Nick Martin: Learn Online

“In the field of international development, so many people need new skills.” Listen to Nick Martin describe his unique, interactive model for online training for social change.  techchange.org

Margrét Pála Ólafsdóttir: Adapting & learning

Margrét Pála Ólafsdóttir is a preschool management specialist in Iceland who advocates sex-segregated classes, natural play material instead of conventional toys, and a long-forgotten belief in discipline to develop optimism, courage, and resiliency in young children. “Feel the cold! I even take them into the snow -- and then the lava. Scream a little bit! But continue! And enjoy it!”

Amanda Ripley: Where the Smart Kids Are

Amanda Ripley is an investigative journalist who writes about human behavior and public policy. For Time Magazine and The Atlantic, she has chronicled the stories of American kids and teachers alongside groundbreaking new research into education reform. “Kids have strong opinions about school. We forget as adults how much time they sit there contemplating their situation.” OFFICIAL BLOG: amandaripley.com

C.J. Huff : Resilience in the aftermath of the unthinkable

C.J. Huff is the superintendent of Joplin, Mo. schools who led his district of thousands of employees and students through the recovery effort that followed the infamous Joplin tornado. “We had children in the rubble...and there is no worse feeling in the world,” he said about the moments after the storm. “I can tell you, at this time in my life, I had 7,747 kids that I was responsible for, and I could only account for my two children.”

Mohammed Rezwan: Floating schools

Climate change is exacerbating flooding in waterlogged Bangladesh. Already, hundreds of schools get wiped out during the monsoon season. Mohammed Rezwan builds floating schools, healthcare facilities and libraries. “If 20 percent of the land goes under water, which may happen in the next 10 to 20 years, where will these people go? We don’t have enough space, enough land. People have to live on the water in some way.”

Margrét Pála: Educating children differently

Margrét Pála is a preschool management specialist in Iceland who advocates sex-segregated classes, natural play material instead of conventional toys, and a long-forgotten belief in discipline to develop optimism, courage and resiliency in young children. “Feel the cold! I even take them into the snow -- and then the lava. Scream a little bit! But continue! And enjoy it!”

Daniel Kish: Blind Vision

Kish’s organization, World Access for the Blind, trains the visually impaired to achieve greater freedom and mobility through echolocation, a technique that simulates a bat’s night vision of perceiving the environment through sound.

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Erin McKean on Wordnik

Self-proclaimed word geek Erin McKean, editor-in-chief of U.S. Dictionaries for Oxford University Press, is on a mission to debunk common misconceptions and elevate the use—and cool factor—of dictionaries. And what’s this about dictionaries being “the vodka of literature”?

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