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This Interview is sponsored by udemy - Udemy enables anyone to take and build courses online. Their goal is to disrupt and democratize education by enabling anyone to learn from the world’s experts. Visit udemy.com and follow them on Twitter @udemy. |
VGo Is A Robot That Goes To School Or Work For You
Running on Verizon’s 4G LTE network, VGo is already being used in a variety of situations -– including schools. Students who can’t attend school due to an illness of handicap can instead virtually attend classes via VGo.
Unlike other telepresence system where the camera is stationary, VGo is a robot on wheels allowing a student to adjust where the camera is pointed, talk to their teacher and classmates, and even hit the road for their next class. Since VGo is connected over LTE, it can maintain connectivity throughout an entire school building, without requiring the school to offer Wi-Fi throughout the every building and every classroom.
Source: Mashable
Washington University School of Law Goes Online with LL.M. in U.S. Law
Washington University School of Law announced it will begin offering its Master of Laws in U.S. Law for Foreign Lawyers (LL.M.) in online format. Called @WashULaw, the program is the first and only top-tier online LL.M. in U.S. law. It builds on the school’s internationally recognized postgraduate law degree program, which is designed for foreign attorneys interested in increasing their knowledge of U.S. law to more effectively practice in today’s global legal environment.
@WashULaw will allow foreign lawyers to complete an LL.M. degree in U.S. law without leaving their law practices or relocating to the United States. Students will receive an excellent grounding in U.S. Law, with a focus on business issues, without dramatic disruption to their professional and personal lives or the relocation costs associated with a prolonged stay overseas.
Source: 2tor
Principal resigns after creating fake Facebook profile to spy on students
As detailed by the Kansas City Star, high school principal Louise Losos at Clayton High School in Missouri resigned at the end of last week after it was discovered that she created a fake Facebook profile under the name Suzy Harriston. Harriston’s profile had over 300 friends and mostly targeted Clayton High School students in addition to some parents. Rather than using a profile picture of a female student, Dr. Losos used a picture of a group of penguins to avoid identification.
As more Clayton High School students and parents accepted Suzy Harriston’s friend requests, this allowed Dr. Losos to view all comments being made by these people.
Source: Digital Trends
Indiana mom sends son to school with stun gun to confront bullies
An Indiana mother who sent her gay son to school with a stun gun after administrators apparently didn’t do enough to stop the bullying against him said she would do it again — even though the teen now faces expulsion.
“I do not promote violence — not at all — but what is a parent to do when she has done everything that she felt she was supposed to do … at the school?” the mother, Chelisa Grimes, told CNN’s Don Lemon on Sunday. “I did feel like there was nothing else left for me to do, but protect my child.”
The school district held an expulsion hearing last week but no decision has been announced.
Source: CNN
AP surges as tool for schools raising standards
Not long ago, Advanced Placement exams were mostly for top students looking to challenge themselves and get a head start on college credit. Not anymore.
In the next two weeks, 2 million students will take 3.7 million end-of-year AP exams — figures well over double those from a decade ago. With no national curriculum, AP has become the de facto gold standard for high school rigor. States and high schools are pushing AP classes and exams as a way to raise standards across the board, in some cases tying AP to bonuses. And the federal government is helping cover the exam fees.
Teachers acknowledge the trend raises tough questions: Is pushing poorly prepared students to take college-level classes effective? Or does it just demoralize them and divert time and money better spent elsewhere?
Source: Boston.com
Getting amino acids? Student receiving IV drips during study
As the national college entrance examination is approaching, there are a bunch of students who seem to be the hardest working ones to prepare for it because they get intravenous (IV) drips while studying in class.
The dean of the middle school, Xia said that every year each student receives 10 RMB stipends for the preparation of the national college entrance examination. The stipend can be used in the clinic room in school in the means of receiving amino acids.
Source: China Hush
Amid student loan tussles, more seek “forgiveness”
As U.S. lawmakers consider how to keep interest rates on certain student loans from escalating, a growing number of students have sought help through a bipartisan 2009 initiative. In less than three years, more than 675,000 borrowers have signed up, according to the U.S. Department of Education.
Educators and policymakers also are looking for new solutions to a mountain of student debt that has reached the $1 trillion mark. With a November 6 presidential election looming, both President Barack Obama and his presumed Republican challenger Mitt Romney have targeted student loans as a growing problem for American families and the struggling U.S. economy.
Source: Reuters
Under Obama administration, abstinence-only education finds surprising new foothold
Last month, for the first-time ever, Health and Human Services added an abstinence-only education curriculum to the list of 28 evidence-based pregnancy prevention programs that the Obama administration will fund.
This was something of a surprise. When it comes to preventing teen pregnancy, the Obama administration has staked out a decidedly anti-abstinence-only-education stance. The president has, in previous budgets, zeroed out funds for such programs as federal reviews have found such programs to have no impact on sexual abstinence and, in some cases, include inaccurate information on sexuality.
Source: Washington Post
Gender Gap in College Leads Women to Prioritize Work
Researchers led by University of Texas at San Antonio professor Kristina Durante examined historical data on the ratio of single men to single women in each U.S. state and Washington D.C. They also looked into the desire of hundreds of female college students to focus on career or family after they led them to believe that there were either more men or less men on campus by reading one of two news article about the student population.
As bachelors became scarce in college, the percentage of women in high-paying careers increased, women delayed having children, and had fewer kids when they finally started a family. As for the experiment, when women read that there were fewer men than women on campus, they became more motivated to pursue ambitious careers than to start a family.
Source: The Atlantic
How Tech Is Changing College Life
Presta Electronics used material from the Pew Research Center, Chronicle of Higher Education, Mashable and other sources to put together an infographic asking just how important is technology to academic lives?
More than 90% use email to communicate with professors and 73% say they cannot study without technology. Seven in 10 take notes on keyboards instead of paper, virtually all students who own an ereader read textbooks on it and most use digital tools when preparing a presentation.
All that tech has caused something of a dependency too — 38% of students can’t go more than 10 minutes without checking their smartphone or other device. All told, students spent $13 billion on electronics in 2009.
Source: Mashable
Nerd Vision: Up to 90% of Asian Schoolkids Are Nearsighted
Reporting in the journal Lancet, the authors note that up to 90% of young adults in major East Asian countries, including China, Taiwan, Japan, Singapore and South Korea, are nearsighted. The overall rate of myopia in the U.K., by contrast, is about 20% to 30%.
One Israeli study compared public school children with their counterparts in religious schools. Both boys and girls had roughly equal rates of myopia in public school. But the boys in religious school had much greater rates of myopia than any of their peers, said Twelker — the result of as much as 10 hours of close reading a day. Girls in the religious schools, who weren’t as burdened with what Twelker calls “near work,” experienced about the same rate of myopia as those enrolled in public school.
Source: The Atlantic
No Personal Calls on the Job? No Thanks
Even in a tough job market, 23% of recent college graduates wouldn’t take a post where they couldn’t make or take personal phone calls, and 20% would reject a place that didn’t let them check personal email, according to a new study from staffing firm Adecco Group North America.
The study, which surveyed more than 500 22- to 26-year-old graduates of four-year degree programs, also found that newly minted graduates are short on patience: Only 3% said they expect to stay at any one job for more than five years, and 33% said they would probably stay three years or less.
Source: WSJ
Picture: via China Hush
