Hack Education

The University of Phoenix released an iPhone app this week (iTunes link). While by no means the first university (for-profit or otherwise) to build an app, I think it's a significant development nonetheless. Most university apps serve to keep the campus community up-to-date on news and events. They often include...

A version of this story is available on MindShift Mozilla is hiring for a couple of really awesome positions: a manager for the School of Webcraft (a project it runs with P2PU to teach web developer skills for free), and a manager for the Hackasaurus Project (a project that will...

The Gates Foundation continues to demonstrate its commitment to funding education technology efforts today with the announcement of another major round of investments. The Gates Foundation will invest more than $20 million in a number of programs that will focus on game-based and social learning. Boost for Common Core Courseware...

My fellow tech blogger MG Siegler is known for making some pretty bold predictions. And his headline to the story introducing Duolingo, a startup that hasn't even launched yet, seems like no exception: "Meet Duolingo, Google's Next Acquisition Target." What Duolingo does is still not 100% clear, but even so,...

The social learning network OpenStudy has unveiled some new rewards for active participants on the site -- namely, medals and achievements -- a first step in adding game mechanics to the site. OpenStudy provides a place where learners can find others working in similar content areas in order to support...

A version of this week-in-review lives over on MindShift Amazon announced this week that it would be launching a Lending Library later this year, a deal that would let Kindle owners check out books from over 11,000 libraries. This brings Kindle to parity with other e-readers that libraries let their...

There have been mixed signals coming from college campuses about e-books and e-readers. While interest and sales in the former have increased, it's not clear that college students have been terribly keen on e-readers. And the vast majority of students still say they prefer print. But that may be changing....

How do we use technology to make learning engaging and interactive? That is, of course, the $90 billion question. Qwiki has been heralded as one such solution. The startup claims to turn "information into experience" by transforming Wikipedia entries into robot narrated, photo slide-shows. Heralded as "the future of information...

Press registration is finally available for ISTE 2011 in Philadelphia. That means it's time for me to make my plans for getting to what's touted as the largest education technology conference in the world. This will be my seventh ISTE Conference, but it will actually be the first that I...

April 2011 marks the 150th anniversary of the first hostilities of U.S. Civil War, and museums, municipalities, historic sites, and of course schools are making their preparations for the events and exhibits to commemorate it. And while, no doubt, times are tough for funding cultural heritage projects, there's a lot...