Several American colleges are tracking down students and faculty members on programs or conducting research in Haiti, and the news was encouraging but incomplete Wednesday evening -- amid the devastation of the earthquake there:
•The University of Wisconsin at Madison reported that two separate groups of students in the country are accounted for and unharmed.
•Lynn University has not yet accounted for its students there, but has secondhand information -- via a tweet from a student -- that the students are fine.
•Blue Ridge Community College also has secondhand information that its two employees and two students currently in Haiti are unharmed.
•Taylor University has received word that a student and a faculty member are safe.
•A dean at Maryville University is safe and keeping a blog.
The American Red Cross is now taking donations.
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
South Korea Creates City Around Science and Education
South Korea's government announced a US$14.6 billion blueprint to develop a new city as a science and education hub, dropping controversial plans to move several ministries there.
The country's biggest business group Samsung has signed a deal to move some operations to Sejong City, along with the Hanwha, Woongjin and Lotte groups, said Prime Minister Chung Un-Chan.
“The government has decided to create an economic hub centered on education and science in Sejong City with public and private investments of 16.5 trillion won (US$14.6 billion) in total,” Chung said in a statement.
“We expect Sejong will grow into a self-sufficient city with a population of 500,000 with 246,000 new jobs by 2020.”
The country's biggest business group Samsung has signed a deal to move some operations to Sejong City, along with the Hanwha, Woongjin and Lotte groups, said Prime Minister Chung Un-Chan.
“The government has decided to create an economic hub centered on education and science in Sejong City with public and private investments of 16.5 trillion won (US$14.6 billion) in total,” Chung said in a statement.
“We expect Sejong will grow into a self-sufficient city with a population of 500,000 with 246,000 new jobs by 2020.”
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Study Finds Students are "Stressed Out"
A new study has found that five times as many high school and college students are dealing with anxiety and other mental health issues as youth of the same age who were studied in the Great Depression era.
The findings, culled from responses to a popular psychological questionnaire used as far back as 1938, confirm what counselors on campuses nationwide have long suspected as more students struggle with the stresses of school and life in general.
"It's another piece of the puzzle — that yes, this does seem to be a problem, that there are more young people who report anxiety and depression," says Jean Twenge, a San Diego State University psychology professor and the study's lead author. "The next question is: What do we do about it?"
Read the Associated Press article
The findings, culled from responses to a popular psychological questionnaire used as far back as 1938, confirm what counselors on campuses nationwide have long suspected as more students struggle with the stresses of school and life in general.
"It's another piece of the puzzle — that yes, this does seem to be a problem, that there are more young people who report anxiety and depression," says Jean Twenge, a San Diego State University psychology professor and the study's lead author. "The next question is: What do we do about it?"
Read the Associated Press article
Monday, January 11, 2010
North Carolina Eases Online Education Access
An increasingly competitive job market means that higher education is essential for career prospects. While the National Center of Education Statistics reports that career-oriented enrollments in colleges and universities have reached a record 18.4 million this year, online degrees are quickly becoming a tenable alternative.
A new website operated by the government of North Carolina, will provide residents with a resource that consolidates all of the state's online education resources into one database, the Shelby Star reports.
The site includes information about classes appropriate for everybody from kindergarteners to seniors with free time to professionals seeking to expand their career options by continuing education.
"If we have a student who is taking online courses and maybe it doesn't work well with their schedule, they could go on the [internet] and see if it is being offered at another community college" says, Margo Green, marketing coordinator at the Cleveland Community College (CCC).
She added, "This is the direction more and more folks are headed. You can take the class anytime, anywhere."
The dean of enrollment management at CCC, Andy Gardner, said that "more than half of the 2,512 students at the school are taking at least one online class."
Nationally, more than 20 percent of all higher education students took at least one online course in the fall of 2007, according to the professional organization Sloan Consortium.
A new website operated by the government of North Carolina, will provide residents with a resource that consolidates all of the state's online education resources into one database, the Shelby Star reports.
The site includes information about classes appropriate for everybody from kindergarteners to seniors with free time to professionals seeking to expand their career options by continuing education.
"If we have a student who is taking online courses and maybe it doesn't work well with their schedule, they could go on the [internet] and see if it is being offered at another community college" says, Margo Green, marketing coordinator at the Cleveland Community College (CCC).
She added, "This is the direction more and more folks are headed. You can take the class anytime, anywhere."
The dean of enrollment management at CCC, Andy Gardner, said that "more than half of the 2,512 students at the school are taking at least one online class."
Nationally, more than 20 percent of all higher education students took at least one online course in the fall of 2007, according to the professional organization Sloan Consortium.
Thursday, January 7, 2010
2020 Visions
In the latest edition of Nature, the premier science journal, the editors asked policy-makers and scientists what the year 2020 will look like in their respective fields. Here are their answers and key questions. Contributions for the article are from Peter Norvig, director of research at Google to Gary P. Pisano, Harvard Business School.
Read the article
Read the article
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Excellence in Science Teaching Awarded by White House
Kendra Pullen is a fourth-grade science teacher at Riverside Elementary School in Shreveport, LA is being honored this week with the Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching.
The Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching demonstrates the United States’ dedication to math and science education. Over the past 25 years, this award has acknowledged outstanding math and science teachers who find creative and innovative ways to motive their students to learn. "I am truly honored to be in Washington this week to receive this award and to meet and network with other exceptional math and science educators from around our great nation," states Pullen.
Learn more about President Obama's Educate to Innovate campaign.
The Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching demonstrates the United States’ dedication to math and science education. Over the past 25 years, this award has acknowledged outstanding math and science teachers who find creative and innovative ways to motive their students to learn. "I am truly honored to be in Washington this week to receive this award and to meet and network with other exceptional math and science educators from around our great nation," states Pullen.
Learn more about President Obama's Educate to Innovate campaign.
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
YouTube and Facebook Go To School
Great article in TechDirt regarding using YouTube and Facebook online services in schools.
It's no secret that we live in a world of moral panics -- where new technologies are feared by those who don't understand them, often leading to regulations that block their potential. For years now, a number of politicians have sought laws to ban social networks in schools, assuming that they are either bad or simply inappropriate for schools. While those laws have yet to pass, many schools already do ban access to social networks and other sites. I've never quite understood how this makes sense. Rather than training students to use those sites properly, now they're seen as forbidden -- which only makes them more attractive to students, while making it even clearer that students won't be prepared to handle those sites properly. On top of that, as more powerful mobile phones become popular, students will easily bypass the school's own network and access those sites on their own -- and there will be nothing the schools can do about it.
It's no secret that we live in a world of moral panics -- where new technologies are feared by those who don't understand them, often leading to regulations that block their potential. For years now, a number of politicians have sought laws to ban social networks in schools, assuming that they are either bad or simply inappropriate for schools. While those laws have yet to pass, many schools already do ban access to social networks and other sites. I've never quite understood how this makes sense. Rather than training students to use those sites properly, now they're seen as forbidden -- which only makes them more attractive to students, while making it even clearer that students won't be prepared to handle those sites properly. On top of that, as more powerful mobile phones become popular, students will easily bypass the school's own network and access those sites on their own -- and there will be nothing the schools can do about it.
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