In my last post, I talked about how the U.S. is falling behind in higher education. This week I’ve run across an article from the Boston Globe discussing how the Massachusetts Board of Education is pushing up curriculum standards in secondary schools to get kids ready to go to college.

It’s not a stretch to think that the more comfortable students are with academic subjects, the more they’ll be comfortable with going to and succeeding in college. Let’s face it; if kids go to college and can’t handle the subject matter, they’re much more likely to drop out. Here’s what the Massachusetts higher education chancellor says: (more…)

OK, well, not directly. But my ruminations on iTunes U kept circling back to free knowledge sharing, and whether prestigious universities would do it with what are essentially competitors.

But they are sharing with high school students!

Like Stanford’s online program for gifted high school students, this seems designed to better prepare high school students for the rigors of college. I can’t think of a better way to use online education technology than for a purpose like this; it sets aside the either/or question and does what the Internet does best: complements and enhances in-person learning experiences.

At least according to the BBC.

By way of elearnspace, I discovered this BBC article arguing for a new benchmark for superpowerdom – number of degrees awarded in a country. And China’s winning.

Building on Peavine’s post from last week, it is becoming more and more clear that in a global society, education is one of the most important factors driving individual and national success. Education drives up individual income, which in turn drives up the economy and stifles crime. Education increases political participation. It empowers women, who, as it turns out, are the backbones of most developing economies. (more…)

The National Center for Higher Education Management Systems (NCHEMS) and Jobs for the Future issued a report called “ADDING IT UP: State Challenges for Increasing College Access and Success,” and it outlines the trajectory of higher education in the U.S. in terms of degree attainment.

Despite all the emphasis on education and the explosion of online institutions, the report states that the U.S. is now tenth on the list of industrialized nations in percentage of 25-34 year old adults holding an associate’s degree or better. Word is that we’re going to be short by 16 million degrees if we want to keep up with other nations and meet our own workforce needs by 2025. Wow. That’s big.

I wonder what’s going on. Is education just too expensive for a lot of people? Or is there a transferability gap between academia and the workforce? (more…)

Well, it’s the day before Thanksgiving, and our fancies lightly turn to thoughts of… turkey. And traffic, of the air or freeway persuasion. Because my stuffing-saturated brain isn’t really cooperating today, I think a holiday-themed post is called for.

In the name of education, I hereby present a list of little-known Thanksgiving fun facts and trivia. The fun part is, one of them isn’t true. Can you figure out which one it is? The first commenter to get it right gets our overwhelming adulation and a mention in the next post. Oh, and maybe a prize if I can track down something good. But no fair Googling the answers! (more…)

Last week I speculated about whether iTunes U and its podcast lectures from top university profs would have an impact on the distance learning industry. I envisioned a bit of formal knowledge-sharing–if MIT is ok putting some of their, shall we say, premium content out there for free, how would they feel about a community college professor using it to enhance her science classes? Would other professors even be interested in doing such a thing?

Maybe not, if they listen to the Office of Technology for Education & the Eberly Center for Teaching Excellence at Carnegie Mellon University (that’s a lot to fit on your business card). They did a study on whether or not podcasting enhanced learning. And after an intensive investigation, they came up with the resounding answer: (more…)

I couldn’t resist mining Monday’s San Francisco Chronicle article about Jacob Lee, the mayor of Sheepskin City, for a riveting discussion of small business ownership and management. Lee, a Korean immigrant who couldn’t get work at home as a lawyer, has been selling fluffy sheepskin car seat covers to sore-bottomed San Franciscans for almost 20 years.

Lee is the opposite, in many ways, of today’s multitasking society: he sells sheepskin seat covers.

And nothing else. (more…)

The AP reports today that the U.S. military has established a “Career Advancement Account” offering military spouses up to $3,000 a year to get career training for what they call “portable careers”–education, healthcare and so on–which are in demand in most cities and towns.

The military is trying to ameliorate the effects of the constant moves that can render a spouse unable to complete any sort of degree program. (The feminist in me wonders whether they’re doing this because they’ve finally noticed that military wives need careers too–or because more military spouses are now military husbands.) (more…)

Online education has been chipping away at the stigma of the diploma mill long enough now that many traditional campus schools have adopted online components into their education programs. So, let’s be clear; there’s nothing wrong with an online education from a reputable, accredited institution.

The fact that a lot of unethical organizations–I’m talking about you, diploma mills–use this delivery system as a means for getting lots of money and handing out worthless degrees doesn’t mean that the system delivering education is at fault. It’s taken awhile, but I think a lot of people have finally separated the two concepts and can give online education the chance to really take hold in the university systems. (more…)

Got your attention?

Well, as much as I’d like to write about, perhaps, the effect of gravity on young Ms. Spears’ career (oh wait… no I wouldn’t), I’m actually thinking of one place where these two wildly unrelated topics sit side by side… on iTunes.

The Washington Post recently reported on the exploding popularity of iTunes U, their podcast section that distributes free lectures from such all-star names as MIT, Stanford and Penn State. Tired of James Blount on the radio? (Aren’t we all?) Try popping in Steve Jobs’ 2005 commencement address at Stanford (currently the #1 download) or “Exploring Black Holes: General Relativity & Astrophysics; Einstein’s Field Equation” from MIT. (more…)