Siegel Family Endowment

Appreciate these reflections from last month's Tech Together

Check out Katy Knight's interview with Greg Toppo in the 74 Million to see how Quill.org is carefully and responsibly building AI with teacher feedback. Katy flags that we are intentionally not building a general-purpose AI system that can do anything. Instead, we are building a highly customized AI feedback system built on particular pedagogical strategies and fine-tuned with authentic teacher feedback. This bespoke approach enables Quill to be more accurate, more reliable, and less error-prone versus generic AI tools that are trying to do everything at once. Thank you Siegel Family Endowment for supporting our research & development process for building Ethical AI for students in Title-1 schools. Here's a link to the piece: https://lnkd.in/ebTAceRK

Finally, 'unsexy tech' gets its air time! I firmly believe that the most essential ed tech tools won’t solely rely on the flashiest new technology. Instead, they’ll focus on capturing specific audiences within the K-12 sector and flawlessly integrating back-end services—most likely leveraging technology that’s been around for decades. I’m so grateful to Greg Toppo and The 74 Media for this article, as it perfectly captures what I've been trying to articulate all year—a balance between optimism and critique, being both a harsh critic of ed tech and one of its biggest cheerleaders. And the fact that my mom loved it only adds to the high praise—trust me, that's saying something! And why do any of this work if I'm not making mom proud? https://lnkd.in/eDtCK2jr

Sometimes, the most impactful changes aren’t the flashiest. As Katy Knight points out, ‘It’s not always something new, and it’s not always using the latest and greatest technology.’ At SETDA, we focus on the realities like bridging the digital divides, ensuring equitable access, and driving system-level change in K-12 education through educational technology. Thanks to Siegel Family Endowment support, our State EdTech Trends report helps state leaders become better predictors and forecasters, empowering them to serve their agencies and local school districts more effectively. It’s not always ‘sexy,’ but it’s the foundation for sustainable progress. #SETDA #edtech #digitalequity Greg Toppo

Love love love this brief but meaningful text - "How to Think Like a Sociotechnical Researcher" - from Ranjit Singh, delivered at the 10th anniversary of the Data & Society Research Institute. 👏 👏 👏 https://lnkd.in/gxZhVzDv

🛫 Wheels up for GFE! 🛫 Our grantmaking team is headed to Grantmakers for Education's Annual Conference to connect with leaders and practitioners, exchange insights, and explore best practices on how to bridge today's learning systems with those of the future. Join us on Thursday, October 17th, for our session on lessons learned from the #LearningLandscapesChallenge, where we'll discuss the role of prize competitions in democratizing innovation and fostering creativity rooted in shared values.

Before 2016, exploring conspiracy theories might have been a fun pastime—falling down internet rabbit holes and debating fringe ideas with friends. Fast forward eight years, and these once-obscure notions have taken center stage, shaping many of the hot-button issues in the upcoming presidential election. The internet has made it easier than ever for conspiracy theories to spread, allowing ideas that once circulated in small circles to gain widespread visibility. Social media algorithms amplify this, creating echo chambers where misinformation flourishes. As a result, the line between fact and fiction has blurred for many. We sat down with Siegel Research Fellow Yvonne Eadon, assistant professor in the University of Kentucky School of Information Science and former postdoc at The Center for Information, Technology, & Public Life, to delve deeper into the rise of online conspiracy theories, why they matter, and how language shapes our understanding of technology and the information ecosystem—touching on everything from Taylor Swift to the widespread belief that your phone is always listening. 🔗 Find the interview on our insights page. https://lnkd.in/ewqU-Beq

Where do you turn for information about your local community? Chances are, your first move is to search the web for things like "movies near me," "East Side Farmers’ Market hours," or "historic district building codes." But where do you go for trusted local knowledge? For questions like "Why is the mall closed on Mondays?", "What’s a fair tip at the diner?", or "Why isn’t the speed limit enforced on Main Street?", finding reliable answers can be more complex. At Siegel, we’ve been focused Civic Knowledge Institutions that provide not just information but the context local communities, businesses, and governments need to thrive. Check out our latest insight from Senior Vice President & Head of Research, John Irons, as he explores the role of Civic Knowledge Institutions in the digital age and how Siegel is investing in them as a critical component of society's digital, social, and physical infrastructure. 🔗 Find it on our website. https://lnkd.in/eirUpSae

📣📚Update! As some of you know, I've been digging into the role policy schools play in the gap between policy and implementation. I'm excited to share that my exploration has culminated in a published article in an academic journal: IEEE. I dig into how (and why) policy schools (perhaps unknowingly) exacerbate the gap between policy and implementation, and offer some practical suggestions that could work within existing programs. If this (somewhat esoteric…) topic resonates with you or someone you know, let’s connect! A HUGE shout out to the Siegel Family Endowment for supporting and enabling this work. And to the countless colleagues who have shaped my thinking along the way, especially Cori Zarek, Donald Moynihan, Lynn Overmann, Jennifer Pahlka, Greg Jordan-Detamore, Charles Johnson, Andreen Soley, and danah boyd — THANK YOU. #PublicPolicy #Education #Research #PolicyImplementation #AcademicJournal https://lnkd.in/e4Q82-M2

How can technology contribute to human flourishing, helping people fulfill our greatest hopes for humanity that are codified in fundamental rights? In this post, Sarah Gilbert and I write about freedom of association and affiliation and why they are so important to social technologies. So many debates about tech policy hinge on freedom of expression for reasons related to strategy and precedent. Yet most tech platforms and products are about relationships — not just speech. We believe that conversations about these rights can help inspire researchers, designers, and litigators to find new ways to talk with each other and create consequential work. While CAT Lab's work has fundamentally been about association and affiliation since the beginning, we haven't talked our work in that way so much in the past. So we're grateful to the many conversation partners, including the Siegel Family Endowment, Templeton World Charity Foundation, and Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University for the discussions motivated us to do more reading in this area, hold workshops, and seek feedback from legal scholars to work on this idea. https://lnkd.in/e8Bv-CEJ