Podcast Series: Innovations in Education

Explore the full series of eSchool News podcasts hosted by Kevin Hogan—created to keep you on the cutting edge of innovations in education.

Opinion: How competition fails our students

Zeller advocates mastery of educational concepts before students are encouraged to compete in the classroom.

Zeller advocates mastery of educational concepts before students are encouraged to compete in the classroom.

(Editor’s note: Brent Zeller is the author of the provocative book Evolutionary Education: Moving Beyond Our Competitive Compulsion. Here, he explains why he believes competition is detrimental to learning. Comments are welcome at the bottom of the page.)

In 1988, after 20 years of learning and playing tennis, and 14 years of teaching it to thousands of students, I had a simple realization: The introduction of competition before we achieve proficiency in the fundamental physical, mental, and emotional skills compromises all aspects of the learning process.…Read More

For-profit colleges face mounting scrutiny

Commercial schools continue to see rising stock prices despite a rash of bad news.
Commercial schools continue to see rising stock prices despite a rash of bad news.

Officials at for-profit colleges and universities are facing a chorus of public criticism after accusations of shady student recruiter practices and a U.S. Department of Education (ED) report that showed twice as many students at for-profit schools have defaulted on their college loans as students attending nonprofit and public colleges and universities.

The mounting criticism comes as new research suggests for-profit colleges are gaining market share among online learners as the recession drives more people back to school.

Students who took out loans to pay for education at commercial institutions such as the University of Phoenix and DeVry University had a 21-percent default rate within three years, according to the Dec. 14 ED report, which used data from students who began loan repayment in fiscal year 2007.…Read More

Universities play role in broadband expansion

A New Mexico broadband initiative will give broadband access to 3,000 homes and 1,000 businesses.
A New Mexico broadband initiative will give broadband access to 3,000 homes and 1,000 businesses.

Colleges and universities will help bring broadband internet to underserved schools, businesses, and neighborhoods after Vice President Joe Biden announced the first round of federal stimulus funds to expand high-speed web access on Dec. 17.

Eighteen projects nationwide, funded by $182 million in stimulus dollars, will build long-awaited fiber-optic networks in rural areas not served by high-bandwidth web connections in larger nearby cities.

The University of Maine is among the campuses involved in the broadband expansion program. Maine will partner with Biddleford Internet Corp.—along with several other companies—to build three fiber optic rings across 1,100 miles of rural area with $25.4 million in funding.…Read More

Partnership a boon for alternative textbooks

More than 40,000 students at 400 colleges used Flat World textbooks in the fall 2009 semester.
More than 40,000 students at 400 colleges used Flat World textbooks in the fall 2009 semester.

Students who are blind, have low vision, or have a learning disability that requires computer-generated speech and highlighted text soon will have more resources after publisher Flat World Knowledge announced Dec. 14 that it will make its content available to Bookshare, the largest web-based library for people with print disabilities.

Bookshare, which has 75,000 members worldwide, will add 11 new digital textbooks to its online library, which has been bolstered in the past year by contributions from colleges and universities hoping to bring reading material to students who can’t see standard print or can’t turn a page.

The first Flat World Knowledge peer-reviewed textbooks on Bookshare will be for economics and business. The partnership is expected to produce about 50 more books–covering algebra, genetics, sociology, and a range of other subjects–that will be released over the next two years, according to an announcement from Bookshare, which launched in 2002.…Read More