On October 29th, the Wireless EdTech Conference will convene in Washington, D.C. to explore the impact of wireless communications will have on the policy and process of education.  The conference will be co-hosted by Harvard GSE professor (and Lenovo favorite) Chris Dede, as well as Qualcomm’s Chairman and CEO, Dr. Paul E. Jacobs.

More than 300 leaders in education, technology and policy from government organizations, non-profits and the private sector will convene at the conference. All senior-level visionaries who are or would like to become actively involved in the future of wireless education are invited to attend.

One of the organizers of Wireless EdTech, Marie Bjerede, has been a driving force in education reform in the US.  As Vice President of Wireless Education Technologies at Qualcomm, she has been involved with a myriad of projects from rural North Carolina to sunny San Diego and beyond.  I’ve asked her to answer some quick questions about the conference.

Hello, Marie!  Can you tell me why this conference is important to education at this point in the technological and geopolitical timeframe?

Of course, Michael.  As you know we are at a unique crossroads for education.  There is the political will to invest in the future of education through Race to the Top, i3, and other funding sources.  There is a national vision for teaching and learning that are beautifully outlined by the National Education Technology Plan and the National Broadband Plan.  And, for the first time in history, there are mature technologies such as mobile broadband systems that can support that vision.  The learning sciences have been telling us for decades that kids learn best by doing, that the best learning is personalized to each student, and that learning becomes richest through give-and-take with peers, mentors, experts, indeed a whole learning community.  For the first time in history, we have the technology to enable students to take charge of their learning using the same tools professionals use to take charge of their professional work, for personalized lessons to be delivered to each student anywhere, anytime, and for students to stay connected to their learning community 24/7 to help and challenge each other with assignments and projects.The pieces are all in place, but they haven’t yet been put together.  The 50,000 foot level vision of the National Education Technology Plan is compelling and achievable.  Leaders in the learning sciences are doing their part as are policy makers, schools of education, instructional designers, content developers, educators, academics, and others.  Those of us on the technology side need to bring our voices to the conversation about what technology can do today and will support over the next several years.  This conference brings together a deliberately diverse set of stakeholders to help catalyze the conversation about bringing the vision of the NETP from 50,000 feet to 30,000 feet.  All of us from the technology side hold a piece of the puzzle to realizing the vision.  To extend the metaphor, I would call it a “corner piece” and we have a responsibility to put it on the table with the rest of the pieces the field has gathered and to collectively see how they fit.

What are the job roles of people who would get value from the conference?  What type of organizations do you expect to be represented?

This conference is about cross-pollination and participation.  There will be speakers and panels that will talk about real world examples and challenges in implementing both the human and technological infrastructure for teaching and learning with wireless education technologies.  There will also be sessions where attendees have the opportunity to interactively focus on overcoming the challenges.  As I speak with leaders in education I am seeing an infectious optimism that quickly turns from obstacles to pragmatic problem solving.  This conference is for anyone, regardless of role, who is excited about the potential of wireless technologies for teaching and learning.  We expect to see a very wide range of attendees from policy makers to publishers to technologists to school districts and states who are responsible for implementing the infrastructure for education that will determine what schools look like for the next several decades.  We expect to see change agents from a wide array of both likely and unlikely places.

US Dept of Education just awarded lots of Race to the Top funding.  What impact will wireless have on the deployment and assessment of these projects?

Race to the Top is powerful because it is prioritizing reform at the state level.  The focus on standards and assessments and data systems creates the potential for something that has never been possible before today’s technology.  When kids have personal devices that let them connect to the internet 24/7, they can use them to collaborate and access lessons and assessments.  With careful implementation to secure privacy, data on the effectiveness of digital content and student growth can be captured on a massive scale and used by teachers to personalize instruction, by publishers to improve content, and by researchers to improve the learning sciences.  States that are leaders in education reform have the opportunity to take into account the evolution of technology over the next several years and invest in infrastructures that support these kinds of data-driven feedback loops.

Final question: why is High Tech High so awesome?

High Tech High has something that is talked about in education and that we in industry can learn from: a true community of practice with visionary leadership.  High Tech High focuses last on high stakes testing and first on values such as “we learn best by doing”, “student work should be shared publicly”, and “ every student will be known by a caring adult.”  The educators at High Tech High meet daily for an hour to reflect on their practice – both day-to-day details and high level principles – and constantly set the bar higher.  They have evolved an amazing culture where students learn through long-term cross-disciplinary projects and all are accepted to college. They share their work openly with any who are interested and continually experiment, rigorously keeping practices that improve student outcomes and ruthlessly discarding those that don’t.  I’m excited to collaborate with them over this next year on a project to put mobile devices into the hands of students and teachers.  High Tech High believes that 24/7 connectivity will be important to student collaboration, which goes to the heart of their values, and will also experiment with intelligent tutoring systems in the hopes that less classroom time spent in drill on the basics will leave more time for meaningful projects.  I absolutely look up to that team!

Thank you, Marie!  I look forward to seeing you in October at the conference! To register for the conference or for more information, visit http://wirelessedtech.com