Hack Education

News about e-readers and e-books and literary apps comes fairly steadily these days -- sales figures, releases, updates, acquisitions. It's no surprise then, as a technology journalist, I watch the space closely. But I also do so as an avid reader and (former) literature scholar. I wonder (and I worry)...

Last month, Google announced that it would be shuttering Google Labs, a site for many Google prototypes and experimental projects. At the time, Google said that some of the projects in Labs would graduate to "full-fledged" products, but others would be terminated. And unfortunately, it appears as though one of...

Pardon my brief respite from technology blogging to do a little pop-culture blogging here Once upon a time (another lifetime ago), I taught film studies at the University of Oregon. One of my favorite courses addressed the Hollywood movie star. The class asked "What makes someone a star?" Why do...

"Why would a teacher want to "friend" a student on Facebook?" my 18-year-old said when I told him about Missouri's new law banning teacher-student messaging via social networking. "That's creepy." No doubt, "creepy" behavior -- to put it mildly -- is the rationale behind Missouri's SB 54, ostensibly designed to...

Wow! What an incredible amount of news this week! What, is it back-to-school soon or something?! The U.S. Department of Commerce issued a report this week on women in STEM (PDF). A number of its findings: although women hold about half the jobs in the U.S. economy, they hold less...

Toys R Us announced last week that it would begin selling the Amazon Kindle in its stores. It's hardly the only retail chain to do so: you can buy a Kindle at Target, Best Buy or Radio Shack too. Putting an e-reader on the shelves of a children's toy store...

Yesterday's news that Facebook had acquired Push Pop Press caused a fair amount of consternation (uttered alongside the obligatory congratulations) in the tech blogosphere. GigaOm's Om Malik called it a "bummer," suggesting the startup had "pullled a Patzer" * and sold out too early. Push Pop Press was widely seen...

Rethinking (Student) Communication When Mark Zuckerberg unveiled Facebook's new messaging system last year, he started the press event with an anecdote about his girlfriend's little sister and her friends -- how high school students use (or rather, don't use) email. That's not a surprising revelation to those of us who...

As I reported yesterday, the state of Missouri has passed legislation that will restrict teacher-student relationships via social networking sites. Although you wouldn't know it by the headlines about "banning Facebook," the new law is actually designed to protect students from sexual misconduct in schools, and just one section of...

Before I launch into my analysis (um, rant) here, let me pause for a moment to note that, as I argued in my recent resignation notice, the one of the only times tech journalism opts to pay attention to education or to ed-tech is when a teacher does something untoward...