Hack Education

My big news of the week: I'm leaving ReadWriteWeb. You'll still be able to find my writing here at Hack Education, at MindShift, and at O'Reilly Radar. The National Science Foundation announced this week that it was kicking off a new program called Innovation Corps, that would help transform promising...

Google seems to have a hit on its hands with its new social network Google Plus. Despite its still being a "field trial," available by invitation only, Google Plus seen strong adoption, with estimates that it already has over 20 million users. But there's been some concern and confusion over...

A version of this post can be found on KQED's Mindshift, where you can find me posting regularly about learning and technology The adaptive learning platform PrepMe has been acquired by Ascend Learning, which in turn is owned by Providence Equity Partners. If that name sounds familiar, it's because the...

The Scandal The phone hacking scandal of the British tabloid News of the World has brought the once-powerful media mogul Rupert Murdoch and his News Corp under intense scrutiny -- from other media organizations and now from governments. For those who've missed the headlines: the News of the World, renowned...

An Explainer Post There's an article in this month's Wired Magazine about Khan Academy. The headline speaks volumes -- "How Khan Academy Is Changing the Rules of Education" -- as do the responses I've seen to the article.  As usual, there's plenty of praise for Sal Khan and his one-man-educational-video-making...

A version of this post is also available at KQED's Mindshift Barnes & Noble has released a new Nook Color app this week to support its kids' community Tikatok. The app lets kids create and publish their own e-books on the Nook Color. Google announced the winners of its first...

It's been almost three weeks since the launch of Google Plus and in what is probably a good sign for the future success of the new social network, we haven't stopped talking about it yet. There's been a steady flow of discussion about how and if Google Plus will work,...

Earlier this year, the charitable website DonorsChoose opened up its data to the public: data from 165,000 teachers in over 43,000 public schools, data from over 300,000 classroom projects that have inspired some $80,000,000 in charitable giving. In order to encourage developers to create apps and analytics tools with the...

It's easy to pick on Microsoft. The once-powerful software company looks somedays like an also-ran, largely failing to have made the transition to the Web and to mobile as the rest of the major tech companies have. Even with all the praise for the Kinect and the latest version of...

I'm off to New York tomorrow to catch the last few days ot the Imagine Cup 2011 Worldwide Finals. The Imagine Cup is an annual competition run by Microsoft that asks students to design and build technology to help solve some of the world's most pressing problems (as taken from...