hacking education

Incredible!

Michelle Rhee as quoted in Newsweek in conjunction with her recent move from DC Chancellor to StudentFirst.org policy advocate:

"We can’t shy away from conflict. I was at Harvard the other day, and someone asked about a statement that Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and others have made that public-school reform is the civil-rights issue of our generation. Well, during the civil-rights movement they didn’t work everything out by sitting down collaboratively and compromising. Conflict was necessary in order to move the agenda forward. There are some fundamental disagreements that exist right now about what kind of progress is possible and what strategies will be most effective. Right now, what we need to do is fight. We can be respectful about it. But this is the time to stand up and say what you believe, not sweep the issues under the rug so that we can feel good about getting along. There’s nothing more worthwhile than fighting for children. And I’m not done fighting." 

1. With the recent publication of its first psychology, sociology, and college success textbooks, Flat World Knowledge expands its business and economics catalog with affordable textbooks for some of the largest-enrolling college courses in the general education curriculum.
2. Over the next few months, the company will also publish new textbooks for English composition, elementary algebra, introductory chemistry, and American government, among others.
3. Flat World's highly-automated publishing platform enables the company to develop original works by world-class authors in 18-24 months, significantly shortening time-to-market.
4. Introduction to Psychology is written by renowned scholar and author Dr. Charles Stangor, professor of psychology, at the University of Maryland, and the author of seven books. The introduction to psychology course enrolls more than two million students annually.
5. Sociology: Understanding and Changing the Social World is written by Dr. Steven E. Barkan, professor and chair of the department of sociology, at the University of Maine, and the author of six textbooks on sociology and criminal justice. The introduction to sociology course enrolls approximately 1.2 million students annually.
6. College Success is a how-to manual intended for use in first-year orientation, study skills or student success courses. The authors are Bruce Beiderwell, Nicholas B. deKanter, Tom Lochhaas, and Linda F. Tse. This course serves approximately one million students annually.
7. With a growing roster of more than 100 authors, Flat World Knowledge plans to add 40+ new titles to its catalog by spring 2012. The company expects to publish textbooks for the 125 largest-enrolling college courses within the next four years.
8. For the 2010-2011 academic year, more than 1,500 educators representing 800 colleges and universities will use Flat World’s textbooks.

via Pressitt

Edmodo, the teacher-student network, just raised additional funds from Union Square Ventures. 

"Edmodo is based on the premise that teachers need an easy way to share content with their students. Around this central concept, Edmodo has created a social and mobile experience that appears to be resonating well with teachers and students." 

From the excellent NYTimes article: Turning Kids From India's Slums Into Autodidacts

Dr. Mitra's next brainchild, SOLE, takes this dynamic into the classroom. He is convinced that, with the Internet, kids can learn by themselves, so long as they are in small groups and have well-posed questions to answer. He now goes into schools and asks a hard question that he thinks the students will not be able to answer, such as: "How do you stop something moving?" or "Was World War II good or bad?"

He gives them no clue where to start, but—crucially—he insists that the school restrict the number of Internet portals in the class to one for every four students. One child in front of a computer learns little; four discussing and debating learn a lot. What happens next is entirely up to the students. All they know is that Dr. Mitra is coming back to be told what they have found.

He arrives with a second question that links the learning more closely to the curriculum, such as: "Who was Isaac Newton?" and then "What's the connection between Newton and stopping things moving?" The kids teach themselves the laws of motion. Of course, the Internet is fallible as a source, but so are teachers and textbooks. For the noncontroversial topics that make up the curriculum, even Wikipedia is pretty good.