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Submission + - Zuckerberg and Gates-Backed Startup Seeks to Shake Up African Education 1

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: The WSJ reports an army of teachers wielding Nook tablets and backed by investors including Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg is on a mission to bring cheap [$6.50/month], internet-based, private education to millions of the world's poorest children in Africa and Asia. In Kenya, 126,000 students are enrolled at 400+ Bridge International Academies that have sprung up across the country since the company was founded in 2009. Bridge’s founders are challenging the long-held assumption that governments rather than companies should lead mass education programs. The Nook tablets are used to deliver lesson plans used by teachers (aka "scripted instruction"), as well as to collect test results from students to monitor their progress.

Submission + - Life Imitates HBO Silicon Valley: FWD.us and Girls Who Code's SXSW Party

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: Just on the basis of often-parental advisory lyrics, one might think a rapper would be a dubious choice for a party co-sponsored by a Google-backed nonprofit that teaches middle-school girls to code. Still, that didn't deter tech billionaire-bankrolled FWD.us and Girls Who Code from having rapper Kent M$ney as the featured entertainment for their co-sponsored "Innovation for America" Happy Hour at SXSW on Saturday. FWD.us seemed pleased with the performance, although Instagram clips from Shiner's Saloon are more than a little reminiscent of Kid Rock's performance at a tech party on HBO's Silicon Valley.

Submission + - No Child Left Unspied On: Pearson Monitoring Social Media for Test References

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: As if people haven't found enough to hate about the new 11+ hour K-12 PARCC standardized testing (thank you, Bill Gates, may I have another!), the Washington Post reports that Pearson, the world’s largest education company, is monitoring social media during the administration of the PARCC Common Core test to detect any security breaches, saying it is "obligated" to alert authorities when any problems are discovered. The monitoring of social media was revealed in a message that a New Jersey School Superintendent sent to colleagues about a "Priority 1 Alert" initiated by Pearson in response to a student who referenced a PARCC test question in an after school Tweet. The news was broken in a blog entry by former NJ Star-Ledger reporter Bob Braun, who also posted the Superintendent's message and called the monitoring of social media nothing less than "spying." Pearson has a contract of more than $100 million to administer the PARCC in New Jersey.

Submission + - Straight Out of HBO Silicon Valley: FWD.us and Girls Who Code's SXSW Happy Hour 2

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: Remember that HBO Silicon Valley episode where Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates throw a conference after-party at a bar with a Google-backed nonprofit that teaches middle school and high school girls to code, and the drunk techies start shouting 'throw the work to the bitch' and other parental advisory lyrics along with the rapper who's performing? Wait, that never happened? Guess my imagination just ran away with me when after seeing rapper Kent M$ney tweet an invite to Saturday night's SXSW "Innovation for America" Happy Hour, which is sponsored by Zuck's FWD.us PAC and Girls Who Code.

Submission + - edX Welcomes 'The University of Microsoft' into its Fold

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: "At edX," explains the upscale MOOC founded by MIT and Harvard, "we believe in offering the highest quality courses, created by schools and partners who share our commitment to excellence in teaching and learning, both online and in the classroom." You know, like Building Cloud Apps with Microsoft Azure (course trailer). On Tuesday, edX welcomed Microsoft as its first corporate member to offer MOOCs on edX.org. "Through this program," said edX, "Microsoft will offer the edX global learning community courses to acquire the core development skills needed to be successful in the cloud-first, mobile-first world." The new initiative, explained Microsoft, expands upon an existing Microsoft partnership with edX to create interactive online courses using Office Mix and PowerPoint 2013. Classes start March 31st, kids!

Submission + - Univ. of WA: Opponents of K-12 CS Bill "Same People Who Don't Like Puppies"

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: Led by Washington State income tax killer Steve Ballmer, dozens of tech, education & nonprofit execs urged passage of a WA computer science education bill, calling for millions in state spending to help prepare K-12 kids for tech jobs. In a signed letter and full-page Seattle Times ad lobbying lawmakers to pass House Bill 1813, representatives from Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Amazon, and tech-bankrolled Code.org suggested WA State ante up $1 million-a-year for starters, saying "Let's give a united answer to the parent who asks, 'Why doesn’t my child’s school teach computer science?'" Hey, why not tell them it's because Ballmer dodged a possible $180M in state taxes on a planned $2B Microsoft stock sale that could have been used for CS education instead of enriching Donald Sterling! By the way, the University of Washington — on whose behalf representatives of Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Code.org (including some WA state income tax opponents) coincidentally recently penned a letter pressuring WA lawmakers to fund a new $110M CS building — notes that HB 1813 went on to pass the WA House 91-7. "We don’t know who the 7 were," quipped the UW, "but it’s presumably the same folks who don’t like puppies." No word if that includes the WA State Superintendent of Public Instruction, who in public testimony on HB 1813 pushed back on Microsoft and Code.org's call for girls-first CS education, challenging advocates of "computer science for all" to instead put their tax money where their mouths are and support full funding of, well, statewide K-12 CS for ALL, if it's indeed all that important.

Submission + - Go R, Young Man

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: "Learning to code has become a mainstream fascination," writes Brian Liou in Why are YOU learning to code?, "but all the evangelization has been misleading. The problem in our Chris-Bosh-codes-so-should-you society is that people learn to code without first asking "for what purpose do you want to use code?" What in your day-to-day work could you actually automate using code? Let’s face it, your odds of creating the next hot iPhone app aren’t great, but the spreadsheets you look at everyday or the strategic business decisions you or your company makes? Coding can help you with those. Coding to better understand data would help everyone." Leada co-founder Liou's advice? "So to all non-technical professionals looking to get technical: If you want to become a software engineer, by all means learn Ruby or go through the JavaScript tutorials on Codecademy. But if you’re simply a business professional looking to gain an edge on your peers, trust me, you are much better off learning R." So, did Mark Zuckerberg steer 100 million K-12 coder wannabes down the wrong path with the JavaScript and Ruby preaching?

Submission + - Making CS Education an Issue Like Climate Change: Mission Accomplished?

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: Code is the New Literacy, declared tech-backed Code.org in a star-studded video two years ago as it teamed with politicians, educators, billionaires, tech giants, and the NSF to make CS education "an issue like climate change". And as the billionaire-bankrolled nonprofit celebrates its second birthday, it would appear that the mission's been accomplished. Last December saw K-12 educators in the U.S. and Russia clamor to make sure their kids get with the program(ming). Heck, Arkansas went so far as to declare a high school CS education state of emergency, New York City has tapped Code.org, the NSF, Google, and Microsoft to tag-team-teach schoolkids CS before, during, and after school, and AmeriCorps VISTA Members will soon be fighting the war on poverty using Google's CS First Curriculum. Hey, Harold Hill and Lyle Lanley could only dream of such success!

Submission + - Hillary Clinton Used Personal Email at State Dept., Possibly Breaking Rules (nytimes.com) 1

Submitted by HughPickens.com
HughPickens.com writes: The NYT reports that Hillary Rodham Clinton exclusively used a personal email account to conduct government business as secretary of state, State Department officials said, and may have violated federal requirements that officials’ correspondence be retained as part of the agency’s record. Clinton did not have a government email address during her four-year tenure at the State Department. Her aides took no actions to have her personal emails preserved on department servers at the time, as required by the Federal Records Act. “It is very difficult to conceive of a scenario — short of nuclear winter — where an agency would be justified in allowing its cabinet-level head officer to solely use a private email communications channel for the conduct of government business,” says Jason R. Baron. A spokesman for Clinton defended her use of the personal email account and said she has been complying with the “letter and spirit of the rules.”

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