Creative Cluster: Silicon Valley

Education Week

By Tom Vander Ark

The 20-mile stretch from Stanford University to San Jose, Calif. produces more innovation than any place on the planet. As Richard Florida noted, the unique confluence of a great R1 University, venture investors, tech talent, and great quality of life make it a creative hotspot.

By itself, Silicon Valley is just short (by my index) of Manhattan for top innovation hotspot. If you add San Francisco and Oakland (considered last week), the Bay Area is by far the most important creative cluster of learning innovators on the planet.

District innovation? Unlike New York City schools that blossomed as a source of innovation under Joel Klein, Silicon Valley districts appear less innovative. One reason for this Creative Cities project is to explore the limited and slow vertical innovation diffusion--the interplay (or lack thereof) between the layers in the innovation stack.

One district program I appreciate is Esther Wojcicki's journalism program at Palo Alto High. It's the kind of writing and new media publishing experience all young people deserve. (Let me know about other innovative schools and programs.)

OER HQ. The Valley is world headquarters for open educational resources (OER). Nonprofit content providers are expanding options and exerting price pressure on the big guys. Consider a partial list:

• Khan Academy : 3100 instructional videos and counting. Perhaps more importantly, Sal is teaching us how competency-based learning works
• Google : Free email, productivity tools, course developer, maps, and more
• CK12 : Free secondary math and science flexbooks and test prep content
• Gooru Learning : Grade level resources; and
• Curriki and OER Commons: Libraries of more than 40,000 open resources.

EdTech Central. Mountain View accelerator ImagineK12 has supported the development of 30 edtech startups including Class Dojo.

Learn Capital (where I'm a partner) has an office in San Mateo and has supported 30 startups including 11 locals including leading social learning platform Edmodo, professional development platform Bloomboard, online study group OpenStudy, and peer-to-peer language tutoring siteVerbling.

Piazza is a Bessemer backed higher ed social learning platform that started on the Stanford campus. Education Elements in Santa Clara is a pioneer in blended learning solutions. Their single sign-on platform allows schools to combine web 2.0 content with a single front end and reporting system.

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