Linking Innovation to Education, with Elliott Masie | Big Think.

Innovation happens, and it happens now in ways that are almost instant in the marketplace. So, somebody comes up with a wonderful idea that we could do—a 3D printer. In the old days, it might have been 12 years before we could see it, but about nine months later, for $1200, you can buy one.

Or a drone. Now, not a missile-firing drone, but a drone with a high pro—now 4K camera that you can fly above your house or above a crowd and get a video. Or even increasingly wearables and the like.

What we do at the MASIE Center is we take an innovation that’s cool, cool, cool and ask an interesting, very important question: beyond being cool, can it do anything? Specifically, can it help an individual or a corporation with learning?

And so, drones. They’re kind of fun to fly. I have three of them, but if you worked at an insurance company and there was a fire, imagine the ability to literally, hours after the fire is under control, to fly above—not only for you, the insurance company, doing an audit, but think about the peace of mind for the owner of that house.

So, we’re always involved, kind of like the MIT Media Lab for learning, to look at the connection between technology and innovation and learning.