Few people know how to start a movement like educator-turned-entrepreneur Adam Bellow. EdSurge had a chance to catch up with Bellow at ISTE13 and took away more than a few lessons learned.
Bellow founded both Educlipper and Edutecher. (Here's a profile of Bellow that EdSurge ran earlier this year.) This year Bellow is ISTE's grand finale keynote speaker, closing the show on Wednesday afternoon. He's also a strong advocate of using small efforts to lead to true impact and change.
Last year during one of Bellow's ISTE presentations, for example, he illustrated this point by giving $1 to every person in the audience--about $400. Adam challenged everyone to take that dollar and start some small movement at his or her own school and then tweet him about the project, or to return the dollar with the option of contributing more. At the end of the session, Adam collected $800, twice what he gave out, and received multiple emails and tweets from folks who had chosen to start a small movement in their own communities.
This year, Bellow showed up at ISTE sporting Google Glass. (Google knows a thing or two about throwing a contest to allow customers the privilege of buying a product--brilliant and more than a little bit Tom Sawyeresque!) There are obvious applications to education. Teachers could see questions sent by their students digitally, easily capture student activities through video or camera, track student behavior. Imagine Class Dojo integrated into Google Glass!
"Because Glass technology is so unobtrusive, it has the potential to remove barriers. Because it's voice-activated a teacher could quickly retrieve an answer using Glass while still keeping the flow of the class. Students could unobtrusively send a teacher a question they might not have otherwise," says Bellow.
ISTE13 #ThroughGlass from AdamBellow.
He adds: "The Google chat feature allows me to share with up to 10 others what I'm seeing and experiencing, giving it the potential to create more connections among people. Students could share their perspective with other students around the world. It gives whole new meaning to understanding someone else's perspective. I'm waiting to see students using Glass to make movies of their experience of the world and sharing it with others. "
There are, of course, still major privacy issues to be sorted out around Google Glass. But it does feel like the beginning of another sort of movement.
Adam shared that his ISTE keynote on Wednesday (2:45 to 4pm) will be all new material. Check out our report tomororw of Adam's closing keynote--including a two-minute clip that he created of his Glass experience!
