There’s no one more familiar with the country’s growing education innovation clusters than Digital Promise’s Cricket Fuller. She tells us about what makes networks and learning ecosystems effective—and which missteps to avoid.

Everywhere you go, from TED Talks to education conferences, people seem to be talking about networks. Especially in Pittsburgh. But what exactly is a network? It's a powerful way to harness collective resources, skills, and ideas. Why should we adopt them? Read on.

Sprout's Cathy Lewis Long looks back on a year of learning innovation in Pittsburgh led by the members of the Remake Learning Network.

Networks are in vogue these days as top-down hierarchies lose their luster and centralized planning shows it is not nimble enough to address fast-changing facts on the ground. Learning networks are rooted in the economic development strategy known as “cluster development,” which taps into the power of regional concentrations of firms, workers, and industrial know-how to form a hub of talent and expertise. Doing so enhances the competitiveness of individual firms and regional economies. Just look at Cleveland with medical device manufacturing or St. Louis with biomed.

Sprout's Cathy Lewis Long looks back on a year of learning innovation in Pittsburgh led by the members of the Kids+Creativity Network.

Cities are forging partnerships among ed-tech developers, teachers, and researchers to raise the bar on education innovation.

The US Department of Education is pushing to accelerate the pace of innovation inside public schools. Coordination and collaboration, they say, are the keys to doing that.