SANDBOX SITE: The sandbox site has been created to give you an authentic opportunity to explore all aspects of the Brightidea platform, including submitting an idea, commenting and voting on ideas, filling out your user profile and joining an idea team.

Please engage authentically. This question is extremely relevant to educators and students in classrooms, schools, and districts across the country and we are seeking unique and innovative approaches to nurturing connection and relationships this school year.

Click here for instructions.

NETWORK NUGGET: As network members checked-in and shared their updates at the network meeting on Friday, Josh Swartz from Chaparral Schools (KS) shared a leadership tool he came across as a way to identify the different ways of working that bring us joy.

This assessment from the Table Group called "The 6 Types of Working Genius" can be used to with individuals or teams to "identify their areas of working genius, as well as their areas of life-draining weakness, and to put themselves in a position to tap into their genius more and engage in their weakness less."

THE GENIUS OF WONDER: The natural gift of pondering the possibility of greater potential and opportunity in a given situation.

THE GENIUS OF INVENTION: The natural gift of creating original and novel ideas and solutions.

THE GENIUS OF DISCERNMENT: The natural gift of intuitively and instinctively evaluating ideas and situations.

THE GENIUS OF GALVANIZING: The natural gift of rallying, inspiring and organizing others to take action.

THE GENIUS OF ENABLEMENT: The natural gift of providing encouragement and assistance for an idea or project.

THE GENIUS OF TENACITY: The natural gift of pushing projects or tasks to completion to achieve results.

Check out the site and let us know what you think!

STUDENT INITIATIVES: We will be hosting a series of meetings for network members who are interested in launching student initiatives, which require a few additional considerations. This group will meet to work through some of these considerations. If you are interested in joining this conversation, please complete this doodle poll to schedule our first meeting.

NETWORK CHECK-IN: The next network meeting will be Friday, September 24th. There will be time to connect and check-in as well as information on the following: Building the Idea Form, Idea Graduation via the Crowd/Review Tools, Identifying and Managing Top Ideas.

Zoom Link: https://zoom.us/j/97620913972

If you missed our previous network meetings, you can find the recordings on the CatapultEd YouTube channel here.

ON THE CALENDAR: Be sure to schedule time with Kristin to discuss the logistics of your innovation initiative, including the following:

Use this link to schedule 30 minutes.

INVENTING SEPTEMBER REPORT: In the most recent Inventing September report, "Healing, Community, and Humanity: How Students and Teachers Want to Reinvent Schools Post-COVID", Justin Reich and Jal Mehta share findings from their conversations with students and teachers about their views of the 20-21 school year and what is needed for the 21-22 school year and beyond.

Why we like this report: The CatapultEd Innovation Framework aligns with the report's recommended post-COVID scenario of "reflection and reinvention" of K-12 education. Solutions should be grounded in empathy and informed by stakeholder needs, one of the central tenets of Human-Centered Design, and therefore should be designed collaboratively with stakeholders as co-designers.

We also love the creative approach they took to discovering themes across the stakeholder groups, including “Amplify, Hospice, and Create," an exercise that can be used to identify what has gone well and is worth growing (amplify), what can be safely let go because no one is asking to return to it (hospice), and what new structures, processes, and ideas could be developed that would [address identified needs and opportunities] (create). We see this as a great structure for a staff or student crowd-based initiative. By creating three categories for idea submission (amplify, hospice, create), you can gather input from stakeholders to address all three areas.

INVEST IN R&D This EdSurge article from April 2021 titled, "Want to Make Education More Innovative? Let’s Invest in R&D" resonates with the CatapultEd Framework as the authors make the case for using ESSER funding to spur local innovation.

"We learned that families and students want greater involvement, including the opportunity to infuse cultural values and traditions into what has been a one-size-fits-all model of schooling. We also know from previous funding programs like School Improvement Grants (SIG) that large infusions of federal funds can be less than successful if states, districts and schools do not work in collaboration to grow conditions for innovation at the local level."

Check it out here.

BRIGHTIDEA PARTNERSHIP: Brightidea is committed to supporting the CatapultEd Innovation Network. This includes the possibility of creating platform features that may be unique to the needs of schools, districts and education organizations (ESA, etc). As you use Brightidea, consider things that work for education and things that might be missing. Kristin will collect feedback to share with Brightidea in the early part of 2022.

NEW! COLLABORATIVE WHITEBOARD This is a game changer!! Brightidea just released a brand new collaborative Whiteboard that is integrated into their idea and innovation management platform.

"Brightidea Whiteboard gives you the ability to collaborate and brainstorm ideas in realtime. Users can create and share multiple whiteboards within Brightidea giving your team a digital space to innovate together at anytime. The addition of the Brightidea Whiteboard focuses on ensuring you can manage the entire lifecycle of your ideas, from creation and ideation to submission to evaluation - all in one place."

One of the coolest features (in our opinion) is the Smart Matrix that "allows evaluators to move stickies on a 2x2 feasibility v. impact grid, which then generates an evaluation score that is assigned to that idea. This data can power evaluations within your pipelines and influence the rankings of ideas in your Top Ideas Interface."

IDEAS APP: In our network meeting on Friday, September 10th, we reviewed the Ideas App by Brightidea. This is an option for organizations that have implemented single sign-on (SSO) for staff or students. It is a great way to get participants engaged when they are on the go! If you are interested in this option, please let Kristin know during your next meeting.

The Ideas App is available in the iOS App Store and Google Play Store for Android devices. Remember, you must have SSO enabled to log in.