Education News from Around America

from Education News - Topix

Home schooling is seeing some major changes. This new information age is allowing K-12 students to get public education in their own homes, often tuition-free, by ways of "virtual learning." Elizabeth Henry, 12, and Timothy Henry, 10, are students of Connections Academy, a virtual K-12 public school.

from Education News - Topix

It's common for us baby boomers to laugh that our children instinctively understand computers better than we do.

from Education - Brookings Institution

from Education - Latest News (Press Releases)

Employees are any business’ most important assets – they are the human resources that create products, provide services and keep the business going.

from Education Week American Education News

from Education - Latest News (Press Releases)

San Bernardino resident and former social worker is ready for a new career

from Education News - Topix

Fewer than half the states routinely analyze suspicious numbers of erasures on standardized school tests, a key method of detecting cheating by teachers or their bosses.

from DC Area Education News by Valerie Strauss

This was written by Paul Thomas, an associate professor of education at Furman University in South Carolina. A version of this post was published on the Daily Kos blog.

Read full article >>

from DC Area Education News by Valerie Strauss

Oh good. The U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce is holding a hearing on Wednesday morning to examine problems with No Child Left Behind’s accountability system. And if there is one thing we need, it is one more hearing during which witnesses can repeat the same complaints they have made for years about the fatal flaws of NCLB and its Adequate Yearly Progress accountability system. Read full article >>

A few days ago my Internet Time Alliance colleague, Harold Jarche, shared this article, written by Deb Lavoy, with me: Social Business Doesn’t Mean What You Think It Does, Neither Does Enterprise 2.0. The first few paragraphs say it all!

"Social Business" is not about technology, or about "corporate culture." It is a socio-political historical shift that is bigger, broader and much more fascinating.

A new perspective is changing how we think about society, politics, interpersonal relationships, science, government and business. New approaches are emerging. Learning and self-expression are exploding. Values are changing. Leadership is changing. The economy is changing. Change itself is changing - it is accelerating and becoming the norm."

The changes we are seeing in Workplace Learning are of course just one part of the changes we are seeing in businesses as whole. Simply replace the word "business" in the quote above with the word "learning" and it still makes sense. So, for instance the first paragraph would now read:

"Social Learning " is not about technology, or about "corporate culture". It is a socio-political historical shift that is bigger, broader and much more fascinating."

In other words those who think "social learning" is just about a new training trend, or about adding social media into the "blend", or that it is about acquiring the latest Social Learning Management System are missing the big picture.

Harold Jarche makes this point succinctly himself in Social Learning: the freedom to act and cooperate with others

"One current theme in the workplace and education circles is to "blend" social with the formal and structured. But social learning is not a bolted-on component of our formal educational and training programs. It is a sea change. It will disrupt institutions built upon the technology of the printing press – all communication enterprises, including education. Yes, we have always learned and worked socially, but we have never had the power of ridiculously easy group-forming or almost zero-cost duplication of our words and images."

So to paraphrase the title of Deb Lavoy’s article – "Social Learning doesn’t mean what you think it does."

So what is the "big picture"?

To find out, please continue reading the rest of this posting on my Learning in the Social Workplace blog