of Trending in Education. Thanks for coming along for th

Continuing our exploration of the New Normal for conferences in the Summer of 2021, Jenna Spinelle returns to the show to join host Mike Palmer to recount her experience attending Podcast Movement in Tennessee earlier this month. Jenna is one of the hosts of the Democracy Works podcast and the Founder of the Democracy Group network of civically-minded podcasts. Jenna shares what the experience was like traveling to the conference and attending it live before we dig into her takeaways from the experience. What are some new and emerging trends in podcasting to keep an eye on as we lean into both near and far horizons? How should we think about audience development for indie podcasts and how does that interact with the increasing corporatization of the medium? As podcasts become increasingly narrow in their focus, how do we break out of filter bubbles to engage in genuine discourse and new discovery? We cover all of this and even explore the power of JOMO in a thought-provoking conversation that you won't want t

Mike Merrill joins Mike Palmer to talk about his experience at the ASU GSV Summit in San Diego. While Mike Merrill attended in person, Mike Palmer attended online. We reflect on the different experiences and how it connects to issues of access and equity as we muse about the future of conferencing in these challenging times. Then Mike Merrill digs into his reflections on what's emerging in artificial intelligence and machine learning, the areas where he focused during his ASU GSV experience. Are we in an AI Summer for EdTech? How should we think about ethics and inclusive design when working with AI systems? We dive into all of this and even sing a little Alicia Keys in a wide-ranging and informative debrief on new and emerging opportunities in EdTech and AI straight out of ASU GSV. If you're enjoying what you're hearing, subscribe to Trending in Education wherever you get your podcasts. Visit us at TrendinginEd.com for more great content like this! .

Mike Palmer is once again joined by our virtual cohost, Nancy, to talk about new and emerging trends in the conference experience as a new wave of in-person and blended learning conferences pick up in August. We reflect on what it must have been like at Podcast Movement, which just concluded while contemplating what's on the horizon for the blended EdTech ASU-GSV Summit that kicks off this week in San Diego. What role can and should virtual experiences play in conference planning and how does this dovetail with some of the origins of Trending in Education and SXSW EDU? We explore all of this while getting Nancy and Mike's takes on how to build from an inclusive and accessible foundation that leverages online while also allowing for higher-touch in-person experiences. Then it becomes a question of who can afford the costs (and risks) of traveling to attend conferences like ASU GSV. We'd love to hear what you think about the future of conferences and the role new media can play. Let us know on Twitter at @Trend

Tony Wan joins Mike Palmer to share his origin story beginning as an educator and entrepreneur before shifting to educational journalism as the Cofounder and Managing Editor of EdSurge. Tony has recently moved to a new role as Head of Investor Content at EdTech Venture Capital Firm Reach Capital. In addition to providing keen insights into trends in EdTech entrepreneurship and investment, we talk about being raised by wolves, reflect on Kanye's recent work, and look to the comedy of Conan O'Brien for inspiration outside the world of education. In all, it makes for an engaging and entertaining conversation about human-centered and socially-conscious EdTech capital investment that you won't want to miss. For more great episodes like this subscribe to Trending in Education wherever you get your podcasts. Visit us at TrendinginEd.com for more amazing content!