I’ve been trying to figure out how to write about Amplify Learning for months. It’s complicated, Forbes reports. Mashable’s story describes Amplify as the cash hungry villain: News Corp’s bid to profit off children. The New York Times’ coverage read like an informercial; retelling that same old congratulatory story of free market innovation. NPR covered Amplify when they first announced the tablets, quoting CEO Joel Klein, “We don’t have a political mission — none whatsoever. What we’re doing is developing materials in math and science and the English language arts — designed by leading experts.” How should I write about Amplify? Should I take a political stance? Or, should I evaluate the orange tablets simply as a digital learning technology, out of context? Do I bracket out the fact that this particular edtech company is owned by News Corp?
…Read MorePodcast 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.
News Corp. to launch tablet-based education pilot
In a further expansion into the ed-tech market, News Corp.—Rupert Murdoch’s media conglomerate that owns FOX News and the Wall Street Journal, among other properties—on July 23 unveiled its new K-12 education business, called Amplify, and said it was partnering with AT&T to fund a pilot project that aims to put tablet computers in students’ hands in the coming school year.
AT&T will provide tablet computers that work on its 4G and Wi-Fi networks. None of the schools selected to participate will have to pay for the program. The company did not say which schools would take part or how they’d be selected.
The idea is to put tablet computers into the hands of students for use at school and at home. The system tracks their progress and is meant to tailor lessons to each student’s level.…Read More
Rupert Murdoch giving keynote at Jeb Bush’s ed reform summit
The man chosen to give the breakfast keynote address on the second day of the upcoming National Summit on Education Reform 2011: Education Everywhere , is none other than … media mogul Rupert Murdoch, the Washington Post reports. Yes indeed, the Rupert Murdoch set to speak on technology’s power to transform education is the same Rupert Murdoch recently hauled before a British parliamentary committee to explain why a newspaper he owned had used technology to hack the phones of thousands of British citizens for years—including the phone of a murdered 13-year-old girl, thus interfering with the police investigation…
…Read MoreNews Corporation introduces The Daily, a digital-only newspaper
Rupert Murdoch on Wednesday pushed the send button on The Daily, a news application designed for the iPad that he hopes will position his News Corporation front and center in the digital newsstand of the future, reports the New York Times.
“New times demand new journalism,” Mr. Murdoch said on stage at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York before an audience of reporters, media executives, employees and advertising partners.
The Daily will be a first of its kind for tablet computers: a general interest publication that will refresh every morning and will bill customers’ credit cards each week for 99 cents or each year for $40.…Read More