Fostering Entrepreneurship in Schools
Are Entrepreneurs Born or Made? is a question prominently placed on the website of my bank. Whenever I need to make any online payments, my head is literally forced to scroll over it. By asking this question my bank follows suit in mythicizing the entrepreneur. I assume it wants to come across as an instance that […]
Ten Ideas to Fight Summer Boredom
To some, such as American musician Brian Wilson, “summer means happy times and good sunshine. It means going to the beach, going to Disneyland, having fun.” To children freshly released from schools, summertime could also mean chronic boredom, interrupted only by a few days of camp here and there. What do they do with the […]
How Chengdu Schools Do Innovation
Sichuan province’s capital Chengdu is a sprawling flat city of ten million ringed in by misty mountains and lotus blossom ponds. It is a two and a half hour flight southwest of Beijing, and it sits on the edge of Chinese civilization, the entry point into the mystic mountains of Tibet and beyond. For thousands […]
Ten Common Myths about Educational Innovations
As we read articles or attend conferences about educational innovation, we find sayings loaded with assumptions which may have been circulating for years without being further examined. Let me start with my top ten list, as an instructional designer and educational technologist, and I hope this can sparkle some thoughts about similar myths you might […]
What Effective Teachers and Successful Entrepreneurs Have in Common
Starting a company is not easy. Building something out of nothing requires effort, grit, and resilience. Successful entrepreneurs have a thick skin, are able to turn a ‘no’ into a ‘yes’, and can see a golden opportunity in something that others consider a dead-end. It is accepted without question that success as an entrepreneur comes […]
Are Creativity and Innovation Possible in Chinese Schools?
The 1899-1901 Boxer Rebellion was imperial feudal China’s last gasp. The Boxers were a cult of mystics who sought to hack to death all foreigners and foreign ideas, and when the Western powers bloodily put down the uprising they also dragged “the Sick Man of Asia” from the 17th century into the 20th. China’s two best […]
Educating Humans in an Age of Artificial Intelligence
At times it seems we live in a world of science fiction. Space travel is a new commercial industry, auto manufactures are competing to build robotic cars, humans are wearing implanted chips and 3D printed body parts, and tech hubs and accelerators have sprung up in nearly every country. As this new world emerges, educators […]
Remembering Lee Kuan Yew
On March 29, 2015 world leaders both past and present from more than fifteen countries including China, India, Japan, Qatar, the United Kingdom and the United States, gathered on the island city-state of Singapore to pay their last respects and bid a final farewell to its founding father, Lee Kuan Yew, who passed away peacefully six […]
Online Networks: New Actors in Higher Education
With the expansion of hybrid learning spaces, career opportunities are much more conditioned by the building of networks than before, and the ability to build a digital identity allows better access to key professional networks. Using open licenses of content under Creative Commons; knowing how to create networking platforms; using social media; promoting face-to-face meetings with networks’ […]
China’s New Normal Requires a New Education
This article is adapted from a special address given by Dr. Yong Zhao at the Xinhuanet Thinker Conference in December 2014. Read the original address in Chinese. Innovation is the new fuel for China’s future growth. The world’s second largest economy is in great need of innovative talents, and thus an innovative education system. The most […]