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STEM in the Spotlight
Anne Wujcik — Monday, November 30, 2009
Welcome to our Monday after Thanksgiving issue of B2E. I hope everyone had a wonderful (and restful) holiday. We will also publish on Monday next week, giving us all time to recover from the whirlwind of activity scheduled in New York city this week. On to the news. Last week President Obama launched a new campaign designed to focus attention and resources on science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). Dubbed “Educate to Innovate,” the efforts is based on a series of public-private partnerships, with an initial commitment of $260 million. Read More »
A Few Technology Thoughts
Anne Wujcik — Friday, November 20, 2009
A few housekeeping notes before I move on to some technology-related thoughts. We wish each of you a Happy Thanksgiving and a peaceful interlude away from the pressures of business next week. We will publish our next B2E issue on Nov 30 and then, because Vicki and I and the whole MDR crew will be in New York that week, hosting the MDR Holiday Party (where I hope to see many of you) and honoring our own Nelson Heller as he is inducted into the AEP Hall of Fame, we will publish again on Dec. 7 before returning to our regular Friday schedule. Read More »
The Race Is On
Anne Wujcik — Friday, November 13, 2009
The U.S. Department of Education has published the final application for the $4.35 billion Race to the Top competition. The Gates Foundation is committing $30 million to help KIPP Houston secure $300 million in tax-exempt bonds to fund expansion. And yet another report has been issued grading the states, this time on factors that together measure the “innovation gap.” Read More »
Higher Education Headlines
Anne Wujcik — Friday, November 06, 2009
There are a lot of higher ed headlines this week coming out of EDUCAUSE, At one time, most of these headlines would have dealt with technical issues, applications and software, increasingly we are seeing announcements focused around instruction and accountability, issues familiar to K-12 marketers. And because there is less resistance to social media at this level, where schools worry less about protecting their students and where schools can effectively use social media to reach their market and build sustaining communities, there are always interesting development in this arena. Read More »
The Either/Or Problem
Anne Wujcik — Friday, October 30, 2009
A busy week, with lot’s of announcements coming out of the T+L Conference in Denver this week. Anne Flynn the driving force behind T+L, runs one of the best shows in the industry, but I’m pretty sure she never expected having to deal with a major snowstorm. ... I’d like to point you to today's Community Insights column, featuring an article shared by Roger Stark and Betsy Hill from Learning Enhancement Corp., making the case for what Roger describes as “gym for the mind.” Read More »
Social Media and More
Anne Wujcik — Friday, October 23, 2009
If you don’t believe that things are changing in the school market, consider the following. In the past then days, I listened to a group of superintendents talk about Twitter and YouTube as instructional tools. I reviewed notes from a meeting of Chief Technology Officers where part of the discussion was about opening up school networks to accommodate students bringing their own mobile devices from home. I've read dozens of announcements about social media initiatives, digital resources and learning plaltforms and portals. And I joined hundreds of education marketers to listen in on MDR’s webinar on Social Media in the Education Industry: New Ways to Build Your Brand Read More »
Ideas To Watch
Anne Wujcik — Friday, October 16, 2009
If you’d like an idea of what on educator’ minds these days, you can get a glimpse by looking at ISTE’s new crowdsourced keynote project. The International Society for Technology in Education produces the National Educational Computing Conference each year. Planning for NECC 2010 in Denver, ISTE is offering its members, past conference attendees, and educational leaders the opportunity to help choose one of the Conference’s keynote speakers. Read More »
Reauthorization Heats Up
Anne Wujcik — Friday, October 09, 2009
Work has begun in earnest on the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA/NCLB). The House Education and Labor Committee has begun a series of hearings and the Department of Education has scheduled a series of meetings to gather public input for the reauthorization. Initially the focus is on teacher effectiveness, the new spin on NCLB’s teacher quality requirements. Read More »
Permission To Fail
Anne Wujcik — Friday, October 02, 2009
If you’re interested in getting an idea of what went on at EdNET, we’ve posted presentations and handouts from many of the key presentations. Go to http://www.schooldata.com/ednetagenda.asp and scroll through the conference agenda. Click on the name of a speaker for a PDF of their presentation. An Education Week article on the disappointing results students posted on the American Diploma Project Algebra II exam got me thinking about how we deal with failure in American education. Read More »
Common Core Standards
Anne Wujcik — Friday, September 25, 2009
Congratulations to Lexia Learning Systems, Inc., SMART Technologies and CDI America, EdNET 2009 Industry Award winners. The Awards ceremony was just one of the highlights of this year’s EdNET Conference. As always, attendees (the highest number in years) were torn between listening to a great roster of presenters and networking and deal making in hallways and meeting rooms. New to the industry or long-time player, energy was high, with people intent on building for the future. Since we took a short break last week, there is a lot of news. This would be a good week to visit the News Alert web site to be sure you see all the news; there was just too much to include it all in the e-mail issue. Read More »
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