Author: Palmer Media
After graduating from college, Mike Marriner travelled across America with two college friends in an old, green RV. Along the way, they interviewed leaders across a wide array of fields and occupations to learn how folks got to where they were. That first trip resulted in the book Roadtrip Nation: A Guide to Discovering Your Road in Life and soon after the founding of Road Trip Nation where Mike and team now provide that experiential learning experience to other students. They’ve been featured on PBS and across major media over the past 20 years. In a wide-ranging conversation, we touch…
Dr. April Willis joins Mike to talk about the work she and team are doing at the National Virtual Teachers Association (NVTA) to help teachers manage the difficult transition to teaching online. April recounts her experiences beginning in the classroom and then moving across various roles in education before joining the NVTA to help establish best practices for virtual instruction. What began prior to the pandemic accelerated quickly in response to the tremendous spike in demand. April shares her perspective on how virtual instruction will continue to play a critical role in the learning ecosystem long beyond the pandemic and…
Abby Schneiderman and Gene Newman from Everplans join Mike to talk about their new book In Case You Get Hit By A Bus: How to Organize Your Life Now for When You’re Not Around Later. We begin by getting the origin story of Everplans based on Abby’s experiences as a tech entrepreneur and as someone who faced unexpected challenges when her brother suddenly died at age 51. We learn how Abby and Adam Seifer, her Co-founder, created Everplans and how they brought in Gene to help write the book and begin to educate folks on how to navigate the difficult…
In this episode, we’re excited to welcome Dr. Bridget Burns to Trending in Education to talk about innovation in higher education. Named one of the “Most Innovative People in Higher Education” by Washington Monthly, Bridget is the founding Executive Director of the University Innovation Alliance (UIA). The UIA is the groundbreaking national consortium of public research universities working together to test and scale innovations that close achievement gaps and improve outcomes for all students. Since its founding in 2014, the UIA campuses have increased their low-income degrees awarded by 37% (producing over 30,000 additional low-income graduates to date) and increased…
Dr. Mordecai Brownlee proudly serves as the Vice President for Student Success at St. Philip’s College. St. Phillips holds the distinction of being the only institution granted both HBCU and HSI status. He also serves as adjunct faculty at Morgan State University School of Education & Urban Studies and the University of Charleston School of Business & Leadership. In addition, Mordecai is an education columnist with EdSurge and has authored recent articles on Financial Literacy and Co-Requisite Developmental Education that form the foundation of his conversation with Mike Palmer in this episode. We begin by hearing what got Mordecai to…
Michelle Weise is the author of Long Life Learning: Preparing for Jobs That Don’t Even Exist Yet. Michelle is also a Senior Advisor at the philanthropic investment group, Imaginable Futures. On this episode, she joins Mike Palmer to discuss her new book and how we can reimagine our learning ecosystem in response to longer lifespans, automation, and rapid transformation of the 21st Century. We begin with Michelle’s origin story, how she moved from being an English professor into educational technology including stints at Clayton Christensen’s Institute for Disruptive Innovation, Southern New Hampshire University, and Strada Education Network. Michelle notes the…
Mike is joined by Bryanne Leeming, CEO of Unruly Studios, and creator of Unruly Splats. Bryanne begins by explaining the origins of Unruly Splats. Her early exposure to programming was key, as was the entrepreneurialism of her parents and her childhood involvement in sports. After graduating from college, she worked in product development. Seeing the interesting but often passive experiences offered by many Edtech products, Bryanne founded Unruly Studios. Bryanne describes Splats as “programmable floor buttons”. They’re stomped on by kids to cause interactions, and kids can program them to create new games. Originally prototyped while she was still in business school,…
Ryan Craig joins Mike to discuss his work at Achieve Partners and as a Senior Education Contributor to Forbes and other publications. He’s the author of College Disrupted and A New U and is a forward-thinking voice on the future of post-secondary education. We discuss his articles about IUP and Quibi and the recent kerfuffle about Dr. Jill Biden, among other topics, as we zero in on the challenges higher education faces and how we can evolve both within and perhaps more importantly outside of it in a wide-ranging and informative conversation. Ryan and the team at Achieve Partners are…
Miles Iton joins Mike Palmer to talk about how he’s incorporated Hip Hop into his EFL (English as a Foreign Language) training programs. Miles is the Founder and Program Director at Lo-Fi Language Learning. Lo-Fi Language Learning is a version of n.e.Bodied Entertainment’s Freestyle + Floetry tutorial fitted to an EFL (English as a Foreign Language) curriculum. Founded in 2019 after winning Distinguished Honors (1st Prize) at the National University of Science & Technology’s Be Young Beyond Startup Competition in Taipei, Taiwan, Lo-Fi looks to shake up the landscapes of both classroom English learning and the hip-hop scene out East.…
Mike welcomes Jeff Gothelf, author of Forever Employable: How to Stop looking for Work and Let Your Next Job Find You.Jeff starts by talking about his early days in rock’n’roll and Web 1.0. Leading a design team in the early days, he and his team had to find a way to match their processes to the then ascendent agile software development process. Jeff was then able to leverage this new approach into a book, Lean UX, and from there into teaching. More recently, he has responded to his audience by expounding on a “continuous pull” model of letting clients come to…