EdSurge Podcast

Today, we’re actually bringing back an old favorite while we generate some new content for you. Back in 2015, in Davis California, we brought superintendents from across California together at an EdSurge event to chat about data and assessment, and how it gets best used in the classroom. How can we use data to make sure that we’re improving student achievement? How does one even define “student achievement”? We talked to Bryant Wong CTO, Summit Public Schools Devin Dillon CAO, Oakland USD Gregory Firn Superintendent in Residence & Director of Strategic Partnerships,, Dreambox Learning; and Alix Guerrier President/Co-Founder, LearnZillion, on a panel to answer these questions and more. We’ll get to that in a second, but first, the news.

Thirty-two. That’s how many years John Deasy has spent in education as a teacher, high school principal, and superintendent in four different districts across three states. Of all these roles, his stint at the Los Angeles Unified School District may be the most memorable—and controversial. As superintendent, he led one of the largest and most highly-critiqued 1:1 device deployments in the country—one that that led to a frenzy of media reporting, and a number of columnists from L.A.-based and national publications alike asking, “Where did it all go so wrong?” After leaving LAUSD in October 2014, Deasy joined the Broad Center as a Superintendent-in-Residence, where he’s been working to develop school district leaders from across the country. But now, he’s gearing up for the next chapter: creating an organization to address juvenile incarceration and, eventually, reduce juvenile recidivism by 50 percent. EdSurge caught up with Deasy to chat about the up’s and down’s of superintendencies, where he made mistakes, and whether technology is adding to issues of inequity.

Many faculty see introductory science courses as "gateway" classes to weed out students. Not Marco Molinaro. The assistant vice provost at the University of California, Davis, is leading the school's efforts to overhaul these classes and make them more accessible to students. Hear how UC Davis is using adaptive-learning tools and active-learning techniques to improve pass rates in these notoriously tough classes.

Blake Montgomery, one-half of the EdSurge On Air podcast team, is bidding EdSurge adieu to take on a role as a Tech Reporter at Buzzfeed. But before he leaves, he's got some thoughts about what he's noticed from his year at EdSurge. Specifically, what is he optimistic about? What was his biggest scoop of the year? Why has he become distrustful of edtech company pitches? Catch all that and more in Blake's farewell EdSurge On Air podcast.

Bridget Burns sees plenty of "superheroes"—26-year-old Silicon Valley types with good intentions, yet little understanding, for how to change higher education. Burns is executive director of the University Innovation Alliance, a coalition of 11 public research universities focused on making quality college degrees accessible to a diverse body of students. The UIA serves 400,000 students, more than a quarter of whom receive Pell grants. In this recording from an EdSurge Meetup, Burns shares what she wishes product developers understood about the challenges higher-ed institutions face.

Unity is one of the most widely used game development engines, but what does that have to do with education? We sat down with Megan Stewart, Unity's Head of Global Education, at her new office to find out.

A few weeks back, EdSurge published a podcast interview with education consultant and commentator Alan November, and Director of Secondary Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment for the Houston Independent School District Mike Dorsey, after chatting with the two education experts at ISTE. The interview got quite a number of listens, likely because November said that the edtech industry had created a “mess” at one point in the interview. However, November was only able to be with us for about ten minutes in that interview, so we really didn’t get a chance to delve into what he meant by “a mess.” Hence, EdSurge decided to enter back into that conversation with November, this time in a Q&A covering his thoughts on the “$1000 pencil,” whether Khan Academy is or is not pushing the envelope, and how any change in the classroom has to start with the teacher. How has the edtech industry created a “mess”—and more importantly, whose responsibility is it to clean up that message, according to November?

Our guest today is Gretchen Shipley, a partner at the law firm Fagen, Friedman, and Fulfrost, who often works with schools on data privacy regulations. We interviewed her for a recent article on the student privacy issues of Pokemon Go, and at the end of our interview, she started talking about some new laws that could mean big problems for schools. Compliance complaints related to the Americans with Disabilities Act are on the rise. California Teachers' access to student devices has gotten much more complicated. We sat down with Shipley at our California Superintendents’ Summit to get a fuller picture of the biggest legal issues schools will face in the upcoming year.

Jahana Hayes, the 2016 National Teacher of the Year, knows what it takes to be a good teacher. In fact, she’s been in the game for twelve years, currently serving as a history teacher at John F. Kennedy High School in Waterbury, Connecticut. But she also believes that not everyone is cut out for the profession, especially if they aren’t willing to change with the times—times that have brought an onslaught of new technologies and practices into the classroom. What does it mean, then, for the teaching profession to prepare for 2020? Last week, EdSurge had the opportunity to sit down with Hayes to hear about her thoughts on what the profession is missing, why there’s a dearth of minority educators in the field, and how her own district struggles with “antiquated ideas” about social media and the like.

Technology can do a lot of things in the classroom, but can it help educators be more empathetic towards their students? This week on the EdSurge podcast, we talk to Dr. Jason Okonofua, a postdoc at Stanford University, about just that. Okonofua is interested in how the effects of one person’s stereotyping and another person’s threat reverberate and escalate over time. He currently researches this interest in the context of education and criminal justice, and recently completed a white paper hypothesizing that an empathetic mindset will eliminate school suspensions. According to his research findings, published in a study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, training teachers to have more empathy towards their students lowers suspension numbers by 50%, an incredibly high number when you consider that Jason’s trainings only include one 45-minute online session in the fall, and a 25-minute online session in the winter. Why are they so successful? And empathy something that can be taught through technology, or does it rely on that in-person element?​

This week, we're talking to Yuta Tonegawa, founder of the Japanese equivalent of the Hour of Code. He's passionate about engaging young Japanese students with coding, but the barriers he faces are distinctly different obstacles that face his American counterpart, the Hour of Code.

The life of a district superintendent isn’t easy. You have to juggle a lot, from managing big of groups of administrators and teachers, to pushing a district forward. So, what is the hardest part of a superintendent's job, and is it related to technology? In a series of interviews that EdSurge conducted at the ISTE conference in late June, EdSurge podcasters Mary Jo Madda and Michael Winters had the opportunity to interview Dr. Greg Goins, superintendent of Frankfort Community Unit School District 168 in Illinois. The man has made some pretty strong movements with edtech in his district, and EdSurge wanted to get to know his methods. Does Goins think Smartboards are effective? What are the edtech products he’s tired of hearing about? Listen to this episode to find the answers to those questions and more.

With Amazon making its first big education platform debut in years, we were wondering: how are other blue chip companies—Microsoft, Apple, Google—reacting to this news? While at ISTE, Mary Jo and former EdSurge podcaster Michael Winters hosted an in-person taping of the EdSurge On Air podcast with a live audience and two Google leaders, Jonathan Rochelle and Jaime Casap. Rochelle and Casap both have a long history with the Google for Education team. Casap is a Google Education evangelist, and Rochelle is a Google Education Product Manager, not to mention a co-founder of Google Drive. Between the two of them, they have more than 20 years of experience with the search company. We asked both Casap and Rochelle about their thoughts on Amazon Inspire, where Google Education plans to grow, and why conferences seem so homogenous. By the way, in each of our interviews, we decided to play a little game. Since edtech buzzwords drive us crazy, we had a secret word that the interviewees didn’t know about, and if they said it out loud, our audience hit the buzzer. See if you can hear when it gets said during this interview!

Alan November is a big-name educational consultant who was once a champion of technology in the classroom. But after EdSurge talked to him at ISTE, it seems that his message has slightly changed: technology isn’t having the impact we hoped for in schools. Expectations were high for edtech. People said it would solve every problem in education, and some venture capitalists agreed. Now, November says, we’re facing a more sober reality as we see what technology can and, more importantly, cannot do. EdSurge caught up briefly with November and Mike Dorsey, Director of Secondary Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment for the Houston Independent School District, for this week's podcast.

Long before competency-based learning was trending, Southern New Hampshire University gave it a shot, largely driven by the vision of its president, Paul LeBlanc. Today SNHU is seen as a leader in closing the gap between what students learn and what the workforce wants. LeBlanc sat down with EdSurge CEO Betsy Corcoran and 1776 Partner Rusty Greiff to share his thoughts on “blowing up the delivery models” for higher ed.

It’s not easy being a game designer in college—but it sure teaches lessons about collaboration and tough decision-making. At the College Gaming Competition at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), we talked to two game creators—one technical designer and one artist—about how their game came to be and what they’ve learned from it.

Last week, I ventured down to LA for the Electronic Entertainment Expo, more commonly known as E3, the biggest videogames convention in the country. I was in search of educational video games. I found assassins and Lil Wayne, but not a whole lot of educational games. LEGO made an appearance, as did Sid Meier’s Civilization, but for a multibillion dollar industry, there wasn’t much in the way of direct educational material. I did, however, find one thing: the College Gaming Competition. It’s a game design contest where university students submit their games to a panel of industry veterans for evaluations. The experts select six finalists and one winner. All the finalists receive the honor of exhibiting their games on the main floor of E3 alongside giants like Microsoft and Sony. To get a better look inside how the game came together, I interviewed both leaders of the Savannah College’s team. Their game is called Brobot Beatdown. It’s a virtual reality game where the player is seated inside a giant robot and does his best to destroy other players’ robots in arena combat. I played it, and I liked it! What's even more impressive is that the small Savannah College team of students created an online multiplayer game in virtual reality, something no other college even attempted. Major studios, by contrast, have hundreds of staff on one game. I got to talk to the winning team from the Savannah College of Art and Design just before and immediately after they won. I interviewed Justin Coushot and Spencer Humphries, Brobot Beatdown's lead game designers, about how their school supported them, the "crunch" just before the competition and what they've learned from creating such a technically demanding game. Tune in! —EdSurge Reporter Blake Montgomery

When should students specialize their learning? Does doing so narrow their futures or allow them to follow their passion to a strong portfolio? Peter Warburton, co-founder and production manager of Rizing Games, believes that kids who like video games should start building their own as early as 10. The reason? By the time they graduate from university, he argues, they’ll be near-professional quality video game makers. They’ll also have an impressive portfolio, as gaming is a heavily project-based pursuit. Rizing Games, a two-year game design academy attached to Cambridge Regional College, instructs 16 to 18-year-old British students on how to design games and run a gaming company as they train towards their A-level exams. It started in 2011 with 15 students in each class; it now takes 65. This year, Warburton took his second year students to E3, the gaming industry’s largest gathering, to present their games and see industry professionals at their best. We sat down with him amidst the chaos of the convention to hear his thoughts on the benefits of learning game design, the British government’s support and how terrible he is at video games.

Virtual reality a technology of potential. So much potential, in fact, that in many ways it seems to be only potential. We’ve all seen pictures of rapt viewers in Oculus headsets or Google cardboard, but widespread distribution is still a distant prospect. In many cases, it's not clear why a teacher would use virtual reality in the classroom even if it seems like a fun addition. So today, we talked to a person using VR with a great deal of thought. Global Nomads is a nonprofit that facilitates virtual exchanges between students in the US and other countries, and it's about to launch a new VR initiative where students can digitally relocate. Grace Lau, the nonprofit's director of virtual reality,believes, as many do, in the power of VR to create empathy. Also, if you haven’t taken our survey (https://bit.ly/edsurgeonair) yet, we’d love it if you would.

Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how does your edtech startup grow? In our very own homage to the Startup Podcast, we're examining EdSurge's recent expansion. We've doubled in size in the past year, and a lot of things are changing. How can we keep what was good about the past while remaining open to the possibilities of the future? We interviewed our VP of Sales, our CTO, the product manager of the EdSurge Index and one guy who does a bit of everything about what they've seen and what they're hoping for. Edited by Blake Montgomery.

Here’s a four letter word that’s been in the news and education articles a fair amount over the past years. The word is “grit,” and it’s something that Paul Tough, the author of "How Children Succeed" and "Whatever It Takes," addresses in his most recent book, "Helping Children Succeed: What Works and Why." Tough is a frequent commentator on school reform, low-income communities, parenting and politics, but in this particular book, he takes on the concept of “grit” and asks a crucial question: Is grit something that can be taught in the classroom? A few weeks ago, Paul Tough made his way to the NewSchools Venture Fund Summit in California, and EdSurge’s own Tony Wan got the chance to sit down with him to get the story behind the book, and what it’ll really take to help children succeed—whether grit can be taught, or not.

THE US DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY was out in force at Maker Faire Bay Area. The Department hopes to demystify the goings-on at its various national labs in the Bay Area by portraying its scientists as makers. Those scientists also hope to excite kids about the advanced technology they get to use. We spoke to three scientists about sensors, supercomputers and cybersecurity to learn more.

THE US DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY was out in force at Maker Faire Bay Area. The Department hopes to demystify the goings-on at its various national labs in the Bay Area by portraying its scientists as makers. Those scientists also hope to excite kids about the advanced technology they get to use. We spoke to three scientists about sensors, supercomputers and cybersecurity to learn more:

THE US DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY was out in force at Maker Faire Bay Area. The Department hopes to demystify the goings-on at its various national labs in the Bay Area by portraying its scientists as makers. Those scientists also hope to excite kids about the advanced technology they get to use. We spoke to three scientists about sensors, supercomputers and cybersecurity to learn more.

DEMOS APLENTY: One of the most crowded tents at Maker Faire was the “Learn to Solder” tent, which allowed young makers to learn what holds circuit boards together. Would-be makers were tasked with soldering a circuit that would allow a Makerbot pin to light up. We spoke to one volunteer in the tent to learn why it’s important for makers to learn how to solder.

“IT’S LIKE THE STATE FAIR FOR NERDS:” Many families return to Maker Faire year after year. We spoke to one family that’s been attending Maker Faire for many years to find out what keeps them coming back. Meet the Bakers from Menlo Atherton, CA:

Mitchel Resnick (or Mitch, for short) knows his making—from a lot of different angles. And he’s not too bought into the whole “electronics and gadgets” side of the maker movement. Resnick has been in this business for more than 30 years, and it’s safe to say that he’s seen the maker movement—and the state of STEM education, in general—go through its phases, its ups and downs. He’s currently the LEGO Papert Professor of Learning Research and head of the Lifelong Kindergarten group at the MIT Media Lab, where he and his team have developed products familiar to many a science educator: the "programmable brick" technology that inspired the LEGO Mindstorms robotics kit, and Scratch, an online computing environment for students to learn about computer science. Is making something that every school should be doing—and are all interpretations of “making” of equitable value? EdSurge sat down with Resnick in his office at the MIT Media Lab to learn more, and to find out how he and his team are working to bring more creativity into the learning process.

The question on everyone's mind at NewSchools Venture Fund's 2016 Summit: How will we know when education has become more equitable?We interviewed Dreambox CEO Jessie Woolley-Wilson and Democrats for Education Reform President Shaver Jeffries for their takes on the most contested issue in education.

In addition to this week's regularly scheduled podcast programming, we're bringing you an exclusive conversation between executives. At the NewSchools Venture Fund Summit, EdSurge's own CEO Betsy Corcoran interviewed Edgenuity CEO Sari Factor about Edgenuity's rapid expansion to 17,000 schools, Factor's definition of blended learning and what makes a good implementation. Edgenuity, formerly known as Education2020, was originally created, as Factor put it, for students who "couldn't be in the classroom, for one reason or another." Now, after five years of rapid growth, the company is expanding its products, services and focus this fall; tune in to hear more.

Enid Rey is no stranger to controversy. A powerhouse and a lawyer by training, she's currently the head of the School Choice Department in Hartford, Connecticut's public school system. In a city like Hartford, where most people of socioeconomic background and race don’t mix neighborhoods, Rey’s job has been, at least recently, to market magnet schools to parents and students from both neighborhoods, encouraging them to integrate. Her responsibilities came to prominence when she was interviewed for the Peabody award-winning podcast "The Problem We All Live With," created by This American Life. When it comes to issues of equity and diversity, it’s everyone’s problem—like the title says, it’s a problem that we all live with. EdSurge had the opportunity to sit down with Rey at the recent NewSchools Venture Fund conference to hear how she proved innovative in her approach to segregation, and to ask what it really takes to turn efforts in one district into a viral movement.

Every month or so, EdSurge hosts a summit to bring educators and edtech companies together (there might be one coming up near you). Sometimes, we're lucky enough to have students join us, and when we do, our student panel on edtech use is the highlight of the event. Educators, administrators and entrepreneurs alike love frank talk about what works for students and what's just annoying them. In Episode 61, we showcase a video made by the Youth Development Program, an after school program within Los Angeles Unified School District, where the students sound like us! They're interviewing each other about the Kids Marathon using their best newscaster voices. We also talked to a student journalist duoAt our Los Angeles summit about the craziest things they've done with technology and what their school would be like without it. Tune in!

The Obama Administration recently admitted its work in higher education is far from done. Undersecretary of Education Ted Mitchell, the president’s No. 1 authority on higher education, said he’d give his team an “incomplete” grade. Why? Mitchell previously served as CEO of NewSchools Venture Fund, president of the California State Board of Education and president of Occidental College. In his role with the federal government, he’s been been focused on improving college completion rates for first-generation, low-income students. Mitchell’s tenure will end this year when Obama leaves office. EdSurge recently had the chance to sit down with him to ask what kind of legacy the administration will leave in higher-ed innovation. Here’s our conversation.

This week, we spoke to two teams who scientific acumen brought them all the way to the White House for the nation's annual science fair. Second in our series is a team from Baruch College Campus High School in New York City that built a semi-automatic vacuum to ride on the back of subways to clean up trash.

This week, we spoke to two teams who scientific acumen brought them all the way to the White House for the nation's annual science fair. First in our series is an automotive technology class from James Logan High School in Union, California that built a charging station for solar cars.

This week, the EdSurge On Air podcast features three "Extra" editions focusing on investors: how they choose what to invest it, where the money is flowing, what personalization in schools means to them, and more. On this episode, we speak to Brigette Lau of Social Capital. Brigette shares how her organization, Social Capital, measures and evaluates the health of the companies that she invests in, as well as the reality of free/freemium business models. Does she believe free products will work out in the long run?

This week, the EdSurge On Air podcast features three "Extra" editions focusing on investors: how they choose what to invest in, where the money is flowing, what personalization in schools means to them, and more. On this episode, we speak to Brian Dixon of Kapor Capital. Kapor Capital holds a significant role in the space of investing: they do about 20 investments per year, and the average investment size is anywhere from $100,000 to $250,00. Dixon gives an inside peek into how Kapor makes its decisions.

This week, the EdSurge On Air podcast features three "Extra" editions focusing on investors: how they choose what to invest in, where the money is flowing, what personalization in schools means to them, and more. On this episode, we speak to Jennifer Carolan, a former educator who started a vertically-focused seed fund under New School Venture Fund as a non-profit back in early 2010, and has since made more than 15 investments. She talks impact investing, venture capital, and what efficacy really looks like in reality.

On April 5th, the city of Newark and Gadget Software, a company that aims to teach people how to build mobile apps, launched a joint venture to make mobile app development classes available to the entire Newark community. Using community centers as classrooms, both the city and the company hope to interest young students and adults alike in mobile programming. The question is, how many residents will take the time to participate in a 10 week class outside of school or work? We interviewed Seth Wainer, CIO of the Newark Office of Information Technology, about his hopes for the program, the problems he aims to fix, and what this initiative will do that a $100 million investment in education couldn't.

Technology can bring great benefit far outside the ecosystem of a city. Rural schools are often understaffed and underfunded, so digital courses can bring extra faculty in from afar, and inexpensive digital materials can provide much needed resources to students. That said, bringing technology infrastructure to a school far from a city is no easy task. However, one individual in particular knows a lot about how to run a rural school. Daisy Dyer Duerr is a former principal from Arkansas who’s now working with rural schools across the country on technology initiatives and training for teachers and administrators. She transformed her floundering Title I school without any technology into a top-performing school with cutting edge devices for its students. Check out the podcast to hear her story.

There are few people who know teachers and the art of teaching as well as Barnett Berry. He’s the founder and CEO of the Center for Teaching Quality, a national nonprofit that advances a high-quality public education system for all students, driven by the bold ideas and expert practices of teachers. Barnett’s two books, Teaching 2030 and Teacherpreneurs, frame his bold vision for the teaching profession’s future. But is it too bold? Perhaps downright impossible? A few weeks ago, The Center for Teaching Quality put out a new paper commissioned by the Ford Foundation, all about the concept of “deeper learning.” Barnett stopped by EdSurge to share some of the papers’ findings, but we wanted more. Barnett and his team make the argument in the paper that if we want to achieve deeper learning in the classroom, we need to do a better job developing teacher leaders. But does that mean they have to leave the classroom to become administrators? And where does technology play a role in all of this?

This week on the podcast, Betsy Corcoran interviews Eduardo Briceño, founder and CEO of Mindset Works, a company that takes university research and turns it into programs for schools. He's bullish on the growth mindset; that's what his company is named after. It's a concept that's becoming increasingly common in education debates today, and as it does, it becomes vulnerable to more misconceptions. We asked Eduardo to come and clarify somethings for us and talk about his own journey with the concept through the nine years Mindset Works has been around. Don't forget that you can subscribe to the podcast on all of your favorite podcast apps! To follow us on iTunes, just follow this linkinto iTunes and hit "subscribe"—if you have the podcast app on your phone, the show should automatically download the next time you open it. You can follow us on SoundCloud here or search for us on your favorite podcasting site.

With all this talk about candidates for Election 2016, it can be easy to forget that there’s someone else that’s had quite an impact—from a presidential perspective. And no, we’re not talking about Barack Obama. About three years ago, a 9-year-old donned a suit, gave America a pep talk, and became a viral sensation with his fresh take on dancing, politics and joy. That young fellow is Kid President, the central character of a popular YouTube channel produced by SoulPancake. In real life, Kid President is Robby Novak, a current 6th grader from Tennessee whose brother-in-law, Brad Montague, created the concept of Kid President with Robby back in 2013. During the recent CUE conference in Palm Springs, CA, Montague gave the opening keynote on March 17th to an auditorium overflowing with teachers and administrators from up and down the West Coast. His theme? How to be “awesome”—specifically, how Robby’s worked to bring joy into people’s lives, and how some of that joy gets lost when kids turn into adults. EdSurge got the opportunity to steal Montague away for a half hour, to better understand how his message relates to student voice.

When the popular children’s television show "Reading Rainbow" graced TV sets across America in the 90s, host LeVar Burton took students through a world of literature and storytelling. Today, he’s back at with the Reading Rainbow app. Back in 2014, LeVar announced that he would be returning to the reading game. Since then, he claims that readers have enjoyed over 20 million books and videos about reading. We spoke with LeVar to see what’s next for the app, what he’s reading and what he’s learned about adults from reading so much children’s literature.

On this week's podcast, Blake Montgomery has some lessons from his first SXSWedu and senior editor Mary Jo Madda interviews Eric Sheninger, a former principal of New Milford High School and current Senior Fellow at the International Center for Leadership in Education. After overcoming serious skepticism of edtech, Sheninger was responsible for implementing highly effective technology programs at New Milford. He’s since moved on to helping other schools do the same at the International Center for Leadership in Education. He emphasizes efficacy, data and accountability. Stay tuned till the end to hear his one essential piece of advice for edtech companies. Enjoy!

Sound the alarm! We’ve got a big, big dose of edtech trends for you, and we’re serving them up on a silver platter. On Wednesday, EdSurge launched the first round of our Edtech Trends 2016 report, sponsored by AT&T. Unlike those trend articles that pop up around December, when people share their guesses about what’ll be big in the new year, we talked to 20 administrators, 17 teachers, 24 companies, 16 investors, and 16 other edtech voices to figure out—what are people thinking and planning around right now? We have technically have eight trends in the report. However, for the sake of this podcast, we’re focusing on one big theme, and one that we hear about a lot. What’s the benefit of free products… vs. freemium? You know, those products where you get a part for free, but have to pay for other features? Listen in to find out.

In Episode 51, we're bringing you the edtech news and a deep dive into sexual assault on college campuses, specifically technology’s role in reporting it. Increasingly, survivors of sexual assault and the federal government are demanding that universities provide more prevention, reporting options and counseling. Can tech create scalable and useful solutions even as some universities sweep accusations and convictions under the rug? We interviewed chief development officer of Sexual Health Innovations (SHI), a company that makes an online reporting tool for survivors of sexual assault in college, and a Stanford student involved with the company. You'll hear their thoughts on tech's current and future role in reporting the crime and the sharp criticisms they face.

Larry Cuban—whose been a teacher, a superintendent, and more—is an academic whose thoughts and feelings about edtech are the ones we’re featuring on the EdSurge podcast today. Cuban’s writings have great impact and reach in the education. Every year, Rick Hess put out an “Edu-Scholar Public Influence ranking.” The metrics recognize university-based scholars in the U.S. who are contributing most substantially to public debates about education. And Larry Cuban, a former Stanford university professor, makes the top ten list every single year. Talking with him in person reveals a whole new light about who he is as a voice and as a teacher. In this interview, we hear his thoughts on venture-backed companies, technology in education, and more.

EdSurge has been all over the place these last few weeks— from the Educon conference in Philadelphia to Washington D.C. for Teach for America’s 25th anniversary Summit. And in each place, the conversations have been anything but boring. When it comes to big themes, one particular conversation caught our attention. Summit Public Schools CEO Diane Tavenner and founder of Deans for Impact Benjamin Riley went head to head on whether “personalized learning” is the answer to solving the achievement gap. We were there to catch a few sound bytes.

The term on everyone's lips these days is “adaptive learning:" Proponents promise the technology has the ability to improve educational experiences in personal, efficient and scalable ways. It's unclear, though, what the inner workings of the technology look like. We called some of our expert friends and asked them to talk about how adaptive learning works in their fields, and they spoke at our recent meetup in San Francisco. We heard from EdSurge's president Tyler McNally about our recent research on adaptive learning and several others: Jennie Dougherty—Associate Director of Innovation, KIPP Bay Area Angela Estrella—Teacher, Instructional Coach and Parent James Harrell—Talent Development Manager, Oakland Unified School District Johann Larusson—Lead, Center for Digital Data, Analytics and Adaptive Learning, Pearson Elena Sanina—Senior Manager of Blended Learning, Aspire Public Schools Esther Tricoche—Associate Partner, New School Venture Fund Missed the meetup? Not to worry. We recorded the talks along with the news from this week so you can catch up on both.

We're bringing you the latest in edtech from the week of January 23-30: Pearson and Scholastic's dark and stormy night on the stock market, Coursera's new fees, your weekly Ka'Chings and more.