Is TED the New Harvard? Reactions from Around the Web My story has occasioned a healthy amount of reaction around the web, including from TED and Chris Anderson himself. First, the snark: Maura at The Awl (a commentary site run by ex-Gawkers) calls the story "breathless" and TEDsters "smug". Most of the commentators admit that they enjoy watching TED talks anyway. "I actually think we have similar concerns about elitism vs. openness. Open Culture , a cultural blog, took umbrage too: "Will watching 18 minute lectures – ones that barely scratch the surface of an expert’s knowledge – really teach you much? I responded: "I never claimed that watching TED talks=attending Harvard. In addition, I’m asking if there’s any way that Harvard and other universities can follow TED’s lead and open up to more people. "The success of TED doesn’t mean that traditional elite institutions don’t have a place. Not surprisingly, I think this is spot-on. Finally, TED's Chris Anderson seems to be getting concerned that TED is being accused of overreaching.
Please go see “Waiting for Superman” – Here’s Why: Yesterday I went to see the film Waiting for Superman. It’s the story of what’s broken with the education system in the US. It’s an important film and the most important topic of our generation if we as a country want to remain competitive in a world that has globalized. It’s a documentary including personal stories of people caught in the system. I’ll leave more of the human drama for you to see yourselves but telling you the premise of this film won’t ruin anything. It’s crushing to watch little children in America who have the same dreams as my 5 & 7 year olds and not have the ability to lead a normal life because of where they’re born. I’m talking about children who have done well in k-2nd grades and then get put into a lottery system for charter schools because the drop-out rates for their neighborhood schools are north of 50%. Wasn’t that the American promise? [update: to be clear about something I've seen in feedback to me. The movie basically has the following thesis:
Free Homeschool Curriculum - Lets Homeschool There are pros and cons to free homeschool curriculum. This article has information on types of free homeschool curriculum and where to find free homeschool curriculum. But is free homeschool curriculum really free, and is it of value? Keep reading to find out. Free homeschool curriculum can mean several different things. What Is Curriculum? The word curriculum is used both to mean the entire plan of a course or subject of study, as well as the entire plan of study available at a particular institution or organization. This means that what you might find includes course plans, lesson plans, worksheets, literature, Types of Free Homeschool Curriculum With this definition in mind, lets consider where you might get “free homeschool curriculum". Substantive offers of free homeschool curriculum materials on the Internet include the following: Video Placement Worldwide (vpw.com), free print material and educational videos. • BBC Schools - Bitesize - bbc.co.uk/schools/revision.
Teaching My Daughter To Code First party of a journey of writing a Doctor Who video game in Java with my 9-year-old daughter. [Update: part II, part III and part IV of this story are available now.][Update 2: Belorussian translation available now, provided by Webhostinggeeks.] Yesterday, my daughter Sophie asked me to show her how to write a computer game. I am a computer scientist, and one of our projects is Greenfoot – a programming environment designed to teach kids (and older students) to code with Java. I have often wondered how low in age you could take Greenfoot. So I told Sophie that we’d start making a game tomorrow. So here is my (hopefully continuing) diary of coding with my daughter… (Our results, live demo and source code, are at the bottom.) Over the last few days, Sophie had been playing Midnight Mansion, a platform/side scroller game. Now, Sophie is a big fan of Dr Who, a long running (and when I say “long-running”, I really mean long-running: the series started 45 years ago!) super(750, 450, 1); Wow!
Twitter Tips: for Teachers & Educators | eLearning Blog // Don’t Waste Your Time … Once people have found out I’ve been using Twitter for all of about 4 months now they think I’m an expert (I’m not, and do not profess to be) and keep asking me; what is it all about, then? Good question, and not one I’ve really been able to answer for myself, let alone answers for someone who hasn’t spent time trying different things to see if it works for them or not. So, in an effort to work through my own thoughts, and to provide something for others to benefit from, here are some ‘top tips’; Work out what you want to get out of Twitter. You can put a picture of yourself in your profile, use it wisely! Share and share alike. Use URL shortening service. Don’t be afraid to ‘block’ people who you don’t think you want following you. Use #Hashtags.
THE IMPENDING DEMISE OF THE UNIVERSITY By Don Tapscott For fifteen years, I've been arguing that the digital revolution will challenge many fundamental aspects of the University. I've not been alone. In 1998, none other than, Peter Drucker predicted that big universities would be "relics" within 30 years. Flash forward to today and you'd be reasonable to think that we have been quite wrong. Yet there are troubling indicators that the picture is not so rosy. Universities are finally losing their monopoly on higher learning, as the web inexorably becomes the dominant infrastructure for knowledge serving both as a container and as a global platform for knowledge exchange between people. Meanwhile on campus, there is fundamental challenge to the foundational modus operandi of the University — the model of pedagogy. The old-style lecture, with the professor standing at the podium in front of a large group of students, is still a fixture of university life on many campuses. The Many Challenges to the University The Model of Pedagogy The New Model