Crowdsourcing Education Innovation, For Cash

Neal Ungerleider:

One of the largest educational publishers in the world is offering cash prizes to the winners of a crowdsourced learning product innovation competition.

One of the world's largest educational publishers is turning to crowdsourcing for their next great product idea. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt's (HMH) initiative--the HMH Global Education Challenge--is an Intel Science Fair-style competition for educators that is giving away hundreds of thousands of dollars. Just one important caveat: HMH retains rights to the ideas.

The competition will be the first major attempt to develop for-market pedagogical materials via crowdsourcing. Participants will upload brief descriptions of their potential projects and then are able to view, comment, and vote on other proposals. A panel of judges, including former Education Secretary Bill Bennett and Bob Wise, the former governor of West Virginia, will decide on the winners from a pool of the 20 top-voted entries in September.

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt is offering a $100,000 grand prize for the winning entrant and a $25,000 second-place prize. Another $125,000 worth of prizes, including iPads, netbooks, and textbook donations, will be distributed to contestants and the schools of their choice.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at May 20, 2011 2:17 AM
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