Vice rector for education affairs at BI Norwegian Business School is confirmed for our panel discussions, June 14th and June 15th: Dag Morten Dalen has been at BI since 1998. He has a background from working at the Frisch Center, and also the Parliament – Stortinget. He will add and important dimension – so we´re excited about that. An economist with a PhD from the University of Oslo, Dag Morten will help us shed light on the economic and institutional aspects of education´s digital future. We tend to pay a lot of attention to uses of digital media, classroom studies and didactical issues. But what about the economic? Clearly, the ascent of effective and interactive technologies will also have a huge and building impact on education economies. BI in Oslo is perhaps the one institution in Norway that has had the most systematic focus on organisational change when it comes to integration of new learning technologies — through their efforts at BI Learning Lab. We will hear more during the summit.
Maria Amelie to the World Learning Summit
Some of you will remember the story of Maria Amelie, from when she made a media splash in 2011. To some she is a new name. Most do not know that since 2011, Maria has made a space for herself as a blogger, a bookwriter, a journalist and a speaker. And we are very, very fortunate to have her join us at the upcoming summit in Kristiansand, June 14th.
Less well known by her real name, Madina Salamova, Maria came to Norway via Finland with her family, in 2002. The family´s application for visa and residence was rejected, as was their appeal. After that last verdict, the family went into hiding. In 2010 Maria published a book about her family´s existence as illegal residents. The book, Illegally Norwegian, became a controversial media issue. Maria was named “Norwegian of the year” in 2010. Her blogposts started to get attention. In 2011 she was arrested after a speaking engagement, and subsequently deported to Russia. A period of intense media mobilisation, protests and support events started.
A long story, and also a media spectacle, ended when she was given residency rights in 2011, after which she took up working with the magazine Teknisk Ukeblad, in Oslo. Maria is now working freelance, among other things on a book centering on technology and entrepreneurship in Norway.
But why here — at the World Learning Summit? The answer is simple: Maria Amelie has a unique insight into the realities of being mobile, young and on the margins of society — her visions and ideas about the future of learning are truly original, for exactly that reason. We hope many more will come to listen to her.
Maria is the bestselling author of three books on immigration and freedom of speech. For the last five years she has been writing about technology and entrepreneurship, following the tech scene in Oslo where she lives, closely. As she says: Her main goal is “to put Norway on the start-up map”. And more: “The challenge of being a refugee and how you tackle it can be a great advantage for life as an entrepreneur, later”.
And you know — the great sociologist Robert Ezra Park said the same about Norwegian immigrants to the United States in the 1930´s.
It´s about time we also take refugees and immigrants seriously as a resource and not only a problem in Norway, so welcome to you — Maria. 
WeVideo to Kristiansand
Happy to announce Erik Ræstad as speaker on our presentation of Nordic EdTech companies, on June 14th. Erik is the managing director of We Video in Europe, the Middle East and Asia. He has been part of WeVideo since the establishment of the company back in 2011.
He discovered WeVideo as a former strategy consultant in the media sector, working with digitalization of newspapers. Now, Erik spends most of his time supporting educators and journalists with digital storytelling – as a learning platform or a means to communicate news.
We at the Future Learning Lab discovered WeVideo in California in 2012, not too long after the company was launched. WeVideo is a great Norwegian entrepreneur story! We urge everyone to check out their website and approach to learning. And we look forward to hearing more at the summit. By 2016, WeVideo is a cloud-based collaborative video and visualization tool with millions of users, preferred by Google, Disney and many other global companies.
But it all started at Bryn, in Oslo….
One of the key players is also the founder of the Fronter LMS. No kidding. More on their blog and homepage.
A teacher, a learner; do you have a story to tell?
Here is a blogpost from Future Learning Lab´s home website: The collaboration below will be presented at the World Learning Summit, in Kristiansand June 14th-16th.
- Future Learning Lab in partnership with EdCast to launch Global Educator Teach‐A‐Thon
- Competition to award grand prize of $100,000 to inspire educators to share their knowledge in 10 min.
SAN DIEGO, April 19, 2016 – Future Learning Lab has partnered with EdCast to announce the launch of the Global Educator Teach‐A‐Thon, a new annual competition for educators to showcase the impact and power of social learning technology.
Designed to challenge professional and independent educators to embrace the sharing economy, The Global Educator Teach‐A‐Thon is the first ever open‐knowledge viral challenge to help students and adults worldwide to learn from free open content. Educators and those with a passion for a specific subject or discipline are invited to demonstrate their teaching acumen by recording and uploading short video lessons from their smartphone. The educator(s) who garner the highest user engagement will win the grand prize of $100,000. Additional partners include: Arizona State University, The KIPP Foundation, Reach Newschools Capital, Pencils of Promise, the Sustainable Development Solutions Network, Teach For All, Teach For America, and Tata Trusts.
“We’re thrilled to team up with EdCast on the Global Educator Teach‐A‐Thon,” says Oddgeir Tveiten, Founder of Future Learning Lab. “The competition gives educators a fantastic venue to share their knowledge and have an impact on lifelong learners all over the world.”
“We’re challenging the status quo when it comes to the way we share and retain knowledge,” says Karl Mehta, CEO of EdCast. “This global competition is about pushing the boundaries of social innovation, and encouraging people from around the world to use their creativity to make learning the ultimate shared experience.”
How it works
Participation is free, and all interested applicants can visit www.edcast.com/corp/GET for more information. All interested educators will be contacted regarding their selection to participate.
About EdCast
EdCast is a social knowledge network built to enhance the human ability to learn and get smarter. EdCast Knowledge NetworksTM power social, mobile and cloud‐based learning for world‐class institutions, enterprises, governments and nonprofits and enables millions of lifelong learners to gain knowledge every day. The EdCast executive team has a track record of building large‐scale transformational technology; all are passionate about the global impact of mobile and online learning. EdCast is a Stanford StartX company backed by tier one VC firms. The Company is based in Mountain View CA, with offices worldwide.
Two views on education
The following is an excerpt from the New York Times (August 16th, 2014) that we think deserves attention in the build-up to World Learning Summit 216. Read the rest on this link.
TODAY’S education reformers believe that schools are broken and that business can supply the remedy. Some place their faith in the idea of competition. Others embrace disruptive innovation, mainly through online learning. Both camps share the belief that the solution resides in the impersonal, whether it’s the invisible hand of the market or the transformative power of technology.
Neither strategy has lived up to its hype, and with good reason. It’s impossible to improve education by doing an end run around inherently complicated and messy human relationships. All youngsters need to believe that they have a stake in the future, a goal worth striving for, if they’re going to make it in school. They need a champion, someone who believes in them, and that’s where teachers enter the picture. The most effective approaches foster bonds of caring between teachers and their students.
Marketplace mantras dominate policy discussions. High-stakes reading and math tests are treated as the single metric of success, the counterpart to the business bottom line. Teachers whose students do poorly on those tests get pink slips, while those whose students excel receive merit pay, much as businesses pay bonuses to their star performers and fire the laggards. Just as companies shut stores that aren’t meeting their sales quotas, opening new ones in more promising territory, failing schools are closed and so-called turnaround model schools, with new teachers and administrators, take their place.