education

College presidents debating the future of higher education at #NAISAC15

I was in attendance when four current and former college presidents discussed and debated the future of higher ed. I was beyond stunned by the future-minded ideas of Southern New Hampshire president Paul LeBlanc. The other presidents painted a familiar, but improving version of the current status quo. Mr. LeBlanc, however, discussed a complete "unbundling" of the college experiences from courses to residential programs to assessments.

One of his most compelling points cited that most colleges say that most of their students are ready for the workforce upon graduation, but that most companies say relatively few students are - no matter the numbers, there is something to deal with in that.

I'd love to hear your thoughts

Read @drjodigold 's book, screen-smart parenting for wise, constructive advice on kids and tech usage

Jodi Gold spoke at my school's Parents Association meeting on finding balance in children’s use of technology (in its various forms). She was entertaining, informative, and most of all, constructive.

I have not read her book (screen-smart parenting) yet (though I purchased it on the spot), but if it is half as useful as her talk, it is a must read.

She gave us practical advice upon practical advice: everything from how to talk to your kids about selfies to creating family guidelines and behavior plans that work, and much more.

The key take away for me was that working on kids’ healthy relationship with technology should begin in nursery school.

Some other tips from her included:

  • have your tween/teen install the self control app
  • don’t spy on your kids, get in the practice of them touring you through their tech world, and giving you their passwords
  • use technology to send people compliments and caring expressions
  • delete embarrassing photos
  • don’t like mean posts
  • unsubscribe from mean group chats
  • do talk about pornography with your kids
  • too many more to list!

Preventing racist Halloween costumes

I am thankful for the work of Ohio University's Students Teaching About Racism in Society (STARS) who came up with this poster campaign. It's a small group that has suddenly become a bit of an internet sensation (Colorlines).

They are college students making strong statements about how we can each make healthy choices over hurtful choices for Halloween. While keeping race and ethnicity in mind, it is important to talk to students about provocative costumes, and how objectification of women (in particular) is equally problematic.

How does your school go about getting into a mess with costumes?

Mendeley, the world's largest, crowdscourced library

via vimeo.com

Mendley, a powerful resource for academics. Upload your papers into the software and it extracts relevant data like journal, title, authors, and more. Use others work to help you connect to other related research. Powerful, and worth looking into if you are doing research or reading a lot of research.

Via ProfHacker