Hack Education

Wow! I’ve made it to Week 5 in a MOOC. Also, OMG! Ed Startup 101 lasts 16 weeks so I’m not even a third of the way through yet! But if I’ve reached a crisis moment in my participation in this MOOC, it’s not because of its duration, a waning commitment, or...

Portfolios The plain ol’ resume just doesn’t cut it anymore. Nor does the transcript. And nor — please take note here, few remaining fans of standardized testing — do most of our federally-mandated practices of assessment. It’s hard to know what skills students (as students and as potential employees) really...

Several months ago, I wrote a post I was boldly silly enough to call “The Audrey Test” — or, “what every techie should know about education.” Out of that post has grown a guide to help engineers and entrepreneurs with a crash course on education theory, research, and pedagogy. But...

Every week, Steve Hargadon and I sit down (virtually) to talk about the latest ed-tech news. I always find our conversation to be one of the most thought-provoking exchanges I have all week. This episode was cut a little short -- firstly by scheduling conflicts that had me rushing out...

Law and Politics The Chicago Teachers Union agreed on Tuesday to end its 8 day strike. The government has revised the indictments against activist Aaron Swartz who was charged last year with multiple felonies for hacking into the MIT library to download some 4 million JSTOR articles. 9 more felonies have...

It’s Week 4 of Ed Startup 101, and the class is moving on to tackle “The Pain Test.” That is, you might’ve identified your idea for an education startup, but does this idea really address a problem? This week’s assignment asks us to write down what we think the problem...

Cross-posted at Inside Higher Ed It’s that feeling of anxiety that you get when you look on Twitter and see all your colleagues are headed out to conferences, concerts, parties, or movies. If you don’t go, you worry, if you don’t do something, if you don’t have your own status updates...

The adjective “open” ostensibly makes educational resources more easily accessible. But “open” can mean a lot of things: resources that are free; research that is publicly available on the Web and indexed by search engines; courses that offer open enrollment; materials that are openly licensed; content and code that can...

Google wrapped up its eighth Summer of Code a couple of weeks ago, with over 1200 college students — its largest cohort yet — participating in the three-month-long program. The Summer of Code puts these students to work in real world, open source development projects. While most program participants are...

Each week, Steve Hargadon and I sit down (virtually) to discuss the latest ed-tech news. This week's podcast was recorded "live in front of a studio audience" -- or something like that. Steve was in Portland for the kick-off of his "Hack Your Education" tour, so a handful of folks...