Hack Education

I know, I know. I am sick of Top 10 lists too. So I made this a Top 11 list. And I also included some thoughts about why, out of the hundreds of stories I wrote this year, these ones were so popular. 1. Khan Academy Gets $5 Million to...

I'm taking advantage of the last week of the year to cross a bunch of tasks off my To Do list. That includes moving my domains off of GoDaddy. It actually shouldn't have come to this ("this" being the company's support of SOPA), and I should have long ago taken...

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. You can listen to the last two weeks' episodes (in which we discuss my Top 10 Ed-Tech...

(Sometimes I get requests to review products, and I find I just don't have a lot to say. There's not a particularly compelling story; there's not a particularly compelling usage for teaching or learning. This is probably one of those cases. But hey, I made a video. And I wrote...

Money Congress passed and Obama signed a $1 trillion spending bill this week. How did education fare? More money for Race to the Top, the administration's competition for school funding. No money for education technology. No ARPA-Ed. Tutoring startup Tutorspree announced that it has raised $1 million in funding. Some...

What will employers think about Open Badges and other forms of credentialing for informal learning? Some thoughts over on MindShift.

Lego is launching a new product line January 1: Lego Friends. Lego Friends is Lego for girls. The sets feature curvy dolls with big eyes and cute smiles, dolls who love animals, hairdressing, shopping, and science. Um yeah. "The Beauty of Building," says Lego. OMFG. When I first heard the...

Since Stephen Downes' OLDaily alerted me to Justin Reich's post earlier this month, I've been stewing a lot about Reich's argument: that open educational resources may be expanding rather than erasing educational inequalities. Reich's story, along with his related research, raises important questions about whether or not the push for...

You guys have to stop me from writing headlines where the answer is likely "duh" or "hellz yeah." Over at Inside Higher Ed, I take a look at Microsoft's new social network for students, So.cl, and I ask the obvious question...

Big news from MIT today with its announcement of MITx, an online learning platform that will, for a "modest fee," offer non-enrolled students a certificate for successful course completion. (With that, kudos to Dave Cormier for having one of his 2012 ed-tech predictions already come true!) You can read my...