Teachers, administrators and students are using social media in all new ways. How can public schools use social media? Schools have often relied on traditional ways of disseminating information such as town hall meetings or newsletters. But more and more opportunities are arising for public schools to get their message out using social media. There are many different ways educators and administrators are [...]
The cost of higher education is always on the rise. The main concern for many students looking into college is the rate of tuition. When considering their academic future, students’ considerations no longer focus mainly on educational offerings, but also on the need for scholarships and student loans. According to the American Association of Community Colleges, the average cost of public community colleges [...]
The use of electronic formats of things we read is on the rise. The population of Americans aged 16 and older who read e-books has grown from 16 percent to 23 percent over the past year. More and more people are now buying e-book readers and tablets. Universities, following this trend of electronic information, are developing ways of replacing the textbook with more interactive ways of learning, such as [...]
Colleges are now better able to engage past, current and prospective students through new social video trends like Vine and Instagram. Vine is a mobile application that gives users the capacity to create and share six-second looping video clips. Released in January 2013 and operated by Twitter, maven of micro—social media sharing, Vine “inspires creativity” through “the brevity of videos,” according to Twitter’s official [...]
In trying to explain the ins and outs of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) for Grades K through 12, it’s just as important to explain what the standards are not as it is to explain what they actually are. Executive Director Jay Diskey of the American Association of Publishers (AAP) PreK–12 Learning Group did just that in a web presentation to educational [...]
Every year, 20 college educations are put on hold for two years. This group of young adults—many under the age of 20 years old—are among the brightest, most creative and most motivated people in the world. They are all recipients of the 20 Under 20 Thiel Fellowship. Peter Thiel, a co-founder and former CEO of PayPal and the first investor of Facebook, encourages young [...]
As the new Common Core State Standards (“the Standards,” or just “CCSS”) begin to be implemented in the 45 states that decided take on the across-the-board learning criteria for American students, one policy in particular is rousing the ire and frustration of teachers, parents and students: The Standards hold that 50 percent of elementary, 55 percent of junior high, and 70 percent of high school [...]
Gladiolus. Antediluvian. Chiaroscurist. Kamikaze. Guetapens. Knaidel. What do these words have in common? They are all winning words from the Scripps National Spelling Bee, dating back to the first bee in 1925 (gladiolus) through 2013 (knaidel). For 85 tournaments, the spelling bee never included a vocabulary component—though contestants have always been allowed to ask for the meaning of a word during the competition. This year, a vocabulary quiz [...]
The Washington, DC-based National Center on Education and the Economy (NCEE) released a stirring report this May entitled “What Does It Really Mean to Be College and Work Ready? The English and Mathematics Required of First Year Community College Students.” The two-year study investigated seven rural, urban and suburban community colleges in different states with student populations ranging from 3,000 to 30,000 in order to determine [...]
Since the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) was signed in 2001, standardized tests have been a harsh reality for every public school district in the country. The tests are now a national requirement in order to receive federal school funding. They are meant to work toward closing the achievement gap by ensuring high-quality education for all students and providing yearly progress reports. In some [...]