Hack Education

I think it's clear by now -- whether you've read my series on the top ed-tech trends of 2011 or not -- that it's been a big year for education technology startups. Launches. Updates. Funding. Acquisitions. Adoption. Headlines. Buzz. Woohoo. And stuff. Even with all these developments, making a list...

Politics and Policies Earlier this year, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said that some 82% of U.S. schools were failing to meet the standards required by No Child Left Behind. This week, that figure was revised downward -- substantially so. According to a study released this week by the Center...

Part 10 of my Top Ed-Tech Trends of 2011 series On a personal note: I started 2011 as a (consumer, Web) technology blogger -- one that, much to the consternation of her editors, wanted to write about education technology. "No one cares about ed-tech," I was repeatedly told. "It's just...

1. The iPad 2. Social Media -- Adoption and Crackdown 3. Text-messaging 4. Data (Which Still Means Mostly "Standardized Testing") 5. The Digital Library 6. Khan Academy 7. STEM Education's Sputnik Moment 8. The Higher Education Bubble 9. "Open" 10. The Business of Ed-Tech

Number 9 in my Top 10 Ed-Tech Trends of 2011 Series When I made my 10 tech predictions for 2011 for RWW last year, I included the following: 6. Openly-licensed content - open education resources, open source, open data - will thrive, as more people question outmoded intellectual property laws....

Yes, please. But even if we don't require it for graduation, we really should teach it. We can't rely on a future where only the Matthew Brodericks of the world are coders. If you need a better argument than that, you can read a more from me over on MindShift....

Earlier this week,Inside Higher Ed's Steve Kolowichlooked at the success Stanford University has had this fall by offering 3 of its engineering courses online. The courses -- Introductions toArtificial Intelligence,Machine Learning, andDatabases-- were available on the Web for free; anyone could register, andhundreds of thousandsof people did. It's hardly a...

Part 8 of my Top Ed-Tech Trends Series To Uncollege One of the most interesting people I met this year was Dale Stephens. Dale is just 19, but he's an incredibly intelligent and poised young man. Dale is a college dropout. He is also a world traveler, a speaker, a...

As I write this post, I realize: our podcast has no name yet. Regardless, you should check out Steve Hargadon and my weekly podcast. We talk through the latest ed-tech news, and I always find our conversation to be one of the most thought-provoking exchanges I have all week. You...

From Harvard to the mainstream and back again to higher ed? Facebook is apparently experimenting with Groups for Universities, a way for students to share class, event, and party information with their fellow students. Lots of universities have created Facebook Pages, but this is something else entirely, a more student-generated...