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Providence Equity to Buy Blackboard for $1.64 Billion in Education Deal

Fri, 01 Jul 2011 08:36:10 -0700

Bloomberg - By Douglas MacMillan - Jul. 01 (News) - Providence Equity Partners Inc. agreed to buy Blackboard Inc. (BBBB), a maker of online educational software, for $1.64 billion. Providence will pay $45 a share in cash for Washington- based Blackboard, the companies said in a statement today. The price represents a 21 percent premium over Blackboard’s closing price on April 18, the day before the company said it would evaluate strategic alternatives, the companies said.

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ARTINFO: 'Jeff Koons Must Die!!!' & 4 Other Art Video Games You Can Actually Play

Sat, 23 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - By Artinfo - Apr. 23 (News) - In Hunter Jonakin's "Jeff Koons Must Die!!!" the player must destroy the artist's work with a rocket launcher. / Courtesy of the artist With the Smithsonian set to crown video games the latest institutionally-ratified art

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More Pupils Are Learning Online, Fueling Debate on Quality

Sat, 09 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Trip Gabriel - Apr. 09 (News Report) - Jack London was the subject in Daterrius Hamilton’s online English 3 course. In a high school classroom packed with computers, he read a brief biography of London with single-paragraph excerpts from the author’s works. But the curriculum did not require him, as it had generations of English students, to wade through a tattered copy of “Call of the Wild” or “To Build a Fire.”

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Digital Textbook Startup Inkling Nabs ‘Multi-Million Dollar’ Investment From McGraw-Hill And Pearson

Tue, 22 Mar 2011 00:00:00 -0700

TechCrunch - By Leena Rao - Mar. 22 (Opinion) - Inkling, a startup that develops an innovative digital textbook platform, has scored a ‘multi-million dollar investment from educational content giants McGraw-Hill and Pearson. Inkling’s technology delivers interactive textbooks that include the ability to collaborate, add multimedia and communicate within content. The startup adds another layer to online textbooks by adding 3-D objects, video, quizzes, and even social interaction within the content.

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Breaking: Web Not Corrupting Our Youth After All

Wed, 15 Sep 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Mother Jones - By Kevin Drum - Sep. 15 (News Report) - The Washington Post reports today on a new study by Sandra Hofferth, director of the Maryland Population Research Center, which concludes that it's OK for kids to spend lots of time on their computers: In what researchers describe as one of the first long-term looks at the effects of media use during childhood, a study released Wednesday linked hours at the computer with achievement test scores and behavior and found little sign of harm for children ages 6 to 12 as they increased their screen time over a six-year period.

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U-Md. researcher links kids' computer use with test scores, behavior

Wed, 15 Sep 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Donna St. George - Sep. 15 (News Report) - In what researchers describe as one of the first long-term looks at the effects of media use during childhood, a study released Wednesday linked hours at the computer with achievement test scores and behavior and found little sign of harm for children ages 6 to 12 as they increased their screen time over a six-year period.

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Rise in Distance Enrollments

Mon, 06 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Inside Higher Ed - By Scott Jaschik - Apr. 06 (News Report) - Community colleges continue to see increases in distance education enrollments, according to a report released at the annual meeting of the American Association of Community Colleges here.

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Online Education Offers Access and Affordability

Thu, 02 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

U.S. News & World Report - By Kim Clark - Apr. 02 (Special Report) - The timing couldn't be better. Just as millions of working-age Americans are realizing they need extra education and skill-sharpening to thrive in a recession, a flowering of competition promises to dramatically drive down prices and raise the quality of online college courses.

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Five Ways Amazon Could Improve Kindle

Mon, 09 Feb 2009 00:00:00 -0800

PC World - By Melissa J. Perenson - Feb. 09 (Review) - Rumors abound as to the features we'll find in Kindle 2. Those rumors should be put to rest at a press conference on Monday morning, where Amazon is expected to officially unveil Kindle 2. From the looks of the leaked Kindle 2 photos and information, the new Kindle will be notably thinner and less angular--which means Amazon has addressed at least part of the first item on our list for Kindle improvements. So what else could Amazon offer in Kindle 2? The wish list below considers not only Amazon's need to stay competitive with other e-book readers, but also takes into account the competitive pressures Kindle could face from other mobile devices, like the Apple iPhone 3G and T-Mobile's G1 (I, for one, enjoy reading news and books on my mobile handset, and am thrilled by the prospect of a news that Amazon is working on a Kindle book reader for other platforms, too.

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Journalism Education's Broader, Deeper Mission

Sat, 07 Feb 2009 00:00:00 -0800

PBS - By Dan Gillmor - Feb. 07 (Opinion) - Accepting an award from Arizona State University's Walter Cronkite School for Journalism & Mass Communication several months ago, former PBS NewsHour host Robert McNeil called journalism education probably "the best general education that an American citizen can get" today. Perhaps he was playing to his audience, at least to a degree. Many other kinds of undergraduate degree programs could lay claim to a similar bragging rights; a strong liberal arts degree, no matter what the major, has great value. Still, there's no doubt that a journalism degree, done right, is an excellent foundation for a student's future. Even if McNeil overstated the case, however, his words should inspire journalism educators to ponder their role in a world where these programs' traditional reason for being is increasingly murky. Our raison d'etre is open to question largely because the employment pipeline of the past, a progression leading from school to jobs in media and related industries, is (at best) in jeopardy. Yet journalism education could and should have a long and even prosperous life ahead -- if its practitioners make some fundamental shifts.

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Technology not the panacea for education

Wed, 04 Feb 2009 00:00:00 -0800

San Francisco Chronicle - By Todd Oppenheimer - Feb. 04 (Opinion) - Now that Arne Duncan, President Obama's new education secretary, has presented the administration's $150 billion plan for reviving our education system, it's time to start separating Obama's smart ideas for schools from his dumb ones. The first folly Duncan could dispense with - at an enormous cost saving - would be Obama's desire to outfit the nation's classrooms with new computers. His big push for this idea occurred in December, when he said, "Every child should have the chance to get online," Obama said, "and they'll get that chance when I'm president - because that's how we'll strengthen America's competitiveness in the world."

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India to launch credit crunch £7 laptop, world's cheapest computer

Tue, 03 Feb 2009 00:00:00 -0800

The Guardian - By Randeep Ramesh - Feb. 03 (News Report) - The credit crunch computer is set to arrive tomorrow in India when officials unveil the 500 rupee (£7.25) laptop. In an attempt to bridge the "digital divide" in the country between rich and poor, the government will show off the prototype, low-cost laptop as the centrepiece of an ambitious e-learning programme to link 18,000 colleges and 400 universities across the country.

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Early Childhood iPhone App Says "I See Ewe"

Tue, 03 Feb 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Wired - By Daniel Donahoo - Feb. 03 (Review) - I think I See Ewe works because it is grounded in early childhood education. The voice over could be heard in any early childhood education setting and the images are bright and simple. The children are given direction and their successes are re-enforced. As anyone with a young child will know, their capacity to quickly understand the touchscreen interface is a testament to human adaptability.

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Distance learning up close

Tue, 03 Feb 2009 00:00:00 -0800

The Independent - By Ollie Wright - Feb. 03 (Special Report) - Now that crazy levels of personal debt are starting to scare the nation, the economic facts of life tell us that some people will be thinking twice about signing up for university or college. After all, it means you’ll have to fund at least three years of tuition fees, rent, bus fares, gas bills, happy hours and dubious takeaway food.

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Learning Technologists Look on the Bright Side of Budget Cuts

Tue, 03 Feb 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Ohmynews - By William Pollard - Feb. 03 (News Report) - At Learning Technologies, a conference and exhibition in London last week, there was recogniton that training budgets were under pressure in the credit crunch. However there was also confidence that a strong case can be made for e-learning and increased use of the Web as a means to deliver more results for less cost. Adobe promoted Connect and demonstrated a fundamental switch from Postscript origins to a Flash future, behaviour consistent with the Andrew S. Grove theory that "Only the paranoid survive."

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Sustainability-Themed Video Games Come to the Classroom

Mon, 02 Feb 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Edutopia - By Brian Libby - Feb. 02 (Special Report) - From global warming to pollution to vanishing wildlife, children face a world profoundly threatened by environmental catastrophe. Luckily, they have video games to help them through -- sustainability games, to be precise. These are a new generation of educational tools designed to help students learn about environmental issues. Ironically, this learning comes courtesy of technologies that many once believed would sap our attention spans and remove us from the very outside world that now needs rescue.

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Want to Get a Degree Online? Get Ready to Work Just as Hard.

Sun, 01 Feb 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Associated Press - By Candice Choi - Feb. 01 (Special Report) - One way to get an edge in this job market is to earn an advanced degree. Just don't assume that doing it online will be easy. Online master's programs are often cheaper and more convenient than traditional ones, but they also present challenges. "You're home alone and have to motivate yourself. It's not the same as sitting in a classroom, where you have a social support group," said Michael Lambert, executive director of the Distance Education and Training Council, an accrediting agency based in the District. Online education is nevertheless becoming more widespread. In 2007, more than 3.9 million students took at least one online course, a 12 percent increase from the previous year, according to the Sloan Consortium, an online-education advocacy group.

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Broward teachers learn a lesson from an 11-year-old

Tue, 27 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Miami Herald - By Kathleen McGrory - Jan. 27 (News Report) - Adora teaches class through the Web practically every day. She is enrolled in an online public school so she can spend her mornings instructing others. She delivers her online lessons from a professional-quality studio her parents built in the basement of their home. Adora commands between $250 and $300 per 50-minute lesson, her mother, Joyce Svitak, said. But she often gives discounts or offers free lessons for schools that can't afford to pay her fee. Adora first began working with the Broward school district two months ago. School officials asked her to speak to students at Fort Lauderdale's Sunland Park Elementary, one of the district's chronically failing schools. ''It started out as an experiment with Sunland Park Elementary, just to see if she could motivate the students in reading or writing,'' said Joy Veasy, who heads the district's distance learning programs. ''It was so successful that I brought her back on again to give a workshop for our elementary school teachers,'' Veasy said.

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Partnership for 21st Century Skills Calls for Reevaluation of Learning Environments

Tue, 27 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0800

thejournal.com - By Dave Nagel - Jan. 27 (News Report) - The Partnership for 21st Century Skills released a new report Friday calling for a reevaluation of what we define as learning environment and advocating some sweeping changes in the spaces, tools, policies, and other aspects of education that the group characterized as urgently in need of reform. The report, "21st Century Learning Environments," suggested that the learning environments of the 21st century need to move away from Industrial Age conceptions that "mimicked the industrial forms that had so sweepingly transformed the workplace." That is, learning environments need to move away from a model in which schools mimic factories with their fixed structures, inflexible schedules, and various barriers designed for uniformity as both a means and an end. Instead, education systems should embrace the concept of "whole environments for the whole child."

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Books Can't Compete

Fri, 23 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Chronicle of Higher Education - By Mark Bauerlein - Jan. 23 (Opinion) - Here’s a depressing and blunt comment from Larry McMurtry, speaking not only as a novelist but as a bookstore owner (it’s an interview): The end of the culture of the book. I’m pessimistic. Mainly it’s the flow of people into my bookshop in Archer City. They’re almost always people over 40. I don’t see kids, and I don’t see kids reading. I think little kids love to have stories read to them, but when they get to 10 or 11 or 12, they run into this tsunami of technology: iPod, iPhone, Blackberries. They don’t resist it, and it’s normal that they wouldn’t; it’s their culture. I’m not so sure they ever come back to reading. Some will, but most won’t. The tsunami metaphor is apt, and it points out the relationship between books and other media in kids’ lives. The list of options has grown, with books now joined by games, Web surfing, music downloading, Photoshop, YouTube, social networking, blogs, texting, IM, and the rest. Lots of folks think that the environment has grown more challenging and rewarding and enlightening, the addition of digital diversions fostering a rich plurality of texts and images and stories and sounds in which books maintain a central place.

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The University of Europe: accessible to all

Tue, 20 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0800

The Guardian - By Mandy Garner - Jan. 20 (Special Report) - Universities in Europe are looking to embrace a new form of learning, called open content, which could blow away the division between university students and the rest of the population. In the UK, the Joint Information Systems Committee (Jisc) and the Higher Education Academy are launching a £5.7m pilot scheme to investigate the impact of open content and to look at issues of how to contextualise existing online material so anyone can make sense of it. Several European academics are already experimenting and the European Commission has expressed interest.

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Library use jumps in Seattle area; economy likely reason

Thu, 15 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Seattle Times - By Mary Ann Gwinn - Jan. 15 (Special Report) - A library card has become a hot property in the Seattle region — area public libraries are experiencing a surge in circulation. While busy libraries in one of the nation's most literate cities are nothing new, some librarians credit (or blame) the recession for a dramatic upswing in business. The Seattle area's two library systems, the King County Library System (KCLS) and Seattle Public Library (SPL), each loaned more than a million more items in 2008 than in 2007.

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A new frontier of online learning in Minnesota

Fri, 02 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Minneapolis Star Tribune - By Jenna Ross - Jan. 02 (News Report) - On a trip around the state, Gov. Tim Pawlenty laid out a new goal: By 2015, students in the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system would earn 25 percent of their credits online.

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