How Higher Education Uses Social Media [INFOGRAPHIC]

Nikhil Goyal, Teen Author, Shares Thoughts On How To Reform America's School System Fox Business interviewed 17-year-old Nikhil Goyal to get the teen author’s thoughts on how to go about reforming the nation’s school system. Goyal recently wrote a book about the problems with American schools titled “One Size Does Not Fit All: A Student’s Assessment of School,” due out in September. Included in Goyal’s recommendations for how to fix schools is repealing No Child Left Behind, abolishing Race to the Top and “reinventing the teaching profession.” Goyal spoke to the importance of changing the model of the school system, which he claims still resembles the industrial model of the early 20th century, making it the one American institution that hasn’t changed. The 17-year-old had trouble articulating what, exactly, the model classroom would look like in his view, but admitted it would not feature desks and rows and would instead be personalized and tailored to each student.

Preventing social media fatigue: live chat | Higher Education Network | Guardian Professional Looking at social media activity in US universities, tech news site Mashable, published an inforgraphic that stated that "100% of colleges and universities are using some form of social media." It would seem, from the proliferation of university Facebook pages, Twitter profiles and academic bloggers, that social media in higher education, in the UK also, has reached fever pitch. And with good reason. PhD student and blogger Anthony Ridge-Newman says of social media: "the once fiercely guarded academic traditions and conventions are loosening to embrace new ways of disseminating ideas to all." But has all this enthusiasm for social media led to a certain amount of fatigue, where HE professionals, academics and administation alike, feel saturated, unable to absorb and practice all they hear about? So, is the sector at risk of social media fatigue and if so, what can be done to prevent it? This content is brought to you by Guardian Professional. Panel

Community Colleges and the State of the Union - Innovations In this year’s State of the Union address, President Obama called the inability of many hard-working Americans to enjoy the American Dream “the defining issue of our time.” We shouldn’t “settle for a country where a shrinking number of people do really well while a growing number of Americans barely get by,” he said, and called for restoring “an economy where everyone gets a fair shot, and everyone does their fair share, and everyone plays by the same set of rules.” In the speech, Obama emphasized the role of education, and community colleges in particular, in restoring equal opportunity for individuals of all backgrounds. As open-access institutions with lower tuition levels than four-year universities, community colleges are at the heart of the president’s larger goals of restoring social mobility and making the U.S. the most educated country in the world. Return to Top

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STEAM Ahead: Merging Arts and Science Education Akua Kouyate, Wolf Trap’s senior director of education (Courtesy of Teddy Wolff) During tough economic times, arts and music programs are often some of the first programs cut in schools. But at Wolf Trap’s Institute for Early Learning Through the Arts , investing in arts education has been a priority for the past 31 years. A study by the National Endowment for the Arts shows that students from lower socio-economic backgrounds who actively participated in the arts tended to score better in science and writing, and were more likely to aspire to college. The study used survey data gathered over 20 years that followed socially and economically disadvantaged students, from kindergarten into their early twenties. At Wolf Trap’s Institute of Education, they are trying something different by incorporating art with math and science. It’s a difficult assertion to make when the U.S. is falling further behind in math and sciences as compared to other countries. Video courtesy of Wolf Trap

Social Media in Higher Education | Dr. Rey Junco's Blog What College Rankings Really Tell Us Last summer, the editors of Car and Driver conducted a comparison test of three sports cars, the Lotus Evora, the Chevrolet Corvette Grand Sport, and the Porsche Cayman S. The cars were taken on an extended run through mountain passes in Southern California, and from there to a race track north of Los Angeles, for precise measurements of performance and handling. The results of the road tests were then tabulated according to a twenty-one-variable, two-hundred-and-thirty-five-point rating system, based on four categories: vehicle (driver comfort, styling, fit and finish, etc.); power train (transmission, engine, and fuel economy); chassis (steering, brakes, ride, and handling); and “fun to drive.” The magazine concluded, “The range of these three cars’ driving personalities is as various as the pajama sizes of Papa Bear, Mama Bear, and Baby Bear, but a clear winner emerged nonetheless.” This was the final tally: 1. 1. There’s another thing funny about the Car and Driver system. 1. 1. 1.

Pearltrees - Collect & Share Save bookmarks, documents, files, ebooks, photos, videos, notes and more. Organize them into meaningful collections. Discover and share millions of contents on your favorite topics. With Pearltrees, organize all your interests anywhere, anytime! Dedicated versions of Pearltrees also exist for schools and enterprises. Media says:"The most elegant and visual way of collecting and sharing online content". Pearltrees can be useful in many situations: Personal life: Tech enthusiast? Work: On Pearltrees you can collaborate with your colleagues to manage knowledge efficiently, mutualize best practices, and share notes across your entire company. Education: Pearltrees is now one of the most used tools by teachers and students.

How Duke University Deals With Disruption This post is the latest in the Visionary Leaders: Transforming Business series. Unless I had a top brand, I would hate to run a college today. Colleges and universities are about to meet their disruptive hour. Websites such as Khan Academy and Udacity now offer free courses that blow away 99% of courses available in traditional colleges. Udacity, launched earlier this year by Sebastian Thrun, is particularly threatening. Question: Would you rather be taught by Sebastian Thrun or the egghead at the local college? To see how incumbent colleges are faring, I recently visited Duke University and talked to Tracy Futhey, its chief information officer, and Tim Walsh, head of finance. Duke’s plan is to save as much infrastructure money as it can by migrating its information technology to the cloud. But even with that, Futhey and Walsh are circumspect.

Flipped Classroom: The Full Picture for Higher Education The Flipped Classroom, as most know, has become quite the buzz in education. Its use in higher education has been given a lot of press recently. The purpose of this post is to: Provide background for this model of learning with a focus on its use in higher education.Identify some problems with its use and implementation that if not addressed, could become just a fading fad.Propose a model for implementation based on an experiential cycle of learning model. Background About the Flipped Classroom This first section provides information from various articles that describe the flipped classroom, and how it is being discussed and used in educational settings. In its simplest terms, the flipped classroom is about viewing and/or listening to lectures during one’s own time which frees up face-to-face class time for experiential exercises, group discussion, and question and answer sessions. It’s called “the flipped classroom.” Sal Khan, of the Khan Academy, states: Personal Experiences Basic Tenets

Hiring And Higher Education WASHINGTON, D.C. -- In new research from Public Agenda and the Committee for Economic Development (CED), a number of America's business leaders say that skyrocketing tuition and a growing skills gap could have serious consequences for the nation's economic future. Corporate executives may consider America's higher education system the best in the world, but this report suggests that they believe the challenges of cost, quality and accountability present great threats to the nation's economic prospects. The report, Hiring and Higher Education, is based on qualitative research by Public Agenda commissioned by CED and adds an important voice to a growing debate about the role and value of America's higher education system in fueling an economic recovery. In the report, corporate executives speak candidly about the consequences of rising tuition, which they say is putting the squeeze on the middle class. Cost Quality, Workforce Preparation and the Skills Gap Accountability Download the Report

Joel Klein, Sal Khan And Sebastian Thrun On Inventing The Future Of Education, At Disrupt SF Three trailblazing figures in educational technology are showcasing the future of learning at our upcoming annual conference, Disrupt San Francisco. Former New York education Chancellor, Joel Klein, will get into more of the details about the recently announced Amplify project, News Corp’s ambitious venture to create tailored, digital learning for the American education system. Bill Gates’ “favorite teacher”, Sal Khan, who founded the Youtube-based Khan Academy, will speak about his pioneering work in the “flipped classroom” and launch a new feature to his site. And Google fellow and CEO of Udacity, Sebastian Thrun, will discuss how he opened the walled garden of American higher education free of charge to students around the world. These education leaders will join an all-star lineup at Disrupt SF Sept 8-12, including Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer, Marc Benioff, Ron Conway, Kevin Rose, Matt Cohler, TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington, Vinod Khosla and many others. In January 2011, Joel I.

Why Teachers Need Social Media Training, Not Just Rules 6.2.12 | Under a new set of social media guidelines (pdf) issued by the New York City Department of Education, teachers are required to obtain a supervisor’s approval before creating a “professional social media presence,” which is broadly defined as “any form of online publication or presence that allows interactive communication, including, but not limited to, social networks, blogs, internet websites, internet forums, and wikis.” The guidelines also call for notifying parents about the social media activities their children will be invited to participate in, and they prohibit online teacher/student communication, including “‘friending,’ ‘following,’ ‘commenting,’ and posting messages” on platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Google+, and YouTube. Teachers will likely have to stop playing interactive games such as Draw Something with their students. “[Conversations] occur at church, in neighborhoods, scouting groups, volunteers,” he said. “Other offline places.