By Guy MacLean Rogers. 2013 was undoubtedly the year of the MOOC. My year of the MOOC however was way back in 1999. In that year the Global Education Network (GEN) in New York City chose my Wellesley College history course about Alexander the Great to be their first online course. I subsequently spent many weeks high up in Carnegie Towers on West 57st Street in mid-town Manhattan filming lecture modules, designing inter-active battle sequences, and writing computer-graded exams. It was a fantastic experience. Read more...

By Bryan Setser and Patrick Sellers. With the explosion of online courses and blended learning in K-12 and higher education, a unique collaboration among Davidson College, The College Board, Charlotte Mecklenburg Schools and 2Revolutions does far more than simply offer another Massive Online Open Course (MOOC). Read more...

By Joshua Kim. Last week I had the opportunity to spend the day in our nation’s capital, hanging out with higher ed types from across academia, business and government. The gathering was an Education Datapalooza, organized by officials from the White House and the Department of Education. The idea of a Datapalooza is pretty cool. The administration uses its power of convening to bring together people from higher ed, startups, venture firms, publishers, foundations, and government to make commitments to collaborate on tech projects and initiatives. Read more...

By Joshua Kim. Over the past couple of months I’ve been spending some quality time with Microsoft’s tablet / laptop combo, the Surface Pro. The Surface Pro was sent to me by Cameron Evans, Microsoft’s CTO for Education. Cameron is an executive, technologist, educator, and leader whom I greatly respect for both his passion to improve education and his knowledge of our edtech ecosystem. Read more...

By Matt Reed. Hope lives in the cracks.
This week I’ve been awash in data, from various sources.  On campus, we had our first real “Data Day,” in which we made actual posters of all manner of IR data and shared it with the entire faculty and staff.  The idea was to provide a common factual base for on-campus discussions of policy, innovations, and planning.  I don’t know if everybody “got” the subtext, but I did see some folks lingering at particular posters for extended periods, pointing at individual numbers and talking to each other.  To the extent that we can replace hunch or anecdote with fact, I have to believe we’ll be better off, even if some of the facts weren’t terribly encouraging in themselves. Earlier this week, the Chronicle published one of the more disturbing data-driven pieces I’ve seen in a while. Read more...

By Matt Reed. Sometimes, it’s worth reading the whole thing.  As they say on the Supreme Court: concur in part, dissent in part. A consortium of seventeen colleges and universities has submitted a concept paper to the Department of Education, petitioning for “experimental site authority” for their campuses to keep financial aid eligibility while moving to competency-based education.  (Hat-tip to Amy Laitinen, from the New America Foundation, for calling attention to it on Twitter.) Read more...