education – Page 2

2013042020131213

Czech Embassy issues statement: We are not Chechnya

Where Czech Republic & Chechnya are on the map

I mention to people fairly often that I don’t know where countries are because geography isn’t taught in US public schools. Here, we have something called “Social Studies” instead of history or geography, which is supposed to teach how people in different cultures live and think. But wow! The world is finite and countries change borders or names fairly infrequently. Can’t we take a few months in one of the early school years to focus on teaching US students where other countries are on the world map? People from every other country I’ve ever met learn this in school at a pretty young age. Only in the United States, our students don’t know. read more

2013040820131213

Pro-public education Board of Education 2013 candidates

Board of Education budgets are typically 3 times as big as the entire budgets of the municipalities in which they’re located. Those hugs pots of money are why Big-Business supporter Gov. Chris Christie and his GOP colleague Mitt Romney are so eager to get their hands on public education funds. They can’t stand money being spent to actually improve the lives of vulnerable children, and students of color, across America when that money could go to make their own children and grandchildren richer. read more

2012111420170124

Online Learning, Free Classes and MOOCs

Coursera offers free online courses and certificate courses you pay a fee to get

Distance Ed Archive Collection curated by George Brett
Topics related to distance eLearning in academia and other organizations.

EdX
EdX offers interactive online classes and MOOCs from the world’s best universities. Online courses from MITx, HarvardX, BerkeleyX, UTx and many other universities. EdX is a non-profit online initiative created by founding partners Harvard and MIT.

Harvard offers a variety of free online courses.

MIT OpenCourseware. Basically, MIT gives you last year’s course lectures totally for free. If you want this year’s courses and access to professors, you need to attend the school.

Udemy has a variety of free and low cost courses. Offers change so check in once in a while to see if you can catch what you want at a good price or for free.

2012100620131213

Self learning beats a “degrading” educational system

TED features a MOOC project this week

Shimon Schocken and Noam Nisan developed a curriculum for their students to build a computer, piece by piece. When they put the course online — giving away the tools, simulators, chip specifications and other building blocks — they were surprised that thousands jumped at the opportunity to learn, working independently as well as organizing their own classes in the first Massive Open Online Course (MOOC). A call to forget about grades and tap into the self-motivation to learn. read more

2012091920131213

Expanded student demographic data now on ELC website

Over the years, Education Law Center (ELC) has become the “go-to” source where parents, policymakers and advocates can find high quality, in-depth data and other useable information on New Jersey’s public schools. This organization is committed to continuing to provide timely and relevant data in a highly functional and interactive format and is pleased to announce that visitors can now find an expanded range of student data on their website: racial/ethnic composition, poverty rates, limited English proficiency rates, and special education rates of NJ public school students, whether enrolled in district schools or charter schools. read more

2012030720131213

Danger looms for higher ed student diversity

The Supreme Court has agreed to consider if it’s lawful for colleges and universities to take into account the ethnicity of a student who applies for entrance when deciding whether to admit him/her. Most institutions of higher education have been required since 1978 to make room for students who may be lower-achieving academically than other candidates because they’re members of ethnic groups recognized as disadvantaged and need the boost of a handicap to raise their area of the playing field to a level which will statistically provide a similar admission opportunity as students coming from ethnic groups with history of better academic performance. read more