Category Archives: Mirror Network

Have you met Kevin?

Well you should. He made me realize how we all have a digital voice that needs to be taken care off. Should it be to get a new job, to share a message or to launch your company, there is always a point in your life when you are going to need an online you. Yes we almost all have a Facebook or LinkedIn page but is it enough still to really share who you are? Not really. And that’s why Kevin works on helping people find and unleash their digital voice.

Check out his profile.

http://kevin-oconnell.com/

And an interesting blog on the topic: http://www.socialnomics.net/

There are many charter schools now available to families in the US but not so many in underprivileged neighborhoods, specially schools offering personalized learning as well as creating a real learning community. That’s what Rocketship is doing.

Innovation is essential to the founding team and clearly visible through the learning labs, the rotational models and the blended learning options they have created. They work hard in order to eliminate the achievement gap in the US within our lifetime. They have strong partners from the Tech world and that reflects their commitment to keep including all the best new digital options in their models.

A real Ed-business, doing well by doing good. Let’s hope they will manage to scale up while maintaining the right balance between their human touch and the use of e-learning tools.

http://www.rsed.org/

Project Zero was founded by the philosopher Nelson Goodman at the Harvard Graduate School of Education in 1967 to study and improve education in the arts. Goodman believed that arts learning should be studied as a serious cognitive activity, but that « zero » had yet been firmly established about the field; hence, the project was given its name.

Over the years, Project Zero has maintained a strong research agenda in the arts while gradually expanding to include investigations into the nature of intelligence, understanding, thinking, creativity, cross-disciplinary and cross-cultural thinking, and ethics. The organization has conducted dozens of major research initiatives, published over 90 books and hundreds of articles and reports, and collaborated with countless partners. Project Zero’s work takes place nationally and internationally, in a variety of settings; while much of the research occurs in schools, an increasing amount is focused on businesses, cultural organizations such as museums, and online. In addition, Project Zero offers symposia and workshops, most notably the annual summer institutes.

Panorama helps America’s leading schools collect, analyze, and act on feedback using student, teacher, and parent surveys.

The company was founded by 3 Yale young graduates who went straight to Y combinator incubator in California as they clearly were targeting a high potential market. They wanted to enable schools to gather feedback from teachers, students and parents to improve their culture and processes. Consultants are expensive and feedbacks are not personalized. Panorama made it possible to create surveys (online or on paper) and to receive concrete analysis of the responses. More than 5000 schools are now using the software as a device and Mark Zuckerberg is one of their investors.

https://www.panoramaed.com/

This well known physicist and futurist shares with us in his latest book all the new frontiers of neuro-sciences. Artificial intelligence, alien consciousness, brain nets, mental illness, immortality, etc. Get the grand tour and discover this approachable scientific description of what the future holds for our brains.

Only, as Adam Frank (astrophysics professor at the University of Rochester) wrote in the NYTimes about the book: « On the ethical front, Kaku does an admirable job of at least raising the troubling issues inherent in the technologies he describes, but there’s one critical question he misses entirely. The deployment of new technologies tends to create their own realities and values. If we treat minds like meat-computers, we may end up in a world where that’s the only aspect of their nature we perceive or value. »

http://mkaku.org/home/publications/about-the-future-of-the-mind/

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/09/books/review/michio-kakus-future-of-the-mind.html?_r=1

The world is buzzing. We are surrounded by so much noise everyday, ads, news, emails,… But yet we never quite have the impression that we have a voice. Social networks have been amazing at liberating the parole and in helping populations even to express themselves but still most conversations are more about daily entertainment and you can only share messages with people you already know. State aims at changing that. On this website you can share your thoughts with the whole world. No limits to push your thoughts forward and having an impact. You can start a debate, rally people around your idea, and the more you state the stronger your network becomes. State enables you to see what people really think about a topic, no need for hashtags and targeted prose. Free thinking, free talking, free sharing, this might lead to some major global waves and building. The floor is ours ! https://state.com/

A solution to learn a new language and open up new worlds.

Should you be a kid, an adult, a professional, Rosetta Stone will have an online and a mobile set of solutions ready for you to learn new languages in a fun and efficient way. Technology once again helping people to connect better, well done.

http://www.rosettastone.com/

You don’t know what to do? You want to change jobs? You want to be promoted? We always have many questions about our careers and we never know where to find the right answers. We look and we look again, we ask friends and try to gather the best information but it takes time and isn’t very efficient.

The Muse is the answer to all these questions. It helps you define your goals, it enables you to find out about current job opportunities and it provides you with the tools to seize them. A perfect and efficient combination.

Don’t get stuck with a job you don’t love!

https://www.themuse.com

New Schools Venture Fund is a venture philanthropy firm that raises money on one hand from individuals and organizations and invests it in promising startups and companies on the other. They believe that they can foster change in the educational sector by encouraging bold and innovative entrepreneurs. They put a strong focus on evaluating the impact of the models they invest in and have a very highly professional selection process before investing. Of course, it is not only about the money and the team shares its broad experience and wise expertise with the organizations they accompany. They currently have 5 investment funds and just launched an initiative we already mentioned to promote online learning games called co.lab. They also make sure to share their systemic approach to change by organizing the NewSchools Summit every year where they invite educators, politicians, entrepreneurs to share perspectives and best practices.

New Schools Venture Fund facilitates innovation and change for the educational sector. An international pendant of this organization would be a good idea…

http://www.newschools.org/

An incredible opportunity in NYC for Edtech startups to rise and shine.

12 selected companies. Top mentors. 170K$ in initial funding. Access to Kaplan’s user base and research resources. Offices. Worldwide investors.

Few words suffice to understand that, indeed, this accelerator will most certainly help the educational sector by encouraging innovation and groundbreaking technologies. Check out the alumni it speaks for itself.

http://kaplanedtechaccelerator.com/