Peter Thiel: We’re in a Bubble and It’s Not the Internet. It’s Higher Education. Fair warning: This article will piss off a lot of you. I can say that with confidence because it’s about Peter Thiel. And Thiel – the PayPal co-founder, hedge fund manager and venture capitalist – not only has a special talent for making money, he has a special talent for making people furious. Some people are contrarian for the sake of getting headlines or outsmarting the markets. For Thiel, it’s simply how he views the world. Of course a side benefit for the natural contrarian is it frequently leads to things like headlines and money. Consider the 2000 Nasdaq crash. And after the crash, Thiel insisted there hadn’t really been a crash: He argued the equity bubble had simply shifted onto the housing market. So Friday, as I sat with Thiel in his San Francisco home that he finally owns, I was curious what he thinks of the current Web frenzy. Instead, for Thiel, the bubble that has taken the place of housing is the higher education bubble. Making matters worse was a 2005 President George W.
The Google+ Guide For Educators Home » Education, Social Media Written by Grace2 August 2011 Unless you've been living under a rock the last month, undoubtedly you've heard of the new social networking site everyone has been raving about: Google+. All this buzz has generated some great articles (my to-read pile just keeps growing!) Here's my Google+ Guide for Educators: So what do you think about Google+? Share this post with your friends and colleagues: 100 Free Online Ivy League Courses By Alisa Miller Even those without top notch grades can now go to Ivy League schools. With the the availability of open courseware classes coming out of some of the finest schools in America, the range of subjects is astounding. If you have ever wondered about the beginnings of Hip Hop, wanted to learn a new language, would like to create a film for social change, or are interested in learning about robotics while playing with Legos, then these courses are right up your alley. All you need to do is click on any one of these courses below to have access to free, online education. Health and Nutrition From an aging population to autism to creating chemistry in the kitchen, these < ahref=" courses provide interesting perspectives on health and nutrition issues. Health Across the Lifespan: Frameworks, Contexts, and Measurements. Fine Arts From the art of color to theater to music, these courses will expand your knowledge while learning something fun.
Universities -- Free Courses See our list of the top schools offering free courses online. Learn about what types of courses are available to find the school and courses that are right for you. Online Courses for Credit Plenty of free resources are available online for students who want to learn a new topic, but these free options don't generally lead to college credit. Education Portal offers this style of distance learning with quick, engaging video lessons and self-assessment quizzes. Free Online Non-Credited Courses Students who want to use the free university resources can go to the school's link, scroll through the list of available courses and lectures and view or download the available content. Carnegie Mellon University at CMU Open Learning Initiative This university offers free online courses in the sciences, languages, engineering and social sciences. Johns Hopkins University at JHSPHOPEN Courseware Massachusetts Institute of Technology at MITOPENCOURSEWARE Open University at OU LearningSpace
5 Startups to Watch How Learning Environments Are Changing Culture Digital Tools Teaching Strategies A school’s perimeters are no longer the only place students learn. Kids are learning about the world from their homes, from the community, and anywhere it’s available to them. Here’s a look at trends in the future of learning environments. The Three Key Trends 1. Whether it’s to cut costs or give students more options, virtual schools – and brick-and-mortar schools that offer online courses – are proliferating. Flickr:Striatic New virtual schools are springing up, as are traditional school districts offering online courses. Cost cutting is a big motivating factor for traditional schools offering online programs. Universities are also leveraging online classes for practical benefits — as a way to compensate for over-filled classes and a way to save costs. Online classes offer a number of benefits: personalized, flexible learning approaches, access to courses that are over-capacity, and collaboration with other institutions, for starters.
Three Trends That Will Shape the Future of Curriculum Big Ideas Culture Digital Tools Teaching Strategies What we as adults experienced in school, as educators and students, will bear little resemblance to what lies ahead. Here’s a look at current trends, their implications, and changes to watch for. The Three Key Trends 1. No longer shackled to books as their only source of content, educators and students are going online to find reliable, valuable, and up-to-the-minute information. FLickr:Remiforall Add to that sites like the Khan Academy, a collection of thousands of YouTube videos that teach everything from calculus to the French Revolution, TeacherTube’s collection of content, books that have been turned into YouTube videos, as well as sites from museums and art institutions, sites like NASA and the Smithsonian, TED Talks and the thousands of other educational resources available, and you can start to see how online content will be used as a primary resource. 2. Flickr:YasminF Every learner counts. 3. Lenny Gonzalez What these trends mean
Three Trends That Define the Future of Teaching and Learning Culture Digital Tools Teaching Strategies This week, we feature the most popular posts of the year on MindShift. In today’s dynamic classrooms, the teaching and learning process is becoming more nuanced, more seamless, and it flows back and forth from students to teachers. Here’s a look at current trends in teaching and learning, their implications, and changes to watch for. The Three Key Trends 1. If Web 2.0 has taught us anything, it’s to play nicely together. Lenny Gonzales Sharing information and connecting with others — whether we know them personally or not — has proven to be a powerful tool in education. They’re finding each other on their own kid-specific social networking sites, on their blogs, on schools’ sites, and of course on Facebook and Twitter. Educators Unite But social networking is not just for teens, as evidenced by the 500 million-plus Facebook users. 2. Flickr:Randy Pertiet Creating media is another noteworthy tech-driven initiative in education. 3. Lenny Gonzalez
The future of teaching: Difference engine: Let the games begin FULL marks to Apple for devising ways to improve how science, mathematics and other topics are taught in primary and secondary schools across America. The company's “Reinventing Textbooks” event last week showed how effectively Apple's popular iPad tablet computer can replace the stack of tedious, and invariably outdated, textbooks that school children have to lug around these days (see “A textbook manoeuvre”, January 19th 2012). Apple is providing a free Macintosh application, dubbed iBooks Author, which allows publishers, teachers and writers to produce interactive textbooks with video, audio and even rotating 3D graphics that spring to life with the touch of a finger. By and large, interactive multimedia offer more engaging explanations that students more readily grasp and remember. To play such books on an iPad, a free application called iBooks 2 must first be downloaded from the company's App Store. No question that interactive textbooks deliver results.
Friends Don’t Let Friends Take Education Advice From Peter Thiel My friends, my followers on Twitter, and people who’ve read my previous posts know that I have a very strong opinion about education: that it is absolutely necessary in order for you to build a foundation for success. Despite having appointments at five elite universities, I am not a proponent of elite education. Rather, my research led me to conclude that ivy-leaguers may be able to get their buddies from Sequoia and Kleiner to return emails, but aren’t going to be any more successful at building companies; that what matters is gaining a basic education and completing what you started—not the ranking of the school you graduate from. I am one of the people who Sarah Lacy predicted would be “pissed” when they read her post quoting Peter Thiel as saying “we’re in a bubble and it’s not the Internet. It’s higher education”. The message Thiel is sending to the world with his fellowship, which rewards students for dropping out of school, is wrong.