Date: Tuesday, March 8th, 2011
Time: 5pm Pacific / 8pm Eastern / 1am GMT (next day--international times here)
Duration: 1 hour
Location: In Elluminate. Log in at http://tr.im/futureofed. The Elluminate room will be open up to 30 minutes before the event if you want to come in early. To make sure that your computer is configured for Elluminate, please visit http://www.elluminate.com/support. Recordings of the session will be posted within a day of the event at the event page.
Event and Recording Page: http://www.learncentral.org/node/142204
Don Smithmier is the founder and CEO of Sophia, which was created on the premise that there are millions of great ideas, methods, lessons and people who can contribute to society’s goal of spreading knowledge and making education better and more effective. His goal is to use innovation to bring education and technology together in an impactful way for students, teachers, parents, tutors and more.Previously, Don was an early‐stage employee and ultimately Vice President at Capella University (NSDQ: CPLA), the first fully-online, accredited university. During his 14 years at Capella, Don held a succession of Marketing, Technology and Business leadership roles and was recognized as a pioneer in online advertising and the innovative use of web technologies. Don is a winner of the Minneapolis St. Paul Business Journal’s “40 Under 40” and founder of Matter Worldwide (www.matterworldwide.com), the parent company of three successful start‐ups including GoKart Labs, the digital innovation company that incubated and built Sophia. Don earned his MBA with honors from the University of Minnesota and his BA from the University of Wisconsin.
From the website: "Sophia enables innovation by connecting learners, teachers, experts and parents. We provide an academic community where everyone has access to learning that surrounds and supports the traditional classroom. We encourage variety and creativity in teaching so that everyone can learn in a way that makes sense to them."Sophia is a social teaching and learning platform that taps the teacher in all of us and enhances the learning process by providing access to a wealth of knowledge, help, instruction, standards-aligned content, and expertise available to learners everywhere.
"We want to harness technology for the betterment of the educational system as a whole. We can all help others learn. And Sophia’s mission is to be a catalyst in this educational movement."
