David Ernst plugs education into the future as he seeks bring open-licensed textbooks into the classroom.
David Ernst
Education innovator
Books. Paper. Pencils. A room, a teacher and students. These have long been the tools with which we’ve cultivated young minds and shared great thoughts. Now imagine a room full of young learners taking part in a lesson utilizing real-time video sharing that links them with a classroom across the world. Or a high school program where the textbooks are online, not only enabling us to conserve valuable natural resources, but also freeing students from carrying heavy tomes between home and school. These educational possibilities—and so many more—are part of a growing movement to add another tremendous tool our list of teaching resources: technology. Dr. David Ernst is one of a select group of visionaries who understands that education is our species’ greatest hope and finest inspiration. Using the vast and powerful array of technology available to us today, Dr. Ernst strives to fuse learning at all levels with tools such as mobile technologies, openly-licensed textbooks and video sharing. As Chief Information Officer in the College of Education and Human Development at the University of Minnesota, Dr. Ernst is uniquely positioned to combine the vast array of tools at our disposal to bring change both to education, and to the world beyond.
