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jonathan woahn
david blake
Rupert Murdoch on EDU
Last week, New York was abuzz with Joel Klein’s move to step down as chancellor of the country’s biggest public-school system to join Murdoch’s News Corp. empire. While some ideologues may grouse about the notion of Fox News High, the move could signal good things for technology-infused education startups.
According to New York magazine, Klein “makes clear that he believes the ‘huge transformation in the field of education’ that is coming is ‘going to be driven by private markets’—by a wave of digital-learning start-ups now swelling around the country. And that, whether through investments or acquisitions, Murdoch intends to ride this wave.”
via VentureBeat
get paid to dropout
Peter Thiel, initial investor in Facebook, has created the Thiel Fellows program to pay young students to dropout or not enroll in college. Instead, they will be paid $100,000 cash to pursue their ideas.
Peter Thiel recently launched the Thiel Fellowship to foster the next generation of tech visionaries. "Our world needs more breakthrough technologies,” said Thiel. "From Facebook to SpaceX to Halcyon Molecular, some of the world's most transformational technologies were created by people who stopped out of school because they had ideas that couldn't wait until graduation.
“This fellowship will encourage the most brilliant and promising young people not to wait on their ideas, either. The Thiel Fellows will change the world and call it a senior thesis.” The Thiel Foundation will award 20 people under 20 years old cash grants of $100,000 to further their innovative scientific and technical ideas.
...and a not so favorable review of the program at Slate.com
Connexions
Connexions is:
"a place to view and share educational material made of small knowledge chunks called modules that can be organized as courses, books, reports, etc. Anyone may view or contribute:
- authors create and collaborate
- instructors rapidly build and share custom collections
- learners find and explore content
"At Connexions we believe that educational resources should be free for anyone. That's why we house one of the largest repositories of open educational resources (OER) in the world, enabling the creation, sharing, modification, and vetting of content accessible to anyone, anywhere, anytime via the World Wide Web. And that's why all materials are housed free of charge in a variety of formats. Content is accessible not only online, but in downloadable PDF and EPUB formats, as well as being available through a print-on-demand option. Connexions has pioneered digital education since 1999, and continues to develop a first-class product, making it the first choice among educators and learners alike."
epubBooks
"The primary focus of epubBooks is to provide eBooks in the open web standards eBook format, EPUB. This book format allows users of modern eBooks readers to enjoy the best reading experience possible.
"The reason why PDF, and even Plaint Text files, do not display in a way that is pleasing to the eye (often looking quite ugly) is that many modern eBook readers utilise small screens (iPhones, Sony Readers, etc). The nature of the EPUB is that the contents will reflow to suit the size of your screen.
"All the eBooks found here on epubBooks are provided without any DRM (Digital Rights Management) and as they are Public Domain, Copyright Free, or the author has given consent for them to be made available, they are FREE to download."
Kno
Must be hard to sleep at night knowing you're up against Jeff Bezos and Steve Jobs. #kno
via @mickhagen
Kno Tablet Will Start At $599 For Single-Screen, $899 For Dual-Screen
via TechCrunch
Top 1/3
This new report, "Closing the Talent Gap: Attracting and Retaining Top-third Graduates to Careers in Teaching" outlines a strategy for America to elevate its teaching recruits to the top talent.
Open University
One of the largest contributors to iTunesU:
The Open University is a distance learning and research university. It is notable for having an open entry policy, i.e. students' previous academic achievements are not taken into account for entry to most undergraduate courses. The majority of the OU's undergraduate students are based in the United Kingdom and principally study off-campus, but many of its courses (both undergraduate and postgraduate) can be studied off-campus anywhere in the world. There are a number of full-time postgraduate research students based on the 48 hectare university campus where they use the OU facilities for research, as well as more than 1000 members of academic and research staff and over 2500 administrative, operational and support staff.
With more than 180,000 students enrolled, including more than 25,000 students studying overseas, it is the largest academic institution in the United Kingdom and Europe by student number, and qualifies as one of the world's largest universities. Since it was founded, more than 3 million students have studied its courses. It was rated top university in England and Wales for student satisfaction in the 2005 and 2006 United Kingdom government national student satisfaction survey, and second in the 2007 survey.
via Wikipedia
Rhee's Manifesto
Michell Rhee reports on her accomplishments and resignation in the Wall Street Journal.
"Four years ago, we both found a cause that inspired us to work hard every day. Reformers nationwide need to take up that mantle. Now is not the time to go soft on tough decisions. Fixing our schools will require courage and persistence, but young lives are at stake. What could be more worth the risks?"
The D.C. Timeline
- JUNE 2007: Mayor Adrian Fenty appoints Michelle Rhee schools chancellor. Over the next year, she closes a number of schools, fires principals and central office employees, and offers buyouts to low-performing teachers.
- JULY 2008: D.C. test scores on reading and math rise across the board.
- JUNE 2010: After nearly three years of negotiation, the D.C. teachers union accepts a groundbreaking contract that institutes pay for performance and ends tenure.
- JULY 2010: Ms. Rhee fires 241 teachers and puts 737 on notice for being rated "minimally effective."
- SEPT. 2010: Mr. Fenty, who campaigned on a record of education reform, loses the Democratic primary.
- OCT. 2010: Ms. Rhee resigns.
via WSJ.com
