Hack Education

BioCurious, a hackerspace for biology and biotech, announced its official opening today in a blog post with an absolutely wonderful headline: "the next big thing to come out of a Silicon Valley garage." BioCurious is just one of a number of interesting DIY- and citizen-science projects that give people outside...

I'd like to think that, as consumers, we're getting a little better at questioning some of the healthful promises made on food labels. We know that candy that's "made with real fruit," for example, is still candy. We know that even if a label boasts "whole grain nutrition," that bleached...

One of the most frustrating things about our current "national dialogue" surrounding education and education technology, I would argue, is that we tend to conflate learning issues and labor issues. When we talk about the ways in which we desperately need to rethink education in this country, I fear we...

Over the weekend, The New York Times published the second story in its series on Grading the Digital School. The first story in the series questioned the massive expenditures schools make on education technology, pointing to stagnant test scores as an indication that these investments might not be worth it....

When Amazon unveiled its new Android tablet, the Kindle Fire last month, analysts said that its price could well make it a viable competitor to the wildly successful iPad. Indeed, while the iPad has ignited great interest in tablet computing, particularly in schools, that interest has really just been interest...

Over the weekend, educator and journalist Gary Stager penned a fiery blog post calling BYOD (bring your own device) the worst idea of the 21st century. Stager's post is a response to the increasing popularity among K-12 schools to allow students to bring their own computers to schools, whether they're...

Yes. But if you want more than a one-word answer to the question, head over to MindShift to read my latest story... Photo credits: Wikipedia

The Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA) requires that schools and libraries that receive funding from the federal E-rate program monitor minors' online activities and block or filter content that is obscene, contains child pornography, or is "harmful to minors." Restricting children's access to obscene and pornographic content at school sounds...

As the memories and tributes to Steve Jobs continue to pour in, many have noted that the company he co-founded has always been committed to "the education market." Indeed any history of the last 35 or so years of education technology would be incomplete without a look at Apple's and...

Visionaries and Inspirations Apple co-founder Steve Jobs died on Wednesday at age 56. The memorials and tributes continue to pour in, and it feels impossible to overstate the impact that he had on shaping our usage of technology -- both in and out of the classroom. Education lost another leader...