Hack Education

A guest post on Geek Wire today caught my eye with its contention that the tweets that would come from the grand opening of the new Gates Foundation public visitor center would likely "reveal [a] passive, insular global health community."  The argument was based in part on the visualizations done by...

Think that we can just "give every student an iPad" and presto! Education revolution? Ha. Ha ha ha. Ha ha ha ha ha. I talked to a bunch of librarians, who didn't quite laugh at my questions about e-readers and tablets and iPads in the school setting. But damn. There...

It's hardly surprising to see Pearson launch a new website today -- Alleyoop -- that will promote both college preparation and career readiness. Indeed, the high rate of dropouts and low rate of college completion are causing a fair amount of hand-wringing by politicians, parents, educators and businesses. Anything that...

The learning management system upstart Instructure is unveiling Canvas K-12 today, a version of its platform aimed — as the name suggests — for the K-12 level. The company says that it’s already had over a dozen school districts adopt Canvas, even before this roll-out of a specially designed LMS. Traditionally the LMS has...

Every week, Steve Hargadon and I sit down (virtually) to talk about the latest ed-tech news. I always find our conversation to be one of the most thought-provoking exchanges I have all week. This week we actually got to sit down face-to-face as we were both at Educon.  You can listen to...

These are interesting times to be a Stanford professor. Or to stop being a Stanford professor, as the case may be... Last week, news broke that Professor Sebastian Thrun would be stepping down from teaching at Stanford to launch an online learning company called Udacity. Udacity is an outgrowth of his...

"4 out of 5 dentists surveyed would recommend sugarless gum to their patients who chew gum." That's a slogan long associated with Trident gum. But most people are probably skeptical of that claim, and we wouldn't really view a chewing gum commercial as a scientific claim. Who conducted the research?...

I've spent the last few days at Educon, a small (but growing!) education event at the Science Leadership Academy in Philadelphia. It's always a wonderful time to see old friends, meet new ones, and engage in some really thought-provoking, face-to-face conversations about encouraging and sustaining innovation in education. (The "con"...

Politics and Policies President Obama gave his State of the Union address this week. The Nation's Dana Goldstein has a look at the elements of the speech that pertained to education, describing them as "long on platitudes and short on honest talk about the difficulties of implementing school reform." Among...

The largest education company in the world (Pearson) has just announced a partnership (including an undisclosed amount of funding) with one of the most interesting new education entrepreneurship initiatives (Startup Weekend EDU). How will Pearson's participation in and funding of Startup Weekend EDU change (further or obstruct) the latter's chances...