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Education, MOOCs, Learning

2015-02-09T00:00:00.000+12:00

Tweets about #MOOC OR #education OR #learning

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Stanford University, Venture Capital, Students Startups

2015-02-02T00:00:00.000+12:00

Special Report: At Stanford, venture capital reaches into the dorm| Reuters: "... At Stanford now, venture capitalists are teaching, investing in students’ startups, volunteering as mentors, occasionally even visiting the dorms. Professor-turned-VC Balaji Srinivasan visited Griffin House last autumn, shortly before he joined top venture firm Andreessen Horowitz. He was invited to discuss the emerging currency bitcoin. The dedication can come with a price. Last year social gatherings at the suite, Griffin 304, were rare. A small fridge held mostly soda, not beer. For most of the academic year, Barber was the only roommate with a regular girlfriend. One of his roommates, Jesse Leimgruber, complained that girls drain hours in the late evening, “the most productive time for a startup.” For VCs, the attraction of academia is simple: Some of the hottest tech start-ups are founded by college kids. Student-run firms that met venture capital backers at Stanford include Snapchat, the photo-sharing service. Chief executive Evan Spiegel dropped out two years ago to work on the venture. His first VC backer, Jeremy Liew, is a Stanford alumnus...."

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Colleges Trap Students Into Poverty With The Help of US Government

2015-01-26T00:00:00.000+12:00

The Student Loans Trap: This is what it has come down to--greedy Colleges, enabled by the US government, exploiting students into lifetime poverty!--

Lower Education: How A Disgraced College Chain Trapped Its Students In Poverty - BuzzFeed News: "... Not long ago, Amber Brown, a student at Everest University, saw an article on Facebook about one of the many lawsuits against her school. The story, she wrote to BuzzFeed News, “dumbfounded” her: It mentioned former students facing mountains of debt for their degrees, but that didn’t seem to apply to her. Brown believed that she was “on a 100% Pell Grant through the government” and didn’t owe a cent. Everest even paid for her books and her laptop, she wrote, and sent her a stipend check every semester. “Will I have to pay this back or am I one of the few students being treated genuinely by Everest University?” she asked. In reality, most of what Brown believed to be a Pell Grant was actually loans: A review of documents she provided showed she owes more than $26,000. Brown, 29, who lives in Kentucky and enrolled at Everest in 2011, has yet to learn that she is going into debt for her degree. (Her last name has been changed because she is a current student.) She no longer has a phone because she is unable to pay the bills, and she sent her student loan documents from a computer at a nearby food bank where she accesses the internet. She has since been hospitalized, unreachable by phone or email...."

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Joel Klein, American Schools, a Way Forward

2015-01-19T00:00:00.000+12:00

Joel Klein's Book on American Schools Tries to Find a Way Forward: "....Klein’s biggest boosters are the numbers themselves. Earlier this fall, The New York Times published a hammer of an editorial titled “Small Schools Work,” describing an MRDC study that effectively validated one of Klein’s signature approaches. “[P]oor, minority students who attend small specialized schools do better academically than students in a control group who attend traditional high schools,” the editorial said of the study, warning de Blasio away from his reflexive objection to school choice...."

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Teachers, Training, How to Get Better

2015-01-12T00:00:00.000+12:00

Getting Better at Getting Better: ".... In one area above all, the failure to improve is especially egregious: education. Schools are, on the whole, little better than they were three decades ago; test scores have barely budged since the famous “A Nation at Risk” report came out, in the early nineteen-eighties. This isn’t for lack of trying, exactly. We now spend far more per pupil than we once did. We’ve shrunk class sizes, implemented national standards, and amped up testing. We’ve increased competition by allowing charter schools. And some schools have made it a little easier to remove ineffective teachers. None of these changes have made much of a difference. All sorts of factors, of course, shape educational performance. For one thing, the United States has more poor kids relative to other developed countries, and poor kids do worse on tests, on average, all over the world. Schools can’t make up for that gap entirely. But there is one crucial factor in how kids fare that schools do control; namely, the quality of their teachers. Unfortunately, as two new books, Elizabeth Green’s “Building a Better Teacher” (Norton) and Dana Goldstein’s “The Teacher Wars” (Doubleday), point out, teacher training in most of the United States has usually been an afterthought. Most new teachers enter the classroom with a limited set of pedagogical skills, since they get little experience beforehand, and most education courses don’t say much about how you run a class. Then teachers get little ongoing, sustained training to help them improve. If American teachers—unlike athletes or manufacturing workers—haven’t got much better over the past three decades, it’s largely because their training hasn’t, either...." (read more at the link above)

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Chromebooks, Students, New Ways to Learn

2015-01-05T00:00:00.000+12:00

Official Google Blog: With Chromebooks, students find new ways to learn: "Students and schools have done some amazing things with Chromebooks since we first launched in 2011. At the Urban Promise Academy in Oakland, Calif., students are using the Scratch program to create their own video games on Chromebooks. In Chesterfield County, Virginia, students get access to feedback and support from teachers after school hours using their Chromebooks. And in Fairfield County, South Carolina, schools saw double-digit gains on their state performance tests after they started to offer Chromebooks, Google Apps for Education and other technologies to their students, who often don’t have Internet access at home...."

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Upstart School, Milken Backed, What Went Wrong

2014-12-29T00:00:00.000+12:00

What Went Wrong at the Upstart School Milken Backed? - Bloomberg: "K12 Inc. (LRN) was heralded as the next revolution in schooling. Billionaire Michael Milken backed it, and former Florida governor Jeb Bush praised it. Now the online education pioneer is failing to live up to its promise. Plagued by subpar test scores, the largest operator of online public schools in the U.S. has lost management contracts or been threatened with school shutdowns in five states this year. The National Collegiate Athletic Association ruled in April that students can no longer count credits from 24 K12 high schools toward athletic scholarships...."

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Failing For-profit Schools and the Debt Collector

2014-12-22T00:00:00.000+12:00

How dozens of failing for-profit schools found an unlikely savior: a debt collector - The Washington Post: "... “ECMC doesn’t have any experience operating an educational institution. And it’s buying an institution that is having major problems and offering a very questionable education. Is [ECMC] in a position, without any kind of experience, to improve a failing school?” said Robyn Smith, a lawyer at the National Consumer Law Center, which represents student borrowers. ECMC plans to run the schools under Zenith Education Group, a subsidiary separate from its debt collection practice. Asked whether his company was a suitable choice to acquire Corinthian campuses, ECMC President David Hawn said its experience collecting defaulted loans has given the company “firsthand understanding what coming out of school with high debt and low job prospects does to a student."...."

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Gamification and Education (video)

2014-12-15T00:00:00.000+12:00

What is Gamification? -

Gamification and game-base learning can make coursework exciting! To learn more, contact ITG@brown.edu Published on Nov 24, 2014

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Udacity CEO Sebastian Thrun, Fixing Global Education (video)

2014-12-08T00:00:00.000+12:00

Udacity CEO Sebastian Thrun: Studio 1.0 (10/02): Video - Bloomberg:
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An interview with Sebastian Thrun. The Google X co-founder, Udacity CEO and inventor of Google's driverless car sits down with Emily Chang to explain why he has set his sights on fixing global education. (Source: Bloomberg 10/2)

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Online Education Demolish Brick-and-Mortar? (video)

2014-12-01T00:00:00.000+12:00

Will Online Education Demolish Brick-and-Mortar?: Video - Bloomberg:
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2U CEO Chip Paucek discusses the future of online education on “Market Makers.” (Source: Bloomberg 9/30)

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Blackboard, K-12 Education Tech (video)

2014-11-24T00:00:00.000+12:00

Blackboard Interested in K-12 Education Tech Firms: CEO: Video - Bloomberg:
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Blackboard CEO Jay Bhatt discusses the company's acquisition strategy and the future of education technology with Trish Regan on "Street Smart." (Source: Bloomberg 10/7)

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School Scams, FTC Crack Down, Florida Online Diploma Mills

2014-11-17T00:00:00.000+12:00

School Scams: FTC Cracks Down on Florida Online Diploma Mills | Jeff Ifrah - JDSupra:

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Disruptive Teaching Technologies, Recognising Innovative Credentials (video)

2014-11-10T00:00:00.000+12:00

Disruptive Teaching Technologies - Recognising innovative credentials -
Higher Education Forum / September 30th 2014:
Massive open online courses and personalized learning systems offer the promise of low overhead and democratized education. However, are these alternative degrees given the same weight in the eyes of employers? Will high-skill jobs always require a traditional credential? Have these new teaching technologies really disrupted the traditional education model? Published on Oct 20, 2014

Anant Agarwal
Chief executive, edX

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The Truth, College, Not For Everyone

2014-11-03T00:00:00.000+12:00

Why college isn't for everyone, explained in a single chart: "The bottom quarter of earners with a college degree don’t make more money than the average high school graduate. And this hasn’t really changed much in 40 years." (read more at link above)

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Higher-Ed Bubble, End of the University As We Know It

2014-10-27T00:00:00.000+12:00

"The universities that are in trouble are those that are stuck in the middle. We're seeing this 'hollowing out of the middle' in industry after industry."-Andy Hines, assistant professor and program coordinator at the University of Houston's Graduate Program in Foresight (source infra)

A higher-ed bubble even bigger than student loans: "There are growing concerns that the benefits of a college degree are on the decline, while costs continue to rise. This so-called bubble in U.S. higher education is focused on the mounting debt load of college students and their difficulty in finding a degree or job that economically justifies the cost. But in the next 25 years, some futurists say the bigger issue—and the one that could likely cause this bubble to burst—will be the inevitable collapse of many colleges and universities as learning goes virtual. Clayton Christensen, a professor at Harvard Business School and the father of disruptive innovation theory, famously predicted in 2008 that half of high school classes will be online by 2019. With the expansion of the digital campus, many mid-level institutions of higher education could become obsolete, and the new landscape may be largely unrecognizable. "Half of the colleges and universities that exist in the United States will cease to exist," said author and futurist Nathan Harden, echoing Christensen's famous comment. Harden predicts new technologies could eventually lead to "the end of the university as we know it." The reason for the demise? Many institutions of higher learning, including some of the nation's most prestigious universities, such as Harvard and MIT, have started to open up their classes to the world through massive open online courses (MOOCS), in many cases for free, though how EdX ultimately plans to generate revenue remains a major topic of much speculation and debate....." (read more at the link above)

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Robert Reich: College Is a Waste of Money

2014-10-20T00:00:00.000+12:00

Robert Reich: College is a ludicrous waste of money - Salon.com: "...By contrast, Germany provides its students the alternative of a world-class technical education that’s kept the German economy at the forefront of precision manufacturing and applied technology. The skills taught are based on industry standards, and courses are designed by businesses that need the graduates. So when young Germans get their degrees, jobs are waiting for them. We shouldn’t replicate the German system in full. It usually requires students and their families to choose a technical track by age 14. “Late bloomers” can’t get back on an academic track. But we can do far better than we’re doing now. One option: Combine the last year of high school with the first year of community college into a curriculum to train technicians for the new economy...." (read more at link above)

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College Consultants

2014-10-13T00:00:00.000+12:00

College Consultant ThinkTank Guarantees Admission for Hefty Price - Businessweek: "When Ma opened ThinkTank’s Palo Alto center in 2011, it stirred a debate among locals. Chris Zaharias, an early Netscape employee and now founder and CEO of SearchQuant, says resentments were stoked by the immigrants’ academic success and their perceived detachment from the community. It’s usually the Asian parents who ask teachers for extra credit at back-to-school nights so their kids will have a better shot at earning an A, says Zaharias, who has two kids at Palo Alto High. When a local newspaper ran an article on ThinkTank, he posted comments calling its students “cheaters” and comparing the business to steroid use in sports. “People from Hong Kong or China are buying houses here so their kids can go to our schools,” he says. “They’re creating an arms race, and ultimately you realize you shouldn’t participate because you’re not helping your kid. But it’s hard to resist.”" (read more at link above)

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Google Drive for Education, Free 21st Century Backpack for Students

2014-10-06T00:00:00.000+12:00

Google for Education: Announcing Drive for Education: The 21st century backpack for students: "Drive for Education will be available to all Google Apps for Education customers at no charge and will include: Unlimited storage: No more worrying about how much space you have left or about which user needs more gigabytes. Drive for Education supports individual files up to 5TB in size and will be available in coming weeks. Vault: Google Apps Vault, our solution for search and discovery for compliance needs, will be coming free to all Apps for Education users by the end of the year. Enhanced Auditing: Reporting and auditing tools and an Audit API easily let you see the activity of a file, are also on the way." (read more at link above)

Google announces Drive for Education: free, unlimited storage & more security | VentureBeat | Education | by Harrison Weber: "Google touts that “30 million students and educators” are currently using Google Apps for Education — out of the 190 million people using Google Drive globally. And Google clearly intends to lure in new education-centric users with today’s announcement."

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Online Education, edX, Free Courses, High School

2014-09-29T00:00:00.001+12:00

Online education company edX expanding to offer free courses aimed at high school students - Metro - The Boston Globe: "The online-learning collaborative edX, a partnership between Harvard University and MIT, is expanding its reach beyond higher education and will begin offering courses geared toward high school students. Edx plans to unveil its first free classes for younger students Wednesday, when most of the new courses will open for enrollment. The 26 high school courses were created by 14 institutions — including MIT, Georgetown and Rice universities, the University of California Berkeley, Boston University, Wellesley College, and Weston Public High School. The online classes, available to anyone in the world, will cover such subjects as computer science, calculus, geometry, algebra, English, physics, biology, chemistry, Spanish, French, history, statistics, and psychology...."

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Higher Education, Next Frontier

2014-09-22T00:00:00.000+12:00

5en Winter 2014 by TBP_Think_Tank

Higher Education, Next Frontier

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Teacher Tenure in Trouble

2014-09-15T00:00:00.000+12:00

The Trouble With Tenure - NYTimes.com: " . . . a growing number of states have chipped away at traditional tenure or forged stronger links between student performance and teacher evaluations. And the challenges to tenure have gathered considerable force, with many Democrats defying teachers unions and joining the movement. After a California judge’s recent ruling that the state’s tenure protections violated the civil rights of children by trapping them with ineffective educators in a manner that “shocks the conscience,” Arne Duncan, the education secretary, praised the decision. Tenure even drew scrutiny from Whoopi Goldberg on the TV talk show “The View.” She repeatedly questioned the way it sometimes shielded bad teachers. “Parents are not going to stand for it anymore,” she said. “And you teachers, in your union, you need to say, ‘These bad teachers are making us look bad.’”..." (read more at link above)

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Google, E-Learning, Chromebooks (video)

2014-09-08T00:00:00.000+12:00

The educators in Fairfield County School District in rural South Carolina are inspiring their students and providing them with an excellent education with the help of Google tools. In this video, hear from Fairfield County teachers and students about how they use Chromebooks, Google Apps for Education, and Tablets with Google Play for Education to transform teaching and learning.

Google Penetrates The E-Learning Market To Expand Chromebook Sales - Google Inc. -Seeking Alpha: "E-learning is a term used to describe the use of technology in education. It includes a number of categories such as computer-based training, web-based training, virtual learning environment, technology-enhanced learning and more. Each category is used in a different stage of education, from pre-school to university, and for different purposes that range between the delivery of lessons and materials to students and online Q&A with the teacher after school hours." (read more at link above)

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L.A. Unified halts contract for Apple iPads, Pearson Curriculum

2014-09-01T00:00:00.001+12:00

L.A. Unified halts contract for iPads - LA Times: "... Supt. John Deasy suspended future use of a contract with Apple on Monday that was to provide iPads to all students in the nation's second-largest school system amid mounting scrutiny of the $1-billion-plus effort. The suspension comes days after disclosures that the superintendent and his top deputy had especially close ties to executives of Apple, maker of the iPad, and Pearson, the company that is providing the curriculum on the devices. And an internal report that examined the technology effort showed major problems with the process and the implementation."Moving forward, we will no longer utilize our current contract with Apple Inc.," Deasy wrote in a memo sent to the Board of Education on Monday...Under the contract approved just over a year ago, Apple had been expected to provide iPads with Pearson as the subcontractor...."

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Online Teaching, Disrupting Education (video)

2014-08-25T00:00:00.000+12:00

Is Online Teaching Disrupting Education?: Video - Bloomberg:
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Former Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia CEO Lisa Gersh discusses online education on Bloomberg Television's “In The Loop.” (Source: Bloomberg June 5)

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