Monthly Archive for February, 2011

Google Versus Microsoft: The Battle for the K-12 Cloud Contract

Published on February 28, 2011 in News. 0 Comments

By Audrey Watters, in The New York Times

North versus South. Rural versus urban. Add to those delineations now, as schools and government agencies across the U.S. move to the cloud, Google versus Microsoft.

On the surface, at least, it’s a public relations battle. Google announces one state or school district has adopted its cloud offerings; and then it’s Microsoft’s turn to respond with a new list of cloud clients. Google touts 10 million Apps for Education users. Microsoft touts 15 million for its Live@edu.

Oregon Goes Google, Portland Public Schools Goes Microsoft

In this light, today’s announcement by Microsoft seems like a veritable coup. On the list of the 16 new cloud computing agreements it has signed is the Portland Public Schools, the largest school district in the state of Oregon with more than 46,000 students. Oregon, if you recall, was the first state to “go Google” in April 2010.

To read more…

Fixing Higher Ed: Lumina’s Jamie Merisotis

Published on February 27, 2011 in News. 0 Comments

By Daniel de Vise, in The Washington Post

In a story that published Sunday in The Washington Post Magazine, I offer eight suggestions to “fix” higher education. After reading the story, you can rank the ideas in a poll, which you will find farther down on this blog.

For the story, I sought help from several great leaders and thinkers. Some submitted their own thoughts on how to improve higher education. I’m posting them this week. Here is the eighth, from Jamie Merisotis, CEO of the Lumina Foundation.

“This is certainly not an exhaustive or even necessarily balanced list, nor are they presented in any order of importance,” he wrote. “Of course, all of this is based on Lumina’s efforts to increase the proportion of Americans with high-quality college degrees and credentials to 60% by 2025.”

Problem: There are far too few programs available to help displaced workers and working adults to get the new skills they need to advance in the workforce, and the programs that exist take far too long to complete.

Solution: Create accelerated associate degree programs that allow working adults and displaced workers to complete a degree in one year or less, and then expand to all students.

To read more…

Should We Pay Kids To Study?

Published on February 23, 2011 in News and Newsletter. 0 Comments

By Baldur Hedinsson and Jacob Goldstein, in NPR

Say you want pay students to improve their grades. It turns out that the direct approach — just giving them cash for good grades — doesn’t work.

But paying them for other things — doing their homework, going to class — does seem to boost achievement, at least in some cases.

That’s according to a series of studies that paid out $6.3 million to 38,000 students in 261 schools. Here’s the paper, by Harvard’s Roland Fryer.

The results are contrary to a basic economic idea: You should pay for output (in this case, grades), and let workers figure out the best inputs (in this case, studying and going to class).

Of course, that idea falls apart if the workers don’t really know the relationship between inputs and outputs — in this case, if they don’t really know on their own how to get good grades.

To read more…

Learning Journal Associate Editors

Published on February 19, 2011 in Journal and Newsletter. 0 Comments

learning_frontAs part of the process of publishing The International Journal of Learning all submissions are sent for peer refereeing, prior to publication.

Assessment, comments and guidance by the referees are an essential part of the publication process and invaluable to the authors of the submitted papers.

In recognition of the important role of referees, the international advisory board acknowledges all referees who have refereed papers as an ‘Associate Editor’ for the volume of the journal they have contributed to.

The Associate Editors listing for Volume 17 of  The International Journal of Learning is now available.


Learning Journal: Recently Published

Published on February 7, 2011 in Journal. 0 Comments

learning

The latest issue of The International Journal of Learning includes:

Emerging Digital Spaces in Contemporary Society: Properties of Technology

Published on February 3, 2011 in News and Newsletter. 0 Comments

Edited by Phillip Kalantzis-Cope and Karim Gherab-Martin

Analyzing the relationship between digital technologies and society, this book explores a wide range of complex social issues emerging in a new digital space. It examines both the vexing dilemmas with a critical eye as well as prompting readers to think constructively and strategically about exciting possibilities.

Please click here for the Technology, Knowledge, and Society Advisory Board and more information about our Technology Conference.

For more information…