As new models of digital learning sweep across higher education, colleges and universities across the globe are scrambling to get on board and make their course catalogs available to a wider audience via the Web. Of these new models, few have seen more attention than massive open online courses (a.k.a. “MOOCs”), which, starting with Khan Academy, promise to offer access to quality, affordable… → Read More
At Stanford, just under 21 percent of undergraduate CS majors, the school’s most popular major, are women.
Surrounding the school, Silicon Valley is starved for talented engineers, with companies aggressively recruiting Stanford undergrads with coding skills for high paying internships and full time jobs.
“Getting more girls involved in CS is probably the most impactful thing we can do… → Read More
For decades, the door to America’s top-tier universities has been closing, and today your chances of being admitted to these prestigious institutions is slimmer than ever. This year, the acceptance rate at four of the eight Ivy League schools hit record lows. Stanford professors Daphne Koller and Andrew Ng launched Coursera earlier this year to fling that door wide open. → Read More
The cost of higher education in the U.S. today is ridiculous. Student debt shot north of $1 trillion earlier this year, for example. It’s not surprising, then, that we’re seeing growing adoption of online learning platforms and tools. MOOCs, or massive online open courses, have been the stars of a new educational model, thanks to their potential to offer quality, affordable education at a scale… → Read More
Laurene Powell Jobs, widow of visionary Apple co-founder and CEO, the late Steve Jobs, is joining the board of trustees of Stanford University. She has been elected for a five-year term that will begin on October 1. The move continues her association with educational policy as well as Stanford — she attended business school there, getting her MBA in 1991. Steve Jobs also had a strong connection… → Read More
Stanford University announced the creation of an Office of the Vice Provost for Online Learning today, appointing computer science professor John Mitchell as the office’s inaugural head.
In the past 20 years, Stanford has only established two Vice Provost offices, for undergraduate and graduate education, both of which “fundamentally reshaped education at Stanford.” University spokeswoman… → Read More
With over 700 million downloads, Apple’s iTunes U has been a massive success, but unlike other new online learning services like Udacity or Codecademy, it’s missing a social component where students can ask questions and learn from each other. Apple, Stanford University and the Palo Alto-based startup Piazza have now teamed up to bring Piazza’s social learning platform for students, TAs and… → Read More
It wasn’t so long ago that Peter Thiel began publicly pushing the somewhat controversial idea that higher education is in a bubble, or launching an initiative to help smart young people “stop out of school.”
For these reasons, Thiel’s decision to teach a higher ed course was unexpected, even controversial. Last month, he began teaching a class at Stanford called “Computer Science 183… → Read More
I’ve written a lot about America’s flawed immigration policies: how the unavailability of permanent-resident visas and the growing xenophobia in the U.S., combined with expanding economic opportunities abroad, are causing a reverse brain drain. Skilled immigrants are returning home to countries like China and India in record numbers. America’s leaders are accelerating the trend by pandering… → Read More
When I was ready to transition from computer programmer to project manager, my employer, Xerox Corporation, sent me to its huge training center in Leesburg, Virginia. Over two weeks, the people there taught me some of the skills I needed in order to succeed in my new role: managing projects, motivating people, complying with employment regulations, and preparing status reports and presentations. → Read More
A Stanford University research group says it found a way to more than double current solar power production efficiency. The technology uses both light and heat from the sun and is inexpensive enough that, if it pans out, it might be able to compete with oil.
Most current technology can either convert light into electricity at relatively low temperatures, or convert the sun’s heat at very high… → Read More
The Traveling Geeks gathered together for a great turnout (despite the torrential downpours) at the Guardian’s Media Talk (live) podcast. Our agenda was to discuss journalism and it’s rapid change in the 21st Century. Listen here. While more and more newspapers lose their audience and their advertisers, print is quite quickly, becoming obsolete. In the video below you will see Sarah… → Read More
Want to learn how to create an iPhone app? Later this week, aspiring app creators will be able to start watching a popular Stanford computer science course on developing iPhone apps right on their iPhones. Stanford will start distributing the course for free as a video podcast throughiTunes U. (The podcasts can also be watched on iPods and computers, obviously).
With more than 25,000 apps out… → Read More
Stanford University recently conducted a research study to see what people do on the Internet. According to their website with a 1996-based layout, E-mail still reigns king as the most popular activity with 90% of users sending e-mails. And get this: Chat rooms are for the young and anonymous, as if you didn’t already know tons of pervs chill in them all day long. Stanford also describes the… → Read More
Not even a minute into this video and I was cracking up. It’s not even because he’s rapping (poorly) about UNIX-commands, it’s that this is the biggest display of geekism ever. The beats are not fresh, the bassist has a frickin’ music stand to read notes off of, and the keyboardist is wearing the most unfashionable glasses to date. Oh, and last time I checked, unless… → Read More
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