Hack Education

This is part ten of my annual review of the year in ed-tech The richest 1% now possess as much wealth as the rest of the world combined. That was the conclusion of an Oxfam report issued in January. It was a slogan of the Occupy Movement too, of course,...

This is part nine of my annual review of the year in ed-tech Facebook’s Plans to “Personalize” Education Facebook, like many digital technology companies, promises that in exchange for collecting your personal data – your name, your age, your gender, your photos, metadata on your photos, your location, your preferences,...

This is part eight of my annual review of the year in ed-tech Pokémon Go, a free augmented reality game developed by Niantic (a company spun out of Google in 2015), became the most popular mobile game in US history this year. The game was launched in July and despite...

The Trump Administration Inside Higher Ed asks what might happen to Title IX and investigations into campus sexual assaults under the Trump Administration. Via The Washington Post: “Democratic senators press Trump’s education pick Betsy DeVos to pay years-old $5.3 million fine.” Via The Detroit Free Press: “Betsy DeVos’ trouble with...

This is part seven of my annual review of the year in ed-tech What Counts as a “Real College”? In April, the Department of Homeland Security arrested 21 people, charging them with conspiracy to commit visa fraud. These individuals were alleged to have helped some one thousand foreign nationals maintain...

This is part six of my annual review of the year in ed-tech One of education technologies’s greatest luminaries passed away this year. Seymour Papert died at his home in Blue Hill, Maine in August (yes, that’s the site of the Blue Hill Fair, where Charlotte the spider saved Wilbur...

This is part five of my annual review of the year in ed-tech Trump University and the History of the Future of For-Profit Higher Education On November 19, just eleven days after being elected President of the United States of America, real estate mogul and reality TV star Donald Trump...

Presidential-Elect Donald Trump “Trump Education Secretary Pick Has Indirect Stake in Student Lender,” The Wall Street Journal reports. That’s Betsy DeVos, of course, and Social Finance a.k.a. SoFi. Via Politico: “Trump‘s education pick says reform can ’advance God’s Kingdom’.” Via NPR: “Trump’s Pick For Education: A Free Market Approach To...

This is part four of my annual review of the year in ed-tech The Rebranding of MOOCs Remember 2012, “The Year of the MOOC?” Remember in 2012 when Udacity co-founder Sebastian Thrun predicted that in fifty years, “there will be only 10 institutions in the world delivering higher education and...

This is part three of my annual review of the year in ed-tech In previous years, when I’ve written about this topic, I’ve saved “The Business of Ed-tech” for one of the last articles in my “Top Ed-Tech Trends" series. If nothing else, I’ve wanted as many days in December...