Making Education Relevant: Finding solutions to our toughest challenges in education

ISKME's Big Ideas Fest is the starting point for a movement that supports innovation in education at a time when the need to accelerate high-quality learning is truly essential for our country and our future. The goal of this unique three-day meeting of experts and creative doers and thinkers is to spotlight, challenge and change the ways in which education can be made relevant to learning in the post-industrial world. The goal is to increase relevance beyond the sidelines of society and within the unique classrooms of the world, while placing learning at the front and center of all that we do.

When

December 6-9^th, 2009
The Ritz-Carlton, Half Moon Bay, California

Why

Learning can happen any time, any place. Today is not just any time, though.

There is a common assumption that learning is both at the core of education and at the center of all educational experiences. Yet our once well-fitted industrial era education systems are fraying around the edges, and in some cases have all but collapsed. Increasing numbers of children leave high school before graduation, adults look to re-tool in an Internet-based world, consultants are replaced by crowd sourcing, and global teams of freelancers solve pressing problems. Are our current education systems relevant to these changing times? How can we better forge the link between formal and informal education? For example, can we learn from the students who spend hours immersed in gaming yet spend no time on homework? Do all people who want to learn, no matter what their age, have access to high quality materials and resources? Do our systems adequately provide links from education to the workforce, in terms of accurately assessing and preparing us to live and work in the YouTube world? And what can we learn from other sectors that will enable us to make our education systems serve both learners and society as a whole?

Certainly, the worldwide recession has jolted all of us to attention amidst a growing lack of confidence in our public and private institutions. Each day the vulnerability of our basic services becomes more apparent, particularly in the education sector. It is within this context that we are calling on a diverse set of doers, makers, and advocates who are eager to explore creative, bold, edgy ideas in order to develop and implement the most standout approaches. Enter: Big Ideas Fest.

Who

The Big Ideas Fest is an event that will provide the stimuli necessary to empower diverse stakeholders to design and pursue solutions to our most challenging educational dilemmas. This includes teachers, faculty, researchers, administrators, trustees, students, parents and policy-makers. Within a facilitated and interactive environment, we are particularly intent on crossing and merging existing silos within education, as well as building strong networks with outside audiences and benefactors of education, including foundations, community organizations, for-profit corporations, social entrepreneurs, and private institutions.