TED - ED

TED, the nonprofit organization, (Technology, Entertainment, Design), based on "ideas worth sharing", launched its latest initiative last week. TED-EDaims to engage students with unforgettable lessons. Mind-blowing lessons from world renowned educators are offered to anyone with an internet connection.

TED-ED is the latest in a wave of online education. Other contributors are the Kahn Academy and MIT.

Here are links to the nine videos that were initially released:

Introducing TED-Ed: Lessons Worth Sharing

1. How simple ideas lead to scientific discoveries
2. How containerization shaped the modern world
3. Symbiosis: a surprising tale of species cooperation
4. How pandemics spread
5. The cockroach beatbox
6. Evolution in a big city
7. Deep Ocean Mysteries and Wonders
8. The Power of Simple Words
9. Stories: Legacies of Who We Are

Public-Private Partnerships That Work - Part II

A new project, announced on the Makezine blog, aims to bring low cost innovation and alternative manufacturing processes to schools in hopes of turbo-charging the next generation of inventors in the U.S.  This is very cool stuff!

Dale Dougherty of MAKE and Dr. Saul Griffith of Otherlab, through an award received from The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), will integrate online tools for design and collaboration with low-cost options for physical workspaces where students may access educational support to gain practical hands-on experience with new technologies and innovative processes to design and build projects.

Their goal is to reach 1000 high schools over the next four years. They are starting with a pilot program of 10 schools in California during the 2012-2013 school year. The Manufacturing Experimentation and Outreach (MENTOR) program is part of the DARPA’s Adaptive Vehicle Make program portfolio and is aimed at engaging high school students in a series of collaborative distributed manufacturing and design experiments.

Read the article at : http://blog.makezine.com/2012/01/19/darpa-mentor-award-to-bring-making-to-education/

Economy Impacts Seen by College Grads

Georgetown Center on Education and the Workforce has a new report out called "Hard Times: College Majors, Unemployment and Earnings: Not All College Degrees Are Created Equal" and it analyses unemployment by major. It shows that students and their families that take on student loans aren't asking what their college major is worth in the workforce.

Too many students aren't getting on-the-job training while they're in school or during summer breaks. As a result, questions about employment opportunities or what type of job they have the skills to attain are met with blank stares or the typical, "I don't know." Worse yet, what they choose might lead to increased challenges in hiring after college.

The reports found that the unemployment rate for recent graduates is highest in architecture (13.9 percent) because of the collapse of the construction. Unemployment rates are generally higher in non-technical majors, such as the arts (11.1 percent), humanities and liberal arts (9.4 percent), social science (8.9 percent) and law and public policy (8.1 percent).  Click on the link to learn more...

The Georgetown Report

News From Apple

Apple will announce, on January 19th, its new e-book creation and social interaction tools at their media event taking place in New York. New York happens to be the heart of the publishing industry. The world will be watching.

Steve Jobs believed that the textbook publishing industry was ripe for digital takeover. At present it has the potential of an eight-billion-dollar-a-year paycheck for Apple and its new technology. Insiders at Apple say that Jobs was directly and intimately involved with Apple's efforts in the area right up until his death.

The company states that the tools help create interactive e-books— a "GarageBand for e-books," if you will —and expands its current platforms to distribute them to iPhone and iPad users.

Frustrated e-book authors and publishers have complained about the current state of software tools and openly expressed their desire for a simple app that makes the process "as easy as creating a song in GarageBand."

Apple heard their call and is now claiming to have the product. This has the potential of revolutionizing the industry, leveling the playing field for everyone, and being the first substantial new product for CEO Tim Cook in a post-Jobs era.

To read more about this go to: Apple to announce tools, platform to "digitally destroy" textbook publishing.

UCR Students Link Learning to Future Success

A group of innovative University of California Riverside students has come up with an idea that they believe will solve the problem of high tuition and college debt that plagues the average college student in the present California University system.

Their idea is to let students get their education first and then pay after they graduate, when they are earners, rather than pay for school during the years they are at the university.

The plan requires graduates to pay five percent of their salaries every year for 20 years to repay the state for their education.

UC Riverside students propose new tuition payment plan

Unregistered

Aspen Institute's Education Innovation Forum and Exposition

I was at the Aspen Institute's Education Innovation Forum and Exposition in Washington DC. It was an invitation-only event that brought together over 500 education innovators, for-profit and philanthropic investors, and the country's most creative public and private sector leaders to address the challenges facing American education. The following link provides details of the event and participants (http://www.aspeninstitute.org/sites/default/files/content/docs/edinno/index.html).

Riverside Virtual School's validation-level Investing in Innovation (i3) proposal was featured as one of the most highly rated, but unfunded, applications received by the Department of Education. The Department of Education received over 1,700 i3 applications in total, from which they funded 49 projects. At this event, the department highlighted 80 applications that they determined worthy of funding via private and public investors and philanthropists. Speakers included Arne Duncan, Alan Greenspan, and leading thinkers in the K12 education and communication technology sectors. At our project booth, I was able to meet with members of the White House Domestic Policy Council staff, the Department of Education's Education Technology Director and staff, and individuals from the Ford, Stupski, Hewlett, and Gates educational foundations.

Our proposal, called The California Open Campus Initiative (CAOCI), was designed to provide access to innovative tools and resources designed to meet the unique learning needs of students, including students with disabilities and/or limited English proficiency in 16 California school districts. This consortium of school districts, in partnership with businesses, non-profits, and researchers from the University of Southern California, proposes to leverage time, resources, and opportunity to expand access to online learning opportunities, through the Riverside Virtual School, for students and teachers with the overarching goals to increase student achievement in math and science and to enhance college readiness. Federal funds would expand access to rigorous, evidence-based, Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) resources via virtual learning environments accessible from the classroom, from home, or from any location with access to the Internet.