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Abstract: Severe budget cuts and growth in technology tools create an important opportunity for change. LAEP has a 28 year, on the ground track record of pioneering innovative education models. This report explores various existing technology tools that LAEP might explore to scale its model and looks strategically at how LAEP could add value in the changing education landscape. LAEPs core competency in nurturing inquiry from cradle to college and throughout community is more valuable than ever in this changing landscape.

Education is a social process; education is growth; education is not preparation for life but is life itself. -John Dewey

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Leveraging Technology to Scale our Model

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LAEP as a Platform:

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Why Education Technology Now?

The economic crisis of the past few years has dramatically impacted LAUSDs budget, forcing layoffs and service reductions.

And if anything, the market for education technology is heating up. The Software and Information Industry Association and cs4ed consulting recently sized the education technology market at $7.5 billion. Knewton has built an adaptive learning platform and closed a $33 million D round led by the Founders Fund in late 2011. 2Tor, an online higher education platform, raised $32.5 million in a series C earlier that year. Netscape co-founder Mark Andreesens venture arm, a16z, has invested heavily in Kno, a transmedia textbook platform. Capital chases opportunity. This opportunity is creating a dizzying array of edtech tools, developed by upwards of 100 well funded organizations across the spectrum of education - including learning management systems like Blackboard, content providers like the Khan Academy, data management systems like Junyo, education social networks like Edmodo, as well as countless others. To get a good sense of the space, please see the invaluable map put together by the New School Venture fund: http://www.newschools.org/entrepreneurs/edtechmap The verdict is still out on what this tumultuous landscape will mean for our students. Yet one thing is clear: the combination of fiscal reality and technological innovation will create change. The question then that we face at LAEP is the same one we have engaged for the past three decades: how can we navigate these tumultuous waters to develop educational excellence for our students?

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Meanwhile, at a more global level, education technology has seen explosive growth in the past few years. In April 2011, Edmodo counted 3 million users. Today it has over 7 million users and serves 80,000 schools, meaning that over the course of the last school year it more than double its user base. For comparison LAUSD has roughly 700,000 students, 45,000 teachers and 730 schools, meaning that over the course of the 2011-12 school year Edmodo added the equivalent of more than five LAUSDs to its network.

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The state budget situation has compounded this crisis. If the Governors tax measure doesnt pass in November, the district will confront another round of hard choices.

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LAEPs Challenge

We were pursuing education innovation before those words were a phrase, let alone a buzzword. Yet the LAEP has roughly only 30 staff members and a budget of $5 million. Although the organization does an incredible job servicing nearly 19,000 students, 800 staff, and 60 community and government partners, LAUSD has over 700,000 students that could benefit from LAEPs model.

Community
Business Partners

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Professional Development

Parent Engagement

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Administrative Support

We face a resource bottleneck of time, money, and energy. With the continued budget crisis, crucial services like professional development and business partner engagement are more important than ever. So how might we leverage the panoply of new technological tools to better scale LAEPs model?

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Teachers
School Site 1

LAEP has been a pioneer in education innovation for the past 28 years. LAEP designed the Principal for a Day -- a program that has been replicated across the country. We have worked tirelessly to activate community, working to design the Vaughn Next Century Learning Center as well as innovate cradle to college models of education preparedness. In addition, LAEP has been a pioneer of in small learning communities and other design innovations such as the Urban Learning Center model, which has since been replicated in over 60 community schools in California, Utah and Oregon.

Connection

School Site 2

School Site 3

Reality:

-LAEP budget ~$5 MM where LAUSD ~$7 B -LAEP staff ~30 when LAUSD serves ~700k students and has about 45k teachers and 38k staff

School Site 4

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Pragmatic Next Steps

There are a variety of existing technologies and programs that LAEP could tap into to better scale its model, many immediately.

Board: Recruit leading LA area technologists for the LAEP board to build our institutional knowledge about the space. The relationship would be mutually beneficial. LAEP would be privy to the cutting edge of educational technology innovation. Those in the business of creating change would enjoy a first hand understanding of their customer -- the education community. DonorsChoose Community Pages: In the early days of LAEP, we worked with business partners to create small couple hundred dollar grants that went directly to teachers. Today DonorsChoose provides an online platform enabling anyone from anywhere to donate to a worthy teacher project. They have a functionality for organizations to build causes that could raise the profile of teachers in our small school initiatives.

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Professional Development

Math: Often students are never exposed into the creative, inquiry-based nature of mathematics in K-12 education. There is a movement for massive mathematical collaboration (with practitioners of any ability) on blogs: http://polymathprojects.org/ This could be a good way to engage exceptional math students and teachers in inquiry. Here are three ways LAEP could scale its professional development efforts, each involving several

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LA Ed Tech: There is a budding education technology community here in Los Angeles. See for instance GameDesk, Teach Me Stuff, or MindResearch. A monthly conversation among teachers, technologists, and LAEP staff about how these tools could be integrated into the classroom would help technologists design better tools and help the education community better implement them.

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Ways to raise awareness about our model:

Google: In addition to other programs, Google offers $10,000 a month grants to nonprofits to spend on adwords (its advertising program). See: http://www.google.com/grants/new/index.html This grant would mean LAEP could be more strategically placed on searchs such as Los Angeles education.

Build the capacity of parents, teachers, administrators and community partners to advance practices and policies that support and motivate youth and communities. -LAEP Strategic Plan

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potential technologies: 1) Leverage course creation technologies to post LAEP Humanitas professional development sessions online. Potential technology tools here include Udemy, Udacity, and Coursera. 2) Work to engage an online community: a) Edmodo has a teacher only section where teachers can post professional development materials and engage discussion. http://help.edmodo.com/webinars/

b) The popular Q&A site Stackexchange has a mechanism for developing new sites around various topics, notably programming. We could help organize and build one for education. http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/236 85?phase=definition

3) Use blended learning in professional development workshops: a) Teachboost and Bloomboard provide ways for teachers to set goals and engage in purposeful / meaningful discussions with their peers on how to meet them. b) The Center for Transformative Teaching, New Teacher Center, and Discovery Network have online resources and networks that mirror their offline offerings.

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Blue Sky

Engaging Business Partners

Current business partner engagement is extremely labor intensive, relying on personal emails and content distribution. ConnectEd Studios is an online platform that connects students and teachers with Industry Professionals, and that supports project-based learning in the classroom. LAEP could be a champion and user of this platform.

Edmodo is opening up their network to developers over the course of the summer. What this means is that anyone from anywhere can develop an app that potentially reaches all 7 million of Edmodos users. This probably sounds intimidating but there are a variety of organizations and individuals that we could potentially tap into that build these sorts of public services. See for instance: http://codethechange.org/organizations/code-jams The Firefox web browser is an example of an open source project. The cool thing here is that the biggest limitation is our imagination.

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c) Quora is an open ended question and answer site that would be useful both for pedagogical (Whats the best way to teach X?) and content (Explain to me X facet of Y) oriented inquiry. It also has the ability to create boards or mini-sites for an organization to post questions and answers that are relevant to them.

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LAEP as a Platform
The big question this project has endeavored to explore is what core value LAEP can provide in this time of fiscal crisis and technological change.

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Implementation

In addition, the huge array of tools available creates a need for a clearinghouse to help educator make sense of these tools. Teachers are busy -- especially today with budget cuts. Many want to blend technology into the classroom but arent sure where to look or what will be applicable to their particular situation. LAEP is perfectly positioned to be that clearinghouse. Our work to transform schools engages driven, change-minded educators who are great candidates for teacher-leaders that could test and develop best practice models for these new tools. See the Google Teacher Training Network for an example in this space: http://googleblog.blogspot. com/2011/08/faculty-institute-brings-faculty-back.html

Both of these options could use additional resources: staff time, technical development, and tools. Luckily, education and technology is a hot topic right now and there are several funding avenues worth exploring. LA Social Venture Partners has Social Innovation Fast Pitch coming up on October 24 that has $35,000 in grants available. In addition, this sort of work is well aligned with many foundations strategic visions, particularly Knight and Case. We could explore applying for a grant with them. The Case Be

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We have a very attractive value proposition to the education technology community that is looking for distribution channels into public schools. We offer a set of trusted relationships with parents, educators, businesses, the district and other community organizations. In addition, we have incredible experience collaborating directly with teachers to create organic professional development through peer learning networks. The education technology community is working to develop new models by building innovative technology tools; we can offer them a proving ground, potentially even developing a fee for service arrangement.

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Platform is a term for technology that enables the creation of products and processes that support present or future development. The Windows operating system is an example. You boot up Windows and it allows other programs to run on top of it: your email, Constant Contact, word, etc. Our core tool at LAEP is inquiry: we listen, ask questions, and uncover how teachers, parents, business partners and other members of the education community can add value to the education community. And in the sense that inquiry is a foundation for education -- regardless of the fancy tools tech companies invent -- we have the opportunity to grow into a platform in the new landscape. Here are a couple loose thoughts on how we might do that.

Leverage LAEPs knowledge of best practices to turn good policies into practice and good practices into policy. -LAEP Strategic Plan

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Fearless Pledge in particular is worth checking out (http://www.casefoundation.org/projects/be-fearless), if nothing other than for inspiration.

The Enduring Need for Community

Throughout the Design Challenge, participants spoke to the ways in which the school of the future would better engage community. Learning doesnt end with a high school or college graduation. Nor does it stop at a classroom door. Technology tools offer incredible new ways for us to connect and share with each other as human beings. It is worth remembering though what hasnt changed: human connection. New online videos can make educational content more accessible but they cannot tell students why it is important. New learning management systems can provide better virtual forums for classroom communication but they cannot ensure a quality discussion. Education technology provides new conduits for human interaction but the need for a trusted peer, a caring teacher, or a community mentor is just the same. We at LAEP have a unique history, a unique ability to collaborate, and a unique model that engages a broad spectrum of the community in student learning from cradle to college. We engage inquiry as a tool for change across the education landscape. Technology offers a new frontier for ways in which we can educate our students, and has if anything exacerbated the need for inquiry. For 28 years, LAEP has proven innovative new education models through collaboration, community engagement and teacher involvement through on the ground experience. The new landscape demands new models and needs that sort of inquiry-based exploration. LAEP has an incredible opportunity to continue its leadership role and direct that change for the benefit of the next generation.