Education reform through research and quantitative analysis
On Tuesday, Lenovo announced the global education research initiative in partnership with Intel and Microsoft. Our hope is that the findings will identify the best practices regarding all aspects of technology’s relationship with education. Both quantitative and qualitative research will show what works and, equally important, what doesn’t. The areas of research will address the critical areas of technology in education:
- Professional Development
- Leadership Development
- Vocational Education
- Authentic and Academically-Rigorous eLearning
- Multilingual Collaboration
- 1:1 Computing
- After-School Programs
- 21st Century Skills-Enhanced Curricula
These will be studied on a global scale. While each research center will set its own assessment metrics, a centrally-managed system will study common metrics across all of the centers. In addition to the quant instrument findings, we hope to answer the following key questions: Who benefits most from technology – teachers, students or administration? What is the appropriate grade-level to introduce devices? What is the most engaging and effective way to teach students of various levels? How can we effectively stem the drop-out rate? What is the best way to prepare students for a 21st century world? How do we prepare school leaders to adapt within a dramatically different environment? We will publish an annual report and provide project scorecards on a quarterly basis.
The center selection process was thorough, and we believe that the best practitioners in each area have been selected. In the coming months, we’ll be releasing more details about the centers and the advisory board. In the near term, Lenovo will be naming an additional research center in the southern hemisphere and seven additional subject schools around the world.
Lenovo is a truly global enterprise which is dedicated to enhancing education through the innovative use of technology. ThinkPad University turns 16 this year, we just wrapped up the 12th annual ThinkTank conference and we’ll ship our 4 millionth education laptop in August. Worldsourcing is what we do as a company, whose tenets we will now apply to systemic global education reform. Our investments in education fulfill the promise of continued innovation in the value we bring to our partner schools, colleges, universities and governments around the world.
“Any general statement is like a check drawn on a bank. Its value depends on what is there to meet it.”
-Ezra Pound
