DOE National Technology Plan: "Transforming American Education: Learning Powered By Technology"

On Friday, the US Department of Education released the new National Education Technology Plan, entitled “Transforming American Education: Learning Powered By Technology”.

·         Abstract

·         Full Report

David Nagel reports in T.H.E. Journal that the new plan advocates radical reforms in schools:

If there were any doubts about the Obama administration's intentions toward education technology, the United States Department of Education settled them Friday with the release of the first public draft of the National Education Technology Plan (NETP). The 114-page document reveals an intent not only to infuse technology throughout the curriculum (and beyond), but to implement some major--sometimes radical--changes to education itself. 

The plan, titled "Transforming American Education: Learning Powered by Technology," sets forth, in part, a manifesto for change, questioning many of the basic structures of American education, enumerating the principles of change that are the foundation for the plan, and setting goals and recommendations for achieving this change.

Workforce and ABE Embracing Digital Learning Spaces

SLOAN "Workforce and ABE Embracing Digital Learning Spaces" kick-off event!

#sloankickoff

uStream - http://www.ustream.tv/channel/jumpstart2010 starts 2/23: 9:00am

Online Enrollment Up 17%

Inside Higher Ed article:

Fall 2008 online enrollments were up 17 percent from a year before, with about 4.6 million students taking at least one class online, according to the 2009 Sloan Survey of Online Learning.

Chronicle article.

Bill Gates Hearts Academic Earth

From the Washington Post:

Bill Gates has released his second annual letter from the Bill And Melinda Gates Foundation, and he has highlighted a tech startup that he finds particularly compelling, Academic Earth. We've written about the online video education site, which is sort of like a Hulu For Education.The startup provides a user-friendly platform for educational video that offers courses and lectures from Yale, MIT, Harvard, Stanford, UC Berkeley, Princeton and others.

Gates believes that online learning sites like Academic Earth will revolutionize education. Gates writes that sites that can cater to individual students online, offering a personalized learning experience, are innovative and will take interactivity to a new level. Academic Earth has received considerable amount of acclaim since its launch last year, also being named one of Time Magazine's best websites of 2009. 

Hybrid Education 2.0

You’ll want to read this provocative Inside Higher Education article.

"What if you could teach a college course without a classroom or a professor, and lose nothing?

According to researchers at Carnegie Mellon University, there’s no "what if" about it."