LessonCast helps learning communities design professional development that targets specific needs and changes instructional practice. We support a continuum of professional learning that spans support for teachers new to the classroom, experienced teachers with expertise to share, and leaders guiding a community in improving instruction. The Common Core Conundrum – Why We Can Set the How or the What but not Both
2013-05-02 12:17:50
Once upon a time, I learned that in leading a school initiative I could specify the how or I could s...
Archive for October 2011
Front-End, Back-End?: Tech Roles Defined for Teachers
Often Startup Weekend organizers will encourage participants to place different colored stickers on their nametags to indicate the skill sets they bring or the role they want to play over the weekend. For example, a green dot may designate an educator, while red would be a developer. This helps immensely if you have the beginning of a team but are missing a key role; you can actively seek participants with the color sticker you want. Educator: This category includes K-12 teachers, administrators, higher ed professors and administrators, and occasionally other kinds of educators. …
What Teachers Need to Know about the Lean Startup Model
This is for any educators out there interested in participating in DC Startup Weekend EDU this weekend or any others in the future! I plan on continuing to add to this Ed Tech Glossary, so please let me know if I’ve missed something or an idea needs clarification. Though an experienced teacher and administrator, I was a complete novice when I joined a founding startup team. I didn’t know lean startup from Lean Cuisine. Customer validation was making sure to get my parking validated at a restaurant in Inner Harbor, and …
10 Tips for First-Time Educators at Startup Weekend EDUs
A year ago I would not have known anything about Startup Weekends or most of the terms I’ll be sharing in the short series I’ll be writing over the next few days in anticipation of DC Startup Weekend EDU. As a teacher and administrator, I wasn’t connected to the world of startups; I had to climb a steep learning curve when I began working on an edtech startup. I’m hoping to make this process easier for other educators joining the EdTech movement, especially those who want to participate in the …
Hacker and Teacher: The Perfect Match By Audrey Watters
LessonCast was featured in an NPR article as an Edtech company launched through Startup Weekend Education that is still going strong. Hacker and Teacher: The Perfect Match Audrey Watters NPR KQED Mind/Shift Last weekend, at the Washington, DC Startup Weekend EDU, it was clear that teachers are starting to play a more important role in these intense entrepreneur-fests. For those unfamiliar with Startup Weekend, here’s the general idea: entrepreneurs have 54 hours — from Friday night until Sunday afternoon — to pitch an idea, assemble a team, and build and …
An Educator in Seattle
As one of the 3 or 4 educators (who also traveled across the country to participate), I have such mixed feelings about the StartUp Weekend EDU in Seattle. First, I want to be clear that I had a wonderful experience, the event ran well (Thanks TeachStreet and www.StartUp Weekend.org!), and I couldn’t have asked for a better team. My frustration came from the pitches minimal connection to education and the decided lack of educators present, as Audrey Watters aptly stated. Perhaps sharing my thought process during and directly after the …
Encouraging Ed-tech Entrepreneurs
Last weekend, two-thirds of the LessonCast co-founding team attended the Startup Weekend Education (SW EDU) event in Seattle. Also in attendance was Audrey Watters, who writes about the need for more educators to attend these events focused on ed-tech entrepreneurship. As a newbie in the ed-tech space, I have a few ideas. I participated in one of these amazing, exhausting, rollercoaster rides at SW EDU in San Francisco last June. The Friday leading into the 54-hour event I was so nervous. I felt completely out of my league and worried …
