I gave my first (and last) TEDx talk this weekend on the topic of ed-tech, science fiction, and ethics. Unfortunately (or fortunately -- depending on how you view things), the livestream wasn't working. I'll post a video if and when it becomes available (although I'm not sure my talk will past TED muster). [...]
Hack Education Weekly News: Maine No Longer Apple-Only for Its 1:1 Laptop Initiative
In this week's education news: Maine ditches Apple and goes with HP for its one-to-one laptop program (I thought HP was getting out of the hardware business?); Europe launches a MOOC initiative; the Mosaic browser turns 20; Pearson buys Eric Mazur's startup; Florida announces its first online-only degree university programs; the Tin Can API hits v1.0; and after 150 years, Cooper Union says it'll start charging undergraduates tuition. Another super uplifting week... [...]
Hack Education Weekly News: The Digital Public Library of America Launches
What a shitty week. I mean, I knew it was going to be a shitty week because all the education elites were gathered at the ASU Education Innovation Summit, plotting how they can make more money via education technology. But damn, I didn't imagine that things would be so much worse. And they sure were. Thank goodness for the launch of the DPLA, otherwise I would've just skipped writing up this week's news, I think. Hell, I'd have liked to have skipped this week altogether... [...]
Don't Go Back to School... Or Do
This post started as a book review, of Kio Stark’s Don’t Go Back To School, which — full disclosure — I supported via Kickstarter and wrote about on Mindshift last year. A cottage industry of sorts seems to have popped up around penning "don't go to college" and "don't go to grad school" articles and books. Most of them simply offer some finger-wagging or some magical thinking about what happens when you don't. Stark's book, by interviewing almost 90 people who've learned to learn outside of formal institutions, demonstrates quite well how complicated and messy these alternatives can be. I liked the book a lot -- and I don't really do it justice in this write-up. But reading it alongside all the "don't go to school" hype, it's so clear to me that we have a long way to go to create supportive networks that create opportunities for everyone, not just the poster-boys for what feels like a "don't go" fairy-tale. [...]
Hack Education Weekly News: Elsevier Buys Mendeley, edX Expands in California, and More
In this week's news, Mark Zuckerberg officially launches his SuperPAC; Elsevier buys Mendeley, edX teams up with San Jose State to offer more "blended" versions of an engineering course; PBS's John Merrow finds a "missing memo" that suggests Michelle Rhee knew about cheating in DC schools; President Obama unveils his 2014 budget; Instructure launches an App Center; two learn-to-code startups raise millions; Khan Academy partners with Bank of America to teach us financial responsibility; and I wrap up the week, energized as always, by all this goddamn disruptive innovation. [...]
Reclaim Your Domain: A #ReclaimOpen Hackathon Project
Here's a quick write-up of last weekend's Open Learning Hackathon at MIT Media Lab. A big thanks to Philipp Schmidt for having Kin and I there. Along with Jim Groom, we've been working on the Reclaim Your Domain site. It's still very very very much in beta and owes a huge debt to folks like Groom, D'Arcy Norman, Boone Gorges, Anil Dash, and others. But it's a start... [...]
On "Hacking" Education
Okay. It does irk me that Facebook and the Gates Foundation had an education hackathon called "HackEd." And not because they didn't invite the person with the similarly named blog. I'm seeing a lot of folks embrace "hack" plus "education" sorts of terms in ways that veer a lot closer to "ed-tech solutionism" than I'd like. So what do we mean by "hack"? Does it matter who's saying it? Their intentions? Their technology? Their power? [...]
Hack Education Weekly News: Robot-Graders, MOOCs, and a Professor-Free University
In this week's fun-filled education news, edX announces its plans to open source its robo-grading tools; another bill in California proposes to reshape the state's higher education system -- this time with a instructor-free school; Ladyada launches the first episode of her electronics Web show for kids; Rosetta Stone acquires Livemocha; and a student in Texas is suspended for tweeting a photo of his standardized test with "YOLO" written on top. [...]
More Details on InBloom's Plans for Student Data
The controversy over inBloom continues, and I'd have to say much of it stems from the fact that the company hasn't been exactly forthcoming about its plans for student data. In an attempt to get some clarity, I sent inBloom a series of questions. Here's I've posted the spokesperson's responses. I'll follow up with some analysis in a subsequent post. [...]
Author
Audrey Watters is an education writer, rabble-rouser, rambler, recovering academic, lifelong learner, serial dropout, part-time badass, mom.
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Hack Education Podcast with Steve HargadonLatest episode: February 11, 2013
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