UniversityNow makes college degrees accessible to anyone with a computer UniversityNow has closed $20.4 million in funding to break the U.S. out of its educational “Code Red.” UniversityNow is building a network of accredited, online universities where students earn undergraduate and graduate degrees at a low cost and in a flexible environment. Its goal is to make higher education more affordable and accessible for people everywhere through the intelligent use of technology. “Our vision is a world in which no one is deprived of access to quality education — a world in which students can obtain recognized college degrees that improve their futures, without taking on the burden of student debt,” the company said on its site. UniversityNow powers online learning environments where students can receive individualized instruction, set the pace of their own learning, get dynamic feedback on their progress, and tap into peer networks for collaboration and support. The experience of attending college has not changed for hundreds of years.
Why Education Startups Do Not Succeed - Posts What Bullying Crisis?: Reconsidering Labels for Childhood Aggression Students can be mean and nasty to one another, producing all kinds of negative consequences. But I’m growing increasingly concerned with the anti-bullying movement, a well-intentioned cause adopted by many to address a hyped-up phenomenon that, despite what the media and some “experts” profess, isn’t nearly as clear-cut. Some of that complexity emerges for me when I come across an interesting YouTube video posted by YourTango, a news site that focuses on family, marriage and relationship issues. I don’t mean to suggest that bullying isn’t a big problem. I’m especially thankful to Sameer Hinduja, an internationally respected authority who codirects the Cyberbullying Research Center. After chatting with Hinduja, I began to wonder whether because of media searching for drama, profit-seeking litigators, or any combination of factors, society has exaggerated an already serious problem. Bullying: a damaging, non-useful term Bullying and suicide: a misunderstood connection Interview transcript
Why the Sciences Need the Arts & Business At the table there are four of you. All with your macbook’s open, typing away. You have a chemistry final tomorrow; the day will be dedicated to preparing for it. For you, students of the sciences it’s obvious. “Yeah, and what about global warming? “Ugh…. “I just don’t get why people aren’t using it! “Is it useful?” We’ve all seen these situations, perhaps been in one of them. This is the fundamental void present in much of the sciences. And of course we’ve all used programs which have been built with no thought to design. Embracing the liberal arts education and diversity in knowledge is a formula which will lead to success whichever field you’re in, but cursory classes in marketing are not the best answer. * This is not to demean the lean startup movement.
Why School?: A Conversation With Will Richardson Earlier this month, I attended the National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS) Teachers of the Future conference at Episcopal High School in Alexandria, Virginia. It was the single most rewarding experience of my career—never had I met such a collection of bright, passionate, and progressive educators. We tackled difficult issues, ranging from effective use of classroom technology to how to engage more teachers in online forums. NAIS President John Chubb even spent a morning with us, learning about our ideas on making a positive difference. Two weeks later, I still can’t shake the belief that what most teachers do, and the ways most schools operate are not only antiquated, but also sharply antithetical to how 21st-century students acquire knowledge. To show that I’m in good company, my fellow Teachers of the Future suggested that I read Will Richardson’s short but insightful book, Why School? I couldn’t agree more. And why should they? Interview transcript Download (PDF, Unknown)
Bill Gates And His Foundation: Employers Should Focus On Skills -- NOT College Degrees The Gates Foundation is encouraging employers to do something called “skills-based hiring” as an alternative to hiring based on college degrees. By using a college degree as a requirement, employers are automatically overlooking people that are capable but have no degree. Ultimately, this isn’t helping the employer, the workforce or the economy, Angela Cobb argued in a blog posted by the Gates Foundation on Monday. Research from the Aspen Institute points out that despite the high unemployment rate, nearly 3 million U.S. jobs are unfilled because employers can’t find people with the right skills, Cobb points out. So the Gates Foundation, in connection with an organisation called Innovate+Educate, is working on a program called the New Options Project, lead by Cobb. Innovate+Educate says skills-based hiring fills jobs faster than traditional methods, and finds candidates who need less training and are less likely to quit.
Next Generation Science Standards In Kentucky Draw Hostility From Religious Groups Supporters and opponents of the Next Generation Science Standards sparred during hearings in Kentucky last week, as critics took issue with the standards’ teaching of evolution and climate change. The new standards were developed with input from officials in 26 states –- including Kentucky –- and are part of an effort to make science curricula more uniform across the country. While supporters feel the standards will help beat back scientific ignorance, some religious groups take issue because the standards treat evolution as fact and talk about the human role in climate change. The Kentucky Board of Education adopted the standards in June and held hearings to get public feedback on the standards last week before they were presented to the state legislature for official approval. Matt Singleton, a Baptist minister, is one of the opponents who spoke to the board about why the standards should not be adopted, according to The Courier-Journal. Earlier on HuffPost:
Changing the Educational Paradigm By Trinity Bourne Contributing Writer for Wake Up World As a home schooling parent, it’s been clear to me for many many years that there is something wrong with the education system. Someone, somewhere has decided what we are going to learn and how we are going to learn it. Some one set the bench mark of who is smart and who is not. Over the years, I’ve seen so many children with the most extraordinary gifts, that have been totally down graded in school. Most stimulating era in human history Our children today are immersed in the most stimulating era of human history. What’s the point? My 13 year old son has a mantra: “I can’t see the point of learning that – how is it going to help me in life?” We take time with things. He wants to learn. Home educating perplexes me to this day. Learning together I have a plethora of resources at hand. I can’t say, I always get this right with home schooling… but my heart is in the right place. Social life Changing the Educational Paradigm About the Author
The passion gap SmartBlogs “Nothing great in the World has been accomplished without passion.” — Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, German philosopher, 1832 I recently spoke at the Dell Innovation in Education Panel at the Texas Association of School Administrators 2013 Conference in Austin. When we were invited to sum up at the end, I realized that one guest had not been invited to the table: Passion. I was the first to interject this word, saying that “passion should not be the number one thing on the agenda, it IS the agenda.” The #TASA13 hashtag on Twitter, which had been moving moderately, exploded, with several dozen tweets supporting my statement. At any other conference in any other industry, passion is on the lips of nearly every participant, but at some education conferences, you are far more likely to hear the words “assessment,” “standardize,” “common core” and “pedagogy” than you are to hear the word “passion.” There is a passion gap in education, and students are falling through it and drowning in ennui.