University of Texas at Austin Online Class Aims to Earn Millions | WSJ.com


Two University of Texas at Austin professors this week launched their introductory psychology class from a makeshift studio, with a goal of eventually enrolling 10,000 students at $550 a pop and bringing home millions for the school.

The professors have dubbed the class a SMOC—Synchronous Massive Online Class—and their effort falls somewhere between a MOOC, or Massive Open Online Course, a late-night television show and a real-time research experiment. The professors lecture into a camera and students watch on their computers or mobile devices, in real time.

The class, which made its debut [August 29, 2013], is emblematic of just how quickly the once-static business model of higher education is shifting as technology gives students more options and forces schools and professors to compete for their attention.

See the full story: University of Texas at Austin Online Class Aims to Earn Millions | WSJ.com.

Curious Brings Its “Learn Anything” Marketplace And Video Lesson Library To The iPad | TechCrunch


Perusing the Web, one quickly finds that learning platforms lean toward more academic subjects and mastery — online classes and courses — but what about more practical learning content and instruction? Sure, YouTube is rife with “how-to” videos, but separating the signal from the noise can take a lot of time.

It’s this problem (or opportunity) that led Justin Kitch to launch Curious back in May…Kitch saw an opportunity to capitalize on the rise of video-based education and offer curious minds, hobbyists and lifelong learners a place to peruse and find how-to content on any subject.

Like a combination of Skillshare and Udemy, Curious essentially aims to be a marketplace of how-to videos, allowing those experts and those who want to teach with those eager to learn from them…in a way that’s more targeted, navigable and interactive than YouTube.

Curious for iPad and Curious on the web.

Curious

via Curious Brings Its “Learn Anything” Marketplace And Video Lesson Library To The iPad | TechCrunch.

Announcing National Learn to Code Day! | Ladies Learning Code


Ladies Learning Code is excited to announce our latest initiative designed to promote technology education in Canada: National Learn to Code Day!

On September 21, 2013 over 450 learners across Canada will attend simultaneous HTML & CSS workshops in nine cities across the country, plus hundreds more will join us for our first-ever online workshop! Learn more about our adult in-person and online Code Day workshops here, and more about our Kids Learning Code National “Learn to Code” Day workshops here.

via Announcing National Learn to Code Day! | Ladies Learning Code.

Ladies Learning to Code

‘Teachers on Pinterest’ Offers Education-Based Inspiration | PCMag.com


[T]his week announced a new effortto support “a community of creative, inspiring and hard-working people who make a difference to millions of kids everyday” — teachers.

A number of elementary school educators have already joined the fray, partnering on the launch of Teachers on Pinterest, where teachers can find everything from lesson plans for different grades to classroom decorating ideas.

Pinterest is also working with the online educators’ resource Edutopia to continue building the website’s education-focused community.

See the full story: ‘Teachers on Pinterest’ Offers Education-Based Inspiration | News & Opinion | PCMag.com.

Pinterest

Mapping Creative Spaces Around The World | Co.Exist


If you’re looking for a creative space–a place to work that truly fosters collaboration, a place to learn new skills, a community of like-minded artists and entrepreneurs–you probably look on Yelp or do a Google search. That won’t yield much. These spaces are scattered across Yelp categories, and a Google search for “creative spaces” shows just a smattering of local spots. That’s what Berlin-based consulting studio ignore gravity discovered while researching creative spaces around the world.

So the studio pulled together data on hundreds of creative spaces and presented them in the Creative Space Explorer, a tool that lets users pinpoint creative spaces on a global map–and add their own. ” We define ‘creative space’ as an enviro that consciously is set up to trigger collaboration in a creative way,'” explains Max Krüger, one of the creators of Creative Space Explorer.

See the full article: Mapping Creative Spaces Around The World | Co.Exist | ideas + impact.

Mapping Creative Spaces Around The World | Co.Exist | ideas + impact

10 OpenCourseWare Sites for a Free Education | Mashable


See the full article: 10 OpenCourseWare Sites for a Free Education | Mashable.

  1. MIT
  2. OpenCourseWare Consortium
  3. Yale
  4. Open.Michigan
  5. Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
  6. Harvard Medical School
  7. Carnegie Mellon
  8. Tufts University
  9. Notre Dame
  10. UC Berkeley

Five [Six] Free Online Tools to Learn Another Language | Gizmodo


Five [Six] Free Online Tools to Learn Another Language | Gizmodo

  1. LiveMocha
  2. FSI Language Courses
  3. Duolingo
  4. Internet Polyglot
  5. Lang-8

See also: LaMP Teaches You a Foreign Language via Movie and YouTube Subtitles | LifeHacker. LaMP can be installed on Windows computers or accessed online.

Coursera under fire in MOOCs licensing row | The Conversation


A prominent member of the open education movement, former Open University Vice-Chancellor Sir John Daniel, has criticised online education provider Coursera for not making its materials available under creative commons licensing.

Coursera is one of the largest providers of MOOCs – Massive Open Online Courses – which allow students to take university courses for free online from anywhere in the world.

Quotable

“While MOOCs have open enrolment, many of the MOOCs offered through commercial partners do not have open licences,” he said.

“It would be a pity if MOOCs were to act as a brake on the open education movement.”

via Coursera under fire in MOOCs licensing row | The Conversation.

See also: Coursera partners with 10 universities for online classes | CNET

The Enormous Opportunity In Educating And Empowering Girls | Co.Exist


Giving young girls an education has such a huge impact in developing countries that you need to see it to believe it. A new film called Girl Rising shows how education affects nine girls from nine countries–with some help from Meryl Streep.

via The Enormous Opportunity In Educating And Empowering Girls | Co.Exist: World changing ideas and innovation.

CNN will be broadcasting Girl Rising June 16 & June 22. Check out the Girl Rising trailer website.

10×10 (Educate Girls: Change the World) is “a global action campaign for educating girls.” There will be a companion curriculum launched on October 11, 2013, The International Day of the Girl. The curriculum will be free of charge and educators can fill out a form to be notified when the curriculum is available.

There is also the 10×10 Book Club with toolkits for book clubs for two specific books so far (they will be adding more), as well as young adult and middle grade toolkits.

10 Fun Ways to Feed Your Mind this Summer | Ellyssa Kroski – OEDB.org


10 Fun Ways to Feed Your Mind this Summer | Ellyssa Kroski – OEDB.org.

These include:

  1. Learn a new language
  2. Register for a MOOC
  3. Watch Videos from Recent Conferences
  4. Create an Awesome Summer Reading List
  5. Play an Educational Game
  6. Learn how to play an instrument
  7. Listen to Some Smart Podcasts
  8. Download Free Audiobooks
  9. Install Educational Apps on Your Tablet
  10. Read Free eBooks

See the article for the full discussion.