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The Persistent Appeal of Technology in Learning. Image credit: iStockphoto Dr.

The Persistent Appeal of Technology in Learning

Youth organisations. A quick, easy summary Read the Full Story Early youth organisations The first youth organisations were Christian groups aimed at 12 to 18 year olds.

Youth organisations

Why Education Startups Do Not Succeed - Posts. 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 makes college degrees accessible to anyone with a computer

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. A School With No Teachers, Where Students Teach Themselves. Big Ideas UTC Library/Flickr By Eleanor Beardsley, NPR.

A School With No Teachers, Where Students Teach Themselves

What Bullying Crisis?: Reconsidering Labels for Childhood Aggression. Students can be mean and nasty to one another, producing all kinds of negative consequences.

What Bullying Crisis?: Reconsidering Labels for Childhood Aggression

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. Chasing the dream of quality education for all.

Why the Sciences Need the Arts & Business. At the table there are four of you.

Why the Sciences Need the Arts & Business

All with your macbook’s open, typing away. Creativity Now!:The Case for Curiosity. 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.

Why School?: A Conversation With Will Richardson

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.

Under New Standards, Students See Sharp Decline in Test Scores. Bill Gates And His Foundation: Employers Should Focus On Skills. The Gates Foundation is encouraging employers to do something called “skills-based hiring” as an alternative to hiring based on college degrees.

Bill Gates And His Foundation: Employers Should Focus On Skills

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. 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.

Next Generation Science Standards In Kentucky Draw Hostility From Religious Groups

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.

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.

Changing the Educational Paradigm

Someone, somewhere has decided what we are going to learn and how we are going to learn it. 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. “Informal learning” outside the classroom is key to clinching a good first job. What parents really think about school reform. School reformers like to talk about giving parents “choices” in public education because that’s what parents want. But a new national survey says that most parents with students in public schools want something different.

The two big questions are: What do and don’t parents want? And do reformers care what parents want when it turns out parents don’t actually want what they are offering? The poll, commissioned by the American Federation of Teachers and conducted by Hart Research Associates, says that most parents want strong neighborhood schools — not choices of schools for their children to attend. They don’t want public money diverted to private-school vouchers, or low-performing schools to be closed, or resources being taken away from traditional public schools to be used for public charter schools, the poll says. Three Huge Mistakes We Make Leading Kids…and How to Correct Them. Recently, I read about a father, Paul Wallich, who built a camera-mounted drone helicopter to follow his grade-school-aged son to the bus stop. He wants to make sure his son arrives at the bus stop safe and sound. There’s no doubt the gizmo provides an awesome show-and-tell contribution.

In my mind, Paul Wallich gives new meaning to the term “helicopter parent.” While I applaud the engagement of this generation of parents and teachers, it’s important to recognize the unintended consequences of our engagement. We want the best for our students, but research now shows that our “over-protection, over-connection” style has damaged them. How much time do school districts spend on standardized testing? This much. The cost of child poverty: $500 billion a year. The United States has the second-highest child poverty rate among the world’s richest 35 nations, and the cost in economic and educational outcomes is half a trillion dollars a year, according to a new report by the Educational Testing Service. The report, called “Poverty and Education, Finding the Way Forward,” says that 22 percent of the nation’s children live in relative poverty, with only Romania having a higher rate in the group of 35 nations.

(Next are Latvia, Bulgaria, Spain, Greece, Italy, Lithuania, Japan and Portugal, it says; the country with the lowest child poverty rate is Iceland, and the second lowest is Finland.) The report notes, though, that the official U.S. poverty rate is incomplete, and that other data show that 48 percent of the population had incomes in 2011 that are considered inadequate or not livable.

(Relative poverty rates refer to people with incomes below 50 percent of the poverty threshold.) The report was written by Richard J. Education Roadmap. The PS 2013 Education Roadmap for the Next Mayor is a document created by thousands of New Yorkers to drive the education agenda for the next mayor's first 100 days in office and first term. Over the last year the A+ NYC coalition held countless workshops and visited every corner of the city in a big blue bus, using a charrette model to gather perspectives on how to create a world-class school system where every student can succeed. The result is the PS 2013 Education Roadmap for the Next Mayor—an unparalleled set of recommendations that sketch an inspiring vision of an education system that treasures the complexity of children and their communities; equips schools with the tools to prepare students for a range of destinies; and works interdependently to leverage the city's vast resources in service of schools.

This roadmap was presented to the community at the PS 2013 Education Action Summit in July. Click herefor the full report. The Perils of Giving Kids IQ Tests - Jessica Lahey. Whether you call a child "gifted" or "disabled," labels can influence future behavior in subtle and insidious ways. Five basic lessons on public education (short and long versions) So most American parents think highly of their own schools, the U.S. prospered the last half century despite never dominating the international exams, and countries outperforming us on international exams see valuable qualities in our students that are missing in their own. Transformational Teaching In Test-Crazy America. How do Finnish kids excel without rote learning and standardized testing? My Helicopter Ride with a Principal. Succeeding With Dyslexia. Hey, Kid: Thoughts For The Young Oddballs We Need So Badly : Monkey See. Mysite.science.uottawa.ca/mnewman/LockhartsLament.pdf.

The Unspoken Key To Finding Meaningful Work. The best and worst regions for education revealed. South Island kids are achieving more at school than their northern counterparts, although the West Coast is alongside Northland, Waikato and Gisborne as the areas struggling the most, new data shows. How To Become More Unstoppable Every Day. The New Economics Party. Ited Nations News Centre - At UN, Malala Yousafzai rallies youth to stand up for universal education. This school teaches students how to fail. Why aren't you doing what really makes you happy? Why small is beautiful in education. Gen Y needs to try harder. The Differentiated Classroom: Doing What’s Fair. Bringing the Kiwi classroom into the digital age - Story - Campbell Live - TV Shows.

Planting dreams Growing blessings: A child is not a vase to filled but a fire to be lit. Charter School Legislation Passes Final Hurdle. First charter school set to open next year. The Perils of Standardized Testing: 6 Ways It Harms Learning - InformED. Fair Isn't Always Equal: Assessing & Grading in the Differentiated Classroom (9781571104243): Rick Wormeli. Students Who Take Tougher Graduation Exams Are More Likely To Wind Up In Jail. Taking the Caring Out of Teaching. Inside the multimillion-dollar essay-scoring business - Page 1 - News.

The Curriculum of Necessity or What Must an Educated Person Know? Should Schools Still Teach Cursive? STARNES: DOJ: Tolerance Trumps Right to Homeschool. Unschooling has its appeal. But can it work? The Journal of Unschooling and Alternative Learning (JUAL) The intellectual benefits of the real old-fashioned summer. Forced vs. Natural Milestones. The Perils of Standardized Testing: 6 Ways It Harms Learning : InformED. Progressive Charter School Doesn’t Have Students. Brycen R. R. Couture: Unschooler, Musician, Activist for Children, All People; the World: My First Reaction to Ron Clark's Article, "What Teachers Really Want to Tell Parents" Education Reform for Equity and Opportunity. The Gaze of Educators. In Finland’s Schools, Less is More. How Many Teachers Really Understand Dialogue? Quickwrite: Why Teachers Don’t Read. Don't Go Back to School: How to Fuel the Internal Engine of Lifelong Learning.

In Alarming Film, Director Cevin Soling Explores School vs. Prison. Studying vs learning. Manga and anime declared good study tools for kids. Noam Chomsky on Democracy and Education in the 21st Century and Beyond. The 12 Must-Have Skills Of Modern Learners. Hacker School: Where Students and Instructors Learn Together. Malcolm Gladwell: Albert O. Hirschman and the Power of Failure. Utterly Shameless, Unabashed Self-Promotion That I Hope You Will Thank Me For Later, and My Apologies in Advance. The 12 Must-Have Skills Of Modern Learners.

Smashing Silos! 54 Serious Reasons WHY YOU SHOULD HOMESCHOOL. People behind World’s Largest Solar Cooking Project, First Green School in Nepal & upcoming Green Initiatives !!!! (263) Hacking into the Indian Education System - On the Stepping Stone - Quora. Google HR Boss Explains Why GPA And Most Interviews Are Useless. Survival of the Nicest? A new theory of our origins says cooperation-not competition-is instinctive. EDUCATION NEWS & RESOURCES. What we can learn from Finland’s successful school reform. Advent of Google means we must rethink our approach to education. Leap Year Project: A Prototype for Radically Experiential Learning. How Can We Fix Education? Listen to Young People. The 60/30/10 Principle to Strengths-Based Learning. Sustainability Thinking. Innovative assignment gets SMS students thinking far into the future. Teaching Kids About “Stress”

Grouping Students by Ability Regains Favor With Educators. How Can We Fix Education? Listen to Young People. Hacking into the Indian Education System - On the Stepping Stone - Quora. Project Based Homeschooling. HappyerAtHome: show me what you're working with. The Fundamental Problem of Education is Philosophical. Riot after Chinese teachers try to stop pupils cheating. Sugata Mitra: Slum chic? 7 reasons for doubt. Stop Penalizing Boys for Not Being Able to Sit Still at School - Jessica Lahey. Only The Lonely. Ten ways to help your kids pick themselves. The Decline and Fall of the English Major.