Techno Fantasies
This review, co-authored with Sara Goldrick-Rab, first appeared on Inside Higher EdKevin Carey has written a book called The End of College– by which he means the end of college as we know it... and he...
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Hack Education Weekly News
Education PoliticsA student privacy bill was set to be introduced in Congress this week. Sponsored by Rep. Luke Messer and Rep. Jared Polis, the bill came under fire for doing little to protect student...
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Gordon Pask's Adaptive Teaching Machines
“Adaptive learning” might be one of the latest education technology buzzwords, one that’s often uttered alongside that other popular adjective “personalized.” But, like much in ed-tech, the concept is...
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Hack Education Weekly News
Education in the Courts11 Atlanta educators were convicted of racketeering this week for their role in the Atlanta Public Schools’ cheating scandal. They face 20 years in prison. (Other educators...
View ArticleEd-Tech Startup Funding (Q1 2015)
I’m trying to keep better track of who’s investing in education technology startups this year – if nothing else, it’ll make it easier to write my year-in-review series, come December. Lots of other...
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Buckminster Fuller and Education's Automation
You can trace the history of ed-tech through many education philosophies and through many technologies. Too often we fail to trace that history at all – a pity because then we don’t think about the...
View ArticleMaking Ed-Tech Predictions: The 2015 Edition
This post first appeared on Educating Modern Learners in January 2015Although I spend a lot of time looking at the past and the present of education technology, I'm just not that good at predicting the...
View ArticleEducation in Science Fiction
"I'm a fan of hard science fiction, which is science fiction that is possible. The science fiction books I like tend to relate to what we're doing at Khan Academy, like Orson Scott Card's 'Ender's...
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Ed-Tech's Inequalities
This talk was delivered virtually today at Western Oregon University. The slide deck is available here.“Education is the civil rights issue of our time,” you’ll often hear politicians and education...
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Education PoliticsSenators Lamar Alexander (R-TN) and Patty Murray (D-WA) have negotiated a bipartisan revision to ESEA. According to The New York Times, “The bill retains the requirement for yearly...
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Lego Mindstorms: A History of Educational Robots
In the fall of 1984, Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen – then the CEO of Lego (and grandson of its founder) – happened to watch a television interview featuring MIT professor Seymour Papert. In it, Papert...
View ArticleData and Diplomas: On LinkedIn's Acquisition of Lynda.com
I'm surprised to have seen so little thoughtful analysis of the LinkedIn acquisition of Lynda.com, particularly as Michael Feldstein put it: the deal suggests that LinkedIn might just be "the most...
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Education PoliticsThe NCLB rewrite has made it out of committee on a unanimous vote. Whee.From the Chicago Tribune: “Federal authorities are investigating Chicago Public Schools CEO Barbara...
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The History of the Future of the Push-Button School
The military has long been involved in the development of education technology – hardly surprising considering the number of people it must train. From a 1988 report from the Congressional Office of...
View ArticleRaising (and Educating) 'Free Range Kids'
This post first appeared in January 2015 on Educating Modern LearnersAnother week, another story of parents under investigation for letting their kids play outside without supervision.Ten year-old Rafi...
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Education PoliticsDemocrats have proposed a number of measures that would expand the Pell Grant program (including the return of Pell Grant money for summer school).“The U.S. Department of Education...
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The Invented History of 'The Factory Model of Education'
“What do I mean when I talk about transformational productivity reforms that can also boost student outcomes? Our K–12 system largely still adheres to the century-old, industrial-age factory model of...
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Education PoliticsVia the AP: “Linking reading to technology, the White House marshaled major book publishers to provide more than $250 million in free e-books to low-income students and is seeking...
View ArticleEd-Tech Startup Funding (The Year So Far)
I’ve updated the spreadsheet where I’m tracking on this year's ed-tech investment. Here are JSON files for startup funding (broken down by investors), acquisitions, and mergers.It’s only been a month...
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Memory Machines: Education Technology Without the Memex
Among the things that (education) technology is supposed to revolutionize: memory.Memory in computers is not wholly analogous to memory in humans, of course, despite using that same word to describe...
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