George Lucas Educational Foundation

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The George Lucas Educational Foundation is a nonprofit publisher that documents and publicizes exemplary K-12 education practices and programs, especially through video.[1][2][3] It does this primarily through the Edutopia website.

Organizational history

An organization named "The Media Tree" was founded on 4 August 1983 in Mill Valley, California by John Korty and others. It engaged in public relations for media content creators to the public of Marin County.[4] On 4 September 1990, the organization was renamed to "The George Lucas Educational Foundation".[5] The George Lucas Educational Foundation is widely reported to have been founded in 1991[6][7] by George Lucas and Steve Arnold.[8] Lucas originally planned for the foundation to develop technology for schools, but soon determined that schools were not interested or able to use this technology.[1] The foundation was one of the first philanthropies to invest in digital learning technology.[1]

The foundation does not usually provide grants.Script error: No such module "Unsubst". In 2006, Lucas donated $175 million to his alma mater the University of Southern California through the foundation.[9]

In 2010, the foundation had a $6 million annual budget and eighteen full-time staff.[7] In 2012, the Foundation significantly increased its assets when it received the majority of the proceeds from the $4.05 billion sale of Lucasfilm to The Walt Disney Company[1][9]

Publications

Print publications

About 1994, the Foundation began publishing a newsletter entitled Edutopia.[10][8] In September 2004, the foundation launched a free glossy magazine, also titled Edutopia[11][6][8][2] with educators as the target audience.[8][12] From its inception, the print magazine had 85,000 subscribers.[11][12][6] By 2006, it has 100,000 subscribers.[13][14] The print magazine was discontinued in Spring 2010. but the website continued as an online magazine.[8][1]

Edutopia.org

The Edutopia.org website was started in 2002.[15] In 2009, the foundation launched an advertising campaign, leading the website to receive 300,000 readers per month in 2010, a 70% increase from 2009.[7] Robert Pondiscio described Edutopia.org as an inspirational resource for teachers, exuding "unabashed idealism and cheerful optimism".[7] The website features a video series titled "Schools That Work" of in-depth profiles of specific schools.[7] Edutopia.org includes interactive features including comments, blogs, and internet forums.[16]

Advocacy

The Foundation has sometimes included in its mission spreading best practices.[2] However, in practice, Edutopia is a nonprofit media company focused on satisfying and increasing its audience, not an educational reform advocacy organization strategizing to change educational systems.[7][3] The foundation has endorsed as its core principles: "comprehensive assessment, integrated studies, project-based learning, social and emotional learning, teacher development, and technology integration".[16][7][17] Robert Pondiscio has been critical of Edutopia's tagline "what works in public education" given the lack of empirical support for these recommendations and uncertainty about how they were developed.[7]

Research findings

Edutopia increases teachers engagement with educational best practices by packaging it in an appealing multisensory video format.[18] Edutopia disseminates scientific/factual knowledge, technical knowledge, and practical wisdom, with a greater emphasis on practical wisdom, which includes judgments, values, and beliefs.[19] Many of the tips and strategies on Edutopia have not been systematically researched.[18]

References

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Further reading

External links

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