Hack Education

Fast Company published a lengthy and glowing profile today of Udacity co-founder Sebastian Thrun, dubbing him the “godfather of free online education.” Many in my Twitter feed balked at that headline, no surprise. Some interpreted “Godfather” in its Mario Puzo incarnation: Michael Corleone – perhaps this is my pop culture...

Google announced Play for Education at Google IO, its annual developer event, this spring. Today the educational tablet initiative gets its official launch. Apple's Dominance During its recent quarterly earnings report, Apple boasted that iPads have 94% of the education tablet market. It’s an impressive statistic, and not simply because...

Election Day Results Tuesday was Election Day across the US. Among the results: Bill De Blasio was elected mayor of New York City. He vows to reverse many of Mayor Bloomberg’s education policies. Amendment 66, a tax hike measure in Colorado that would have raised some $1 billion for education,...

Below are the notes and the slides from my talk today at Open Education 2013. David Kernohan and I shared the morning keynote slot today, and we were asked by David Wiley to offer a critique of open education. And so we did. You can find more details about Kernohan's...

MOOOOOOOOOOOOCs Coursera launches “learning hubs,” physical spaces where people can access the Internet in order to take a MOOC. Partners in the effort include the US State Department, the Bluebells School International and Lady Shri Ram College for Women, Digital October, Overcoming Faith Academy Kenya, Learning Links Foundation, TAPtheTECH, and...

Upgrades and Downgrades Apple held its fall press event, released its latest OS. iPad Air. New Macbooks. Blah blah blah. USA Today covers the launch of Chalkbeat, a new non-profit news organization focused on education policy and politics. Chartbeat is the result, in part, of the merger of New York-based...

Law and Politics The US government is back open again. Whee. The cost of the shutdown: an estimated $24 billion dollars. You know what else we could have done with that $24 billion? Free public higher education. The US Supreme Court is again considering an affirmative action case. This time,...

Below are the notes and slides from my talk yesterday at Columbia University. The talk was part of the university's Conversations About Online Learning series, and my trip was sponsored by the Office of the Provost and the Columbia Center for New Media Teaching and Learning. A big thanks in particular...

Here are the notes from the brief 10-minute talk I gave yesterday at the University of Mary Washington at a "conference before the conference" (Namely: OpenVA). I was part of an afternoon-long event called "Minding the Future," that brought together a number of educators and technologists. (Namely: Kin Lane, Gardner...

US Government Shutdown, Week 2 Priorities. The football games are still a go at military service academies this weekend, and even if the government doesn’t reopen, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel has decreed they’ll continue through the end of the month. But while sports can continue, the military has stopped...