Hack Education

A version of this article first appeared on Educating Modern Learners There's so much hype about education products and services, many of these claiming to have scientific research to back them up. Perhaps the best example of this is the "brain training" industry, which presents itself as scientific fact. Not...

The State of the Union Tuesday night, President Obama gave the annual State of the Union pep-talk. Among the education-related proposals: free community college, a law protecting student’s data and privacy, streamlined higher education tax credits, and universal pre-school. Reponses: Via Ben Schmidt, the changing language over time in State...

This post first appeared on Educating Modern Learners Ethics and educational technology – we don’t talk a lot about the two together, but perhaps it’s time we do. We can’t simply assume that ed-tech is good or progressive, for starters. Nor can we ignore the growing political and economic power...

Correspondence Courses and the Pre-History of MOOCs I’m currently working on an essay on the pre-history of MOOCs – from correspondence courses to teaching machines and television – for a forthcoming book. Of course, I’m hardly the first person or the only person to trace the history of “distance learning”...

This post first appeared on Educating Modern Learners. This article was part 2 of an exploration of what “open” means and affords in education. How can we think about “open” beyond “openly licensed materials”? Granted, the licensing piece is incredibly important for access and distribution and remixing. But what else...

ESEA Reauthorization? Senator Lamar Alexander has released a draft of his bill to overhaul the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, better known by the name of its latest version: No Child Left Behind. According to The New York Times, the bill offers “two options: one that would retain the mandate...

This post first appeared on Educating Modern Learners Whose Copyright Is It? Last year, the Prince George’s County Board of Education (in Maryland) proposed a new policy that would grant the district copyright over work that staff and students had done, meaning that, as The Washington Post reported, "a picture...

Toys as Teaching Machines The Speak & Spell – one of the most iconic toys of the 1980s – is a teaching machine. By that, I don’t mean simply that it’s an electronic, educational device. It is that, sure. The Speak & Spell is a teaching machine specifically in the...

Free Community College The big news this week: President Obama’s proposal to make 2 years of community college free for some students. Not a lot of details on how the plan would be funded (the federal government would pick up three-fourths of the cost; states the rest). Students would need...

This post first appeared in Educating Modern Learners There are hundreds and hundreds of books on leadership, most often framed in terms of “management.” What is the connection between language and leadership? And what role does language play in modern learning and modern leadership? These questions seem particularly important if...