Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk was recently interviewed by renowned manufacturing guru Sandy Munro where he talked about MBAs. Musk is not a fan of how people with MBAs from high profile business schools seem to think that they should go directly from school to a leadership position before they have had any actual experience.
Here are Elon Musk’s somewhat colorful comments on MBAs. The full interview with Elon Musk can be watched below as well:
The path to leadership should not be through an MBA business school situation. It should be kind of work your way up and do useful things. There’s a bit too much of the somebody goes to a high-profile MBA school and then kind of parachutes in as the leader but they don’t actually know how things work. They could be good at say PowerPoint presentations or something like that, and they can present well, but they don’t actually know how things work. They parachute in instead of working their way up. They’re kind of like just not aware of what’s really needed to make great products.
I don’t want to trash MBAs too much here. I actually do have a dual undergrad, a Wharton undergrad, and physics at UPenn. I have direct exposure to business school and I went to do undergrad school with physics and I was a teaching assistant for two semesters and I graded MBAs and undergrads. I think it’s just a little bit too much. People look at MBA school as like I want to parachute into being the boss instead of earning it. I don’t think that’s good.
Elon Musk: People With MBAs Want To Parachute Into Being The Boss
T-Mobile has announced the launch of Project 10Million, a $10.7 billion initiative to help deliver internet connectivity to underserved children.
Since the pandemic swept the globe, children across the country have been relying on remote schooling to keep up with their classes. Unfortunately, poor internet access is a major impediment to children being able to safely learn at home. Even before the pandemic, a ‘homework gap’ impacted some 9 million children, where poor internet access made it difficult or impossible to complete after-school assignments.
Now that the ‘homework gap’ is turning into a full-fledged ‘schoolwork gap,’ T-Mobile is expanding Project 10Million. Schools districts can apply the value of the program to data plans, including a 100GB per month plan, or one that is fully unlimited. The Initiative includes free wireless hotspots and at-cost tablets and laptops.
“Education is the great leveler, but without internet access, kids will be left behind. T-Mobile has a big goal – to deliver connectivity to every child who needs it across the U.S. Starting now with our historic Project 10Million commitment, we’re going to help open A LOT of doors to opportunity that might have previously been closed,” said T-Mobile CEO Mike Sievert. “This issue is even more critical as the COVID-19 pandemic has completely shifted learning for many from the classroom to online. Big issues need big solutions, and that’s exactly why we’re not just launching but significantly enhancing Project 10Million and giving flexibility to educators so they can best address the unique needs of their students with plans that offer more data. As the supercharged Un-carrier, we now have the resources and network capacity to deliver reliable connectivity to students across the U.S. — and to tackle the critical homework gap and the schoolwork gap head-on!”
“We’ve got to be intentional about subjecting ourselves to the scrutiny of third-party evaluators to make sure that parents and teachers don’t think they’re martyring their kids just by adding technology to their learning experience,” says DreamBox Learning CEO Jessie Woolley-Wilson. “A Harvard study that we published proved that it was efficacious. If kids used DreamBox for just five lessons a week, that’s less than one hour, they could get a 60 percent increase in their learning.”
Jessie Woolley-Wilson, CEO of DreamBox Learning, discusses how DreamBox is now used by one out of every ten schools because it is proven to enhance learning:
There’s An Acceleration In Schools Going 100% Online
We have a goal to unlock the learning potential in every child regardless of what zip code they’re in. We think the way to do that is to personalize the learning experience so that it’s engaging, it’s effective, and it’s highly personalized. We developed an intelligent adaptive learning engine that was pioneered in 2006 to actually track how kids are thinking. It matches the curriculum to exactly where they were so it would never be too difficult or too easy. It would always be engaging and kids would struggle productively and learn and master skills.
We really didn’t know what to expect (related to schools closing), we just knew we had to embrace change. Schools were asked to change and parents were asked to change and we changed too. So we opened up our platform for free through the end of the school year just to make sure that parents and teachers didn’t have to worry about mathematics. We saw over two million kids join the platform in less than six weeks. That’s great growth but it also means it strained the organization. When you grow that fast i like to say you get stretch marks, so we’re managing through our stretch marks. That means that we have a lot more students and a lot more volume to manage in a much smaller piece of time.
We thought we would get some relief as schools would go back to school in live classrooms. What we’re finding now in the last couple weeks is that there’s an acceleration in the the number of schools and districts that have decided to remain in a distance 100 percent online learning mode.
Teachers Cannot Be Replaced By Technology
The (technology gap) is a big concern and challenge and I would say an opportunity for everyone involved in blended learning. At DreamBox, we never believed and don’t believe that teachers can be replaced by technology. We have developed a technology that was designed to complement the live instruction, to complement the art and the magic that happens in a live classroom. We think that there are things that technology can do better. Technology can understand what each individual child is doing moment by moment and then can tee up predictive insights to a teacher so that they know what they can do and how they can change their live instruction.
Over the time of COVID, we think that the gap between the haves and have-nots has grown larger because there are some kids that are permanently disconnected. They don’t have access to broadband and they don’t have devices. We need coordinated strategy, national, state, and local strategy, to make sure that these disconnected kids are connected and they can leverage innovative learning technologies that complement what they get in the classroom.
Adding Technology To Learning Is Not Martyring Your Kids
One of the adaptations that we actually made during the time of COVID was we added a capability in the platform that will allow teachers to send notes to kids. I don’t think that all technologies are the same. There’s no monolithic online learning experience. Many kids are not experiencing a positive online learning experience. We’re thrilled that at DreamBox, our kids are engaged. They think they’re playing a game but they’re actually engaged in rigorous meaningful deep thinking mathematics. That’s why they love it and that’s why parents trust it.
We saw exponential growth in the number of parents who actually signed up for DreamBox as well. Parents need relief. Children need engaged reliable learning experiences. I think it’s incumbent upon companies like DreamBox to open themselves up to the scrutiny of third-party evaluators. A Harvard study that we published proved that it was efficacious. If kids used DreamBox for just five lessons a week, that’s less than one hour, they could get a 60 percent increase in their learning.
On the other side, in terms of student privacy, Common Sense Media has given us their highest rating. These are hard goals but we’ve got to be intentional about subjecting ourselves to the scrutiny of third-party evaluators to make sure that parents and teachers don’t think they’re martyring their kids just by adding technology to their learning experience.
DreamBox CEO Jessie Woolley-Wilson: Adding Technology To Learning Is Not Martyring Your Kids
“Innovation is the key,” says Honeywell CEO Darius Adamczyk. “Anything we do in Honeywell, innovation is always the key. Whether it’s expanding into Europe, driving more robotics, a connected warehouse offering which we are bringing to customers and having a broader play, are the key technology levers for that business.”
Darius Adamczyk, CEO and Chairman at Honeywell, discusses how the company is using innovation and technology to drive growth in an interview on Bloomberg:
Honeywell Digital Makes Us a More Contemporary Digital Company
As we always said my number one priority as CEO was to drive organic growth, but we never say we’re going to give up on our margin expansion. We do it through a combination, both commercial levers, which is managing our mix, and always introducing new products, which bring more value to customers. But also not forgetting our roots, which is driving productivity. With the number of ERPs we have and the kind of complexity we have in our supply chain, Honeywell Digital, which is going to make us a much more contemporary digital company, we have plenty of levers for productivity as well.
Honeywell Digital really has three primary elements. First is data governance, which is standard across all our various businesses. We’ve done over 80 acquisitions in the last 15 years so we have a lot of disparity. Then there are common processes, which is we want to run our businesses the same way in a very consistent manner. We have some pockets of excellence, but those have some inconsistency. Finally, all integrated into a common IT platform. Just to give an example, we had well over 1,500 different software applications before we started. We had over 150 ERP systems. It’s just very difficult to run a company efficiently and enable us to really make good data-based decisions. Honeywell digital is really all about enabling that.
Anything We Do In Honeywell, Innovation is Always the Key
Warehouse automation, which we started in 2016 with our Intelligrated acquisition. It’s been just a terrific business growing strong double-digit. We also made another acquisition called Transnorm which added to that technology in Europe in Q4 last year. We were planning on growing it organically, but also we’re looking to enhance our offerings, so we’re looking for inorganic opportunities as well. Innovation is the key. Anything we do in Honeywell, innovation is always the key. Whether it’s expanding into Europe, driving more robotics, a connected warehouse offering which we are bringing to customers and having a broader play, are the key technology levers for that business.
Amazon is a big customer but we have a lot of big customers. I wouldn’t say it’s a predominant customer in that business. Just about everybody is looking into ecommerce because with a lot today’s retail you really have basically two options. One option is to enhance the in-store experience which a lot of retailers are doing. The other one is to drive ecommerce. We think that this trend is going to continue. Although I would say it’s in the middle innings in the US, it’s just beginning in Europe. We think we have a huge opportunity in Europe, India, and some of the other overseas markets.
We have a very active venture capital fund and we’ve made about six investments in the last six months which is augmenting our technology plays. So although we haven’t made any big acquisitions, other than Transnorm in Q4, we are continuing to invest through our venture fund and we’re deploying capital that way. It’s been a terrific story for us in 3D printing for instance, particularly for our aerospace business. For a lot of the slow-moving parts we’re trying to basically get a new part certified and three printing per day. That’s our objective. Our aerospace businesses have made tremendous progress in achieving that and it’s really helping both for our inventory and on-time delivery for a lot of our aftermarket customers.
It’s Important For Teachers To Be More Effective in STEM Education
Regarding the workforce, education is the key and particularly STEM education. Honeywell is a big believer in that. Not only do we develop a lot of our young people that we bring into the company but we also spend a lot of money and time on developing teachers. It’s important for teachers to be more effective in STEM education. It’s something that we’re going to be supporting going forward even on a broader scale because that’s the way to differentiate our company.
We’re always going to be differentiated by technology and we want to bring the brightest and the best. We want to make sure that it’s a competitive issue, not just here in the US, but everywhere we hire people, and we hire people just about everywhere. We have engineers in the US, China, India, everywhere around the globe. I would say lately we’ve actually been very much on the hiring string. When you grow 8% that creates a lot of opportunities to hire a lot of people particularly in the area of technology and engineering and software.
At Honeywell Innovation is Always the Key, Says CEO
“Your choice isn’t college or oblivion. It’s not higher education or alternative education,” says Mike Rowe of the TV show Dirty Jobs. In 2008, Mike created the mikeroweWORKS Foundation to launch a national PR campaign for skilled labor. “There are so many ways to go, from apprenticeships to scholarships to fellowships to community college. All of it is equal. When you promote one form of education at the expense of the others you create the problem that we are having right now.”
We have seven million jobs now that are open and the vast majority don’t require a four-year degree. There’s a ton of opportunity that people don’t talk about. What we are talking about instead, unfortunately, is the best path for most people. It’s a cookie cutter approach to how to figure things out. For the last 40 years, that path has been really simple. Get a four-year degree, borrow whatever it takes to get it, and then get out into the world and pursue your dream. What’s happened as a result is the skills gap has gotten wider and the college debt is now approaching $1.6 trillion. And we are still lending money we don’t have to kids who can’t pay it back who are training for jobs that don’t exist anymore. It’s madness when there is so much opportunity around us.
My foundation looks for people who are willing to hit the reset button, retool, learn skills that are in demand, and get to work. We are in a binary time right now. Everything is this or that. Blue collar or white collar. Left or right. Everything is framed with a false choice. Your choice isn’t college or oblivion. It’s not higher education or alternative education. There are so many ways to go, from apprenticeships to scholarships to fellowships to community college. All of it is equal. When you promote one form of education at the expense of the others you create the problem that we are having right now. It’s fine to push college but you can’t push college by saying if you don’t go over here you are going to wind up with some vocational consolation prize.
A Job is Not the Proximate Cause of Your Happiness
The mikeroweWORKS Foundation evolved out of Dirty Jobs. Part of the reason was the cognitive dissonance that occurs when you see somebody doing something that is supposed to make you miserable but instead is making you joyful. Dirty Jobbers as a group were having a ball. People couldn’t understand, why is everybody laughing in the sewer? Why is everybody having such a good time doing these jobs that I’ve been taught will make me sad and unhappy? The reason is that you’ve been lied to most of your life. A job is not the proximate cause of your happiness. You are.
We all want to be passionate about what we do. But why would we wait until we’re doing the magical thing that allows us to be passionate? You don’t follow your passion you bring it with you. That was one of the big lessons from Dirty Jobbers. These people were passionate about what they were doing but they didn’t sit down and say what do I have to do to be happy? I need this job. I need this kind of mate. I need to live in this sort of zip code. I need this kind of education. You spend all your life checking boxes that basically give you permission to feel good about the thing you ought to feel good about right now.
Your Choice Isn’t College or Oblivion, Says Mike Rowe
The best companies have very bright futures says tech investor Geoff Lewis. He says that the way he always thinks about private company valuations is as a discount on the future versus a premium on the past. Lewis says that the future is bright for Lyft because only half a percent of the rides in the US today are shared rides so there is a lot of room to grow.
Geoff Lewis, the founder of Bedrock Capital and an early tech investor in many companies including Lyft, recently discussed the future of Lyft, social media, Bitcoin, and more on CNBC:
The Best Companies Have Very Bright Futures
The way that I always think about these private company valuations is as a discount on the future versus a premium on the past. I learned this from Peter Thiel who I worked with for many years. The best companies have very bright futures.
If you think about Lyft, for example, only half a percent of the rides in the US today are shared rides. The entire remainder of rides in the US are normal rides. So there’s a lot of room for a company like Lyft in the US alone to grow if they can even capture two percent of rides in the US.
There Are Some Dogs that are Going to Go Out This Year
I think there’s a pretty bright future for the good tech companies. Quite honestly, there are some dogs that are going to go out this year and they’re not going to do well. But ultimately, the great thing about technology is the macro tends to matter less in the long term for the really enduring tech companies.
You want to find these businesses that have these really durable revenue models that are going to be able to grow for many years going forward. It’s a hard hard thing to figure out.
The Trend for 2019 is the End of Trends
I’m personally very interested in new approaches to financing education and new approaches actually getting an education. I really do think the university and the college system is very broke and there are new financial instruments out there that can really help folks through education. We have some exciting stuff that we’ve been working that we will be talking about in 2019.
Beyond that, I’d say the trend for 2019 is the end of trends. We’ve gone through so many hype cycles in technology and I really think we’re in an environment where we just have to find one-of-a-kind things that don’t fit into any easy to categorize categories. I think that makes the job of being an investor a lot harder.
Former Microsoft COO Bob Herbold discussed in an interview (below) the fact that computer science and engineering schools are now competing strongly with US universities. He says that even though the US tech sector continues to be strong, the big risk is talent and China has significantly strengthened their universities:
We (the US tech sector) continue to be strong, but the big risk is talent, frankly. What’s happening in China is that they are pouring a ton of money into these massive research centers. Secondly, they significantly strengthened their universities. So today, if you rank the top ten engineering schools in the world, such as U.S. News & World Report just did, you get five of them basically in Asia which is a real surprise compared to ten years ago.
The schools are good, the government is pouring in a lot of money, and what’s happening in the US is we are actually telling these kids who are getting master’s degrees and PhDs in computer science and engineering, we say to them, look, we don’t necessarily want you around. That’s the signal that we are sending them. It’s absolutely the wrong signal.
They have gotten caught up in this immigration flap, which is again an issue that keeps being kicked around. What’s happening is that in 2011, 45 percent of graduates from Asia would go back home. Today, that number is 80 percent. They’re going back home to good jobs and to environments that welcome them because they know that long-term their military and their industry is dependent on great technology.
Last week the Google for Education Transformation Center was announced as a hub and launch pad for school change. Google has long been involved in pushing technology to improve and modernize education, but with the launch of the Center it hopes to spur a community of educational thought leaders to action.
Persuading schools to adopt innovative technology is not as simple as it may seem, there are often cultural obstacles that need to be overcome and leadership that embraces positive change and strategies to bring all stakeholders on board through transparency and learning programs.
Technology can’t just be forced on educators, it needs to be first embraced as a solution by educators to a perceived problem. Finally, school leaders need to budget for change and improvement, so that technology is about student progress and not funding reallocation.
“Over the past few years we’ve had the privilege to work closely with thousands of schools that are seeking to improve and innovate with the help of technology,” said Liz Anderson, who is Google’s Global Lead for their Education Adoption Programs. “Every school is different, but we’ve heard a lot of common themes from educators: that change is hard; that change is about a whole lot more than just technology; and that obstacles are often similar across districts.”
She added, “School leaders face many of the same challenges and opportunities, but often have limited ways to share with — and learn from — each other. That’s why we’ve created a new hub for school leaders to share ideas, resources, and stories: The Google for Education Transformation Center.”
The 7 Critical Areas for School Change
Google brought educational leaders together from all over the US to create a “transformation framework” guiding schools to improving education through innovation and technology:
Vision – School change only happens when there is a strong vision at the start. When a school has a clear vision, it means the leader has ensured that the school and wider community are working together toward shared goals for the future.
Learning – School leaders empower their teams to create a set of instructional practices, curricula, assessments, and learning experiences that put students at the center – that engage learners deeply and meet their individual and collective needs.
Culture – Successful school leaders create structures, rituals, stories, and symbols that foster a culture of innovation and encourage people to learn from failure and success.
Technology – Technology is only one enabler of school change, but it’s a critical part. School leaders find, test, and gain their team’s support for the right technology (tools and processes) to meet the school’s vision.
Professional Development – Teachers have a lot on their plates. School leaders provide educators with effective professional development and ongoing coaching focused on applying tools and practices to meet student needs.
Funding & Sustainability – School leaders create a sustainable budget, identify a range of funding sources, and seek savings and reallocation opportunities that align directly to student goals.
Community – Schools serve diverse communities made up of parents, families, businesses, government, nonprofits, and residents. Throughout all stages of the transformation process, leaders ensure these partners support the school and the vision.
Rich Ord is Co-founder of StudentGrowthWorks.org, a technology platform for monitoring student growth and making IEP’s meaningful.
Coursera for Business, just launched, is a new education technology platform by Coursera that targets extended learning for enterprise employees. The platform focuses on training and development needs of employees of large corporations.
Coursera itself launched in 2012 and now has over 21 million registered learners worldwide and is partnered with 145 leading universities to provide a wide variety of learning opportunities. Their main focus is on technology and business related training such as machine learning, data science and business analytics.
“Since Coursera’s inception, we have kept learners at the center of our approach as we consider new growth opportunities,” said Rick Levin, CEO of Coursera and previously the President of Yale University. “We’ve always known that many of our learners are housed within companies, and that many of you are using Coursera to build skills relevant to your jobs.”
Coursera is the second most-cited credential on LinkedIn, according to Levin. Coursera for Business is designed to push the company even further into what is already its largest market, enterprise employee extended learning. “Our conversations with corporate leaders have highlighted the content, cost, and scale challenges of providing high-quality training and development opportunities to a distributed workforce,” said Levin. “These trends and insights have inspired us to develop a solution that enables your employers to build our courses and Specializations – offered by the world’s best universities and education institutions – into the fabric of their development programs that are meant to help you improve and grow at those companies.”
Corporations also see online learning for its employees as a necessary perk to encourage retention. “The best employees increasingly care about development, and development opportunities are one of the top reasons that millennials choose to work and stay at a company,” noted Levin. “Coursera for Business will help companies give these lifelong learners access to curated learning programs that draw on over 1,400 university courses, delivered through a robust online learning experience on both desktop and mobile.”
Last summer, Google launched a training course for marketers, analysts, and developers to teach them about Google Tag Manager and how it can simplify tag implementation and management. It’s part of Google’s Analytics Academy learning program. On Thursday, the company announced that it is expanding this Google Tag Manager Fundamentals course to a total of fourteen languages.
The course is now available in Chinese, Czech, Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, and Turkish.
Lizzie Pace from the Google Analytics education team explains, “Google Tag Manager Fundamentals shows you how to use tools like Google Analytics and Google AdWords to improve your data collection process and advertising strategies including: the core concepts and principles of tag management using Google Tag Manager; how to create website tags and manage firing rules; how to enhance your Google Analytics implementation; the importance of using the Data Layer to collect valuable data for analysis; and how to configure other marketing tags, like AdWords Conversion Tracking and Dynamic Remarketing.”
The course is made up of four units, covering how to get started, setting up Tag Manager, collecting data using the data layer, variables, and events, and using additional tags for marketing and remarketing. Each of these is broken up into three or four lessons a piece.
In oh-jeez-that’s-the-world-we-live-in news, an alarming number of college grads think that Judge Judy hears cases … on the Supreme Court.
The depressing news comes inside a report from the American Council of Trustees and Alumni.
“There is a crisis in American civic education,” reads the reports. “Survey after survey shows that recent college graduates are alarmingly ignorant of America’s history and
heritage. They cannot identify the term lengths of members of Congress, the substance of the First Amendment, or the origin of the separation of powers. They do not know the Father of the Constitution, and nearly 10% say that Judith Sheindlin – “Judge Judy” – is on the Supreme Court.
ACTA commissioned a survey and found that 9.6% of respondents – all college graduates – marked that Judge Judy was a member of the highest judicial body in the land.
The survey also found some other depressing information about our supposed best and brightest, including the fact that 40% of respondents didn’t know Congress can declare war and less than half knew that when Presidents are impeached, they are tried in the Senate.
But the Judge Judy thing really is the kicker, here.
Below, you’ll see a photo of Judge Judy being appointed to the Supreme Court in 1982:
Microsoft announce the launch of Bing Ads Academy, a new training program for advertisers to learn how to get more out of Bing Ads. There are courses for both newer customers and those who have been at it for a while.
Bing Ads Academy consists of both online and in-person courses. They’re offered to premium customers working for agencies, as well as channel partners and tool providers.
“Whether you’re brand new to PPC and need our 101-level content to get up to speed on the basics of setting up and running your first campaign, or if you’ve been managing PPC campaigns for years and want to get 301-level expert tactics for maximizing your return on investment, Bing Ads Academy can help,” says Bing’s Tina Kelleher. “If you’ve ever attended a webinar or a Bing Ads Connect event, then you already have an idea of what you can expect with Bing Ads Academy: on-demand virtual classrooms, as well as live, in-person trainers who will dive deep on specific topics to help you become more proficient in your Bing Ads campaign management and optimization skills.”
“Because Bing Ads Academy is intended for people working in the premium segment of agencies, channel partners and tool providers, the primary content focus is on topics relevant to ‘Sellers’ (who pitch Bing Ads as a media buy to their clients) and ‘Do-ers’ (those who work within the Bing Ads platform on a daily basis),” Kelleher says. “The ‘Sellers’ will gain a better understanding of why Bing Ads is a smart buy for their clients and the ‘Do-ers’ can hone their ROI skills with specific strategies and tactics based on key features in Bing Ads.”
Trainers include Eric Couch, Monica Orsino, Rachel Rogowin, and Purna Virgji. They all have extensive industry experience. You can learn more about their backgrounds and credentials here.
Bing Ads continues to be an increasingly better business for Microsoft with the company recently reporting that it has turned a profit.
“In search, we expect Bing’s strong trajectory to continue, remaining profitable for the remainder of the year,” said CFO Amy Hood.
CEO Satya Nadella noted that Bing’s share is up to 20.7% in the U.S. with ad revenue growing 29% worldwide, helped by Windows 10 users asking Cortana over a billion questions. He later said, “I’m very, very excited obviously about what’s happening with Bing.”
Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and more than a dozen other advocacy groups have sent a letter to the Chairman and ranking members of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee and the House Education and the Workforce Committee. The letter asks that a new education bill puts more focus on computer science.
In fact, the companies want computer science added to the list of “core academic subjects”.
“We know the definition of core academic subjects affects state and local decisions about how to allocate resources and the list of subjects shapes what is ultimately taught. This change simply puts computer science on a level playing field with other subjects. It will be up to state and local educators to then decide if they want to give students access to the subject that will offer them the most opportunities. There should be such a definition in ESEA and it must include ‘computer science’,” says the letter, mainly authored by nonprofit group Code.org.
The consortium also wants the allocation of resources toward the teaching of computer science.
“Code.org asks you to retain a provision in Title II-E of S 1177 that would provide each state with resources to focus on improving teaching and learning in STEM subjects, including computer science. This provision—added to the bill via a bipartisan amendment offered during Committee consideration—would support partnerships between schools, businesses, non-profits, and institutions of higher education that would implement a wide range of STEM-focused objectives including the recruitment, retention, and professional development of educators. Unlike current law, the revised program explicitly includes computer science and computer science educators. This change would support efforts to get more computer science in K-12 schools.”
According to Facebook, Google, and Microsoft, computer science has been marginalized.
“Computer science drives job growth and innovation throughout our economy and society. Computing occupations make up two-thirds of all projected new jobs in STEM fields, making computer science one of the most in-demand college degrees. And computing is used all around us and in virtually every field. It’s foundational knowledge that all students need. Recent polling conducted by Google and Gallup show that nine out of ten parents want their children to learn computer science—but only one in four schools offers it. Computer science is marginalized throughout K-12 education. We need to improve access for all students, particularly groups who have traditionally been underrepresented.”
The letter comes just days after Facebook launched TechPrep, an initiative that aims to help parents and guardians and learners explore programming, the jobs available to programmers and the skills required to become one.
Barbara Byrd-Bennett, CEO of Chicago Public Schools, plead guilty and then told CPS students and teachers on the courthouse steps. “I’m terribly sorry and I apologize to them. They deserved much more, much more than I gave to them,” She plead guilty, according to various newsreports, to charges in an alleged scheme to steer $23 million in no-bid contracts to her former employer, education consulting firm SUPES Academy, for $2.3 million in bribes and kickbacks. According to federal prosecutors, bribes included a college fund for her grandchildren. Barbara Byrd-Bennett is 66 years old.
She released a full statement via her attorney:
Today I pled guilty to federal crimes I committed while CEO of the Chicago Public Schools. The people of Chicago as well as CPS, its teachers, staff, and-most especially, its students-deserved more and better from me.
There is nobody to blame but me, and my failings could not have come at a time of greater challenges for CPS. The issues CPS faces are significant, and the City needs-and the children deserve-leaders who are working without conflicts of interest.
I have devoted my entire professional life to public education and, while there is no excusing or downplaying my misconduct, I believe I have done a lot of good, including in Chicago. Today, though, all I can say is that I am truly sorry and that it is time for the District and City to move forward.
Barbara Byrd-Bennett’s courtroom pleading was her first since being indicted October 8. She was never arrested or taken into custody.
As usual Twitter was buzzing following her guilty plea and apology:
Former Chicago Public Schools chief Barbara Byrd-Bennett pleads guilty to kickback scheme http://t.co/p61IyQglji Shock, graft in Chicago!
Google launched an app earlier this year that allows teachers to create virtual reality field trips using Google Cardboard VR. Now, the company is getting a little more hands-on and taking the Google Expeditions initiative straight to the classroom.
Google has announced the Expedition Pilot Program, which will see it go on a tour of sorts, brining all the hardware necessary to classrooms around the world.
“Starting today, we’re bringing this experience to thousands of schools around the world with the new Expeditions Pioneer Program. During the 2015/2016 school year, we’ll be bringing “kits” containing everything a teacher needs to run a virtual trip for their class: ASUS smartphones, a tablet for the teacher to direct the tour, a router that allows Expeditions to run without an Internet connection, and Google Cardboard viewers or Mattel View-Masters that turn phones into virtual reality headsets. Although nothing replaces hopping on the bus for a field trip, there are some places that are just out of reach (hello, Chichen Itza!). Virtual reality gives teachers a tool to take students places a school bus can’t,” says Google.
The Expedition Pioneer Program will begin in the US, UK, Australia, New Zealand, and Brazil.
Google has announced a handful of content partners, including PBS, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, David Attenborough’s production company Alchemy VR, and the Wildlife Conservation Society.
Teachers can sign up with this form. Google says it’ll try to hit as many schools as possible, but space is limited. If selected, it’s free.
Hootsuite announced the launch of of a new online education program called Podium, aimed at helping people develop skills for getting more out of social media for business.
A spokesperson for the company tells WebProNews, “As one of the top 10 fastest growing job trends, training in social media is essential for success in today’s job market. With 10 million plus users, Hootsuite has a unique understanding of what it takes to be successful with social media and Podium reflects our continued commitment to helping social media professionals grow their business and excel in their careers.”
Podium gives users certification in social media marketing so they can showcase “credible” and “sought-after” skills to employers and clients.
There are six courses consisting of forty short videos with tips and strategies. The courses include: Introduction to Social Media Marketing, Optimizing Your Social Media Profiles, Social Media Strategy – from A to Z, Growing Your Online Community, Content Marketing Fundamentals, and Social Advertising Fundamentals.
“Demand for social media education has grown rapidly and Podium is the only online social media education program offering all of its education content for free,” the company says. “In fact, jobs that require social media skills have increased 89 percent, making social media one of the top ten fastest growing job trends, according to job site Indeed. Indeed’s Chief Economist, Tara Sinclair emphasized that training in these cutting edge skills is needed to succeed in today’s labor market.”
The courses allow users to learn at their own pace, but they can also ask questions and learned from others in the community forum.
Google has a new training course available for marketers, analysts, and developers aimed at teaching them about Google Tag Manager and how it can simplify tag implementation and management. It’s the latest addition to the company’s Analytics Academy learning program.
Google launched Tag Manager back in 2012 as a way to consolidate the various tags you may use for your site into one snippet of code, and to manage from a single web interface. Since then, it’s received various feature additions including templates and an API.
Topics covered in the new course will include core concepts/principles of tag management with Tag Manager; creating website tags and managing firing triggers; enhancing Google Analytics implementation; using Data Layer to collect data; and configuring other marketing tags, such as AdWords Conversion Tracking and Dynamic Remarketing.
“You’ll join instructor Krista Seiden to explore topics through the lens of a fictional online retailer, The Great Outdoors and their Travel Adventures website,” explains Lizzie Pace from the Google Analytics Education team. “Using practical examples, she’ll show you how to use tools like Google Analytics and Google AdWords tags to improve your data collection process and advertising strategies.”
The course schedule is as follows:
Pre-Course Survey
Unit 1 – Starting out with Google Tag Manager
Assessment 1
Unit 2 – Setting up Google Tag Manager
Assessment 2
Unit 3 – Collecting data using the Data Layer, variables, and events
Assessment 3
Unit 4 – Using additional tags for marketing and remarketing
Assessment 4
Post-Course Survey
You can register here. The course content, community, and certificates will be available between June 23 and July 24. After that, you can still complete the material, but won’t have access to course forums, and won’t be able to earn a certificate.
In terms of prerequisites, Google suggests you either have a basic understanding of Google Analytics or complete its Digital Analytics Fundamentals course.
A lot of modern organizations are already using some form of e-learning technology for employee onboarding, training, performance, and assessment initiatives, but online training courses often don’t live up to the needs of instructors, trainees, or purchasing managers.
Geenio, which makes course-authoring tools for organizations, is trying to change that, and has built what it calls the Pathboard. This is a course-authoring mode for its software that can be used to add new pages, sets of pages (lessons), questions and sets of questions (tests) to courses. The tool enables course authors to see all possible learning paths and course branches because it represents non-linear courses in an easy-to-use visual style.
According to the company, non-linear courses mimic the natural learning process by providing alternative learning paths for students. Authors can build courses of varied complexity by modifying the presentation of materials in response to student performance and demonstrated level of knowledge.
“During the development process we had a very special set of requirements for the course editor because we wanted to build non-linear courses that would adjust in complexity depending on the student’s abilities and change the way the student would go through the course,” said Konstantin Andreev, founder and CEO of Geenio. “Our observations revealed that each student’s frame of mind and comfort were the cornerstones for a successful learning experience. A positive attitude helped students to digest new information and later turn it into skills. An overly complicated course would demotivate students, resulting in tiredness and dissatisfaction.”
“An overly simplistic course, on the contrary, would make a learner bored,” Andreev added. “Such a learner would simply be clicking through the course, instead of processing information and gaining new skills. The main conclusion from these observations was the need to adapt the complexity of a course to the student’s level of knowledge.”
That’s where the Pathboard comes in. It builds on the concept that there may be several parallel ways to go through a course. A student might start at the medium level of complexity, and after a few pages, take an assessment that gauges the current level of knowledge. The users can then be redirected to a more advanced path, kept at the same level, or moved a step back to seea more detailed explanation of basic things. This depends on what the course author deems appropriate.
The Pathboard also lets the course creator look at the map of a course from a bird’s-eye view to add new course objects, edit interactions between them, and change the sequence of learning modules in the course if need be. Authors can make knowledge checkpoints throughout the course and direct their audience to appropriate learning paths.
Geenio recently raised a $2 million seed round of funding from several individual private investors. The company said it would use funds to continue building its team and strengthen its product/market fit.
About Geenio
Geenio Group is an international company with offices in Europe and USA, Palo Alto, California. For more information, visit https://geen.io.
Khan Academy, which took the world by storm with its simple, free educational materials a couple years ago, announced a big milestone this week. They’ve surpassed 3 billion problems answered.
That means three billion people have answered quiz questions after watching video materials, and learning things. For free.
We asked Sal what he thought of this, and he said, “Personally, I don’t know what all the fuss is about. I’m waiting for us to hit 3 141 592 653 problems solved before I get really excited.” Can you help us get to pi billion?!
The rate at which everyone is learning on Khan Academy is astounding: it took less than a year to grow from 2 billion to 3 billion problems answered! Way to go!
They might get to that next billion sooner rather than later. Earlier this month, the Academy released an app for the Xbox One. VentureBeat shared this:
“We’re always looking for innovative, new experiences to share with our fans on Xbox. The addition of Khan Academy on Xbox One is an important milestone in our commitment to delivering rich and differentiated apps on the platform,” said Chris Meador, Xbox’s director of product marketing. ” The Khan Academy app covers a ton of useful topics and includes thousands of educational videos, plus the Xbox One interface makes it easy to use on your TV.”
Khan Academy Sal Khan recently spoke at the Atlantic’s Navigate Tech Conference. The publication has a good recap of what he had to say here.
Commissioned News Story (Source: Bircham International University)
Non-formal education can provide students with a quality education, despite being an unregulated industry. It’s regulated by its students, and provides opportunity to those who would otherwise have an opportunity to have an education.
A Bircham International University spokesperson explains, “Non-formal education is a self-regulated industry. If the people who are receiving the education do not think it is helping them, or they are not getting enough out of it, they will simply stop showing up, and the non-formal education purveyor would go out of business.”
Infed.org explains the categorizations of informal, non-formal and formal programs, and explores how some forms of work exist under the non-formal label in southern countries.
”In Europe, for many years, each country had their own system for education but this was all merged into one system,” the Bircham International University spokesperson says. “After that, the EU said we have this formal education system now, but it is not effectively serving the needs of the market. This is where non-formal education really play a role because it is quick, it is adapted to the needs of the market, because the market shapes it, and that’s why it is allowing a lot of people to improve their skills, to improve their performance, and it goes from all levels. From secondary schools all the way up to higher education.”
Because of innovative learning’s self-governed success, the European Council is actively working to recognize all Innovative Learning institutions and activities happening in the European Union. As a result open Education Europa recently listed Bircham International University’s course on effective pedagogy for adult distance learning, further recognizing the organization’s commitment to effective distance learning.
“People are constantly learning everywhere and at all times. Not a single day goes by that does not lead to additional skills, knowledge and/or competences for all individuals. For people outside the initial education and training system, adults in particular, it is very likely that this learning, taking place at home, at the workplace or elsewhere, is a lot more important, relevant and significant than the kind of learning that occurs in formal settings,” says OECD.org. “However, learning that occurs outside the formal learning system is not well understood, made visible or, probably as a consequence, appropriately valued.”
Non-formal education has had a tremendous impact on young people and society. For a deep-dive into why that’s the case, check out this PDF from AEGEE.org.
In early 2012, Google announced that its Chromebooks for Education initiative was already a success. Later that year, the tech giant took it a step further by making Chromebooks available to schools for only $99. Now the laptops have become the number one technology in education, easily beating out Apple’s iPad.
The Guardian reports that Google shipped 715,500 Chromebooks to schools in 2014 whereas Apple shipped 702,000 iPads in the same period. It may seem like a close rivalry at this point, but the numbers show that iPad shipments are falling. Evidence also suggests that Chromebook shipments will only rise over the next few years. So, why has the Chromebook become so popular in schools?
PC World theorizes the Chromebook’s success can be attributed to price and accessibility. At only $99, the Chromebook is much cheaper than what Apple wants for an iPad. Considering that many school districts are strapped for cash, it makes sense that they would turn to Chromebooks when looking to integrate technology into the classroom.
As for accessibility, the Chromebook offers two advantages over the iPad. For one, it has a keyboard. Apple’s iPad does have a keyboard attachment, but it’s also expensive. With the Chromebook, the keyboard comes standard with the device and offers the kind of tactile input that students need when working on projects. It doesn’t hurt that much of the world still relies on computers with keyboards to get work done so it helps prepare them for that future.
The second, and perhaps most important, advantage is that the Chromebook utilizes a multiple account system. In other words, more than one child can use a Chromebook whereas the iPad has to be wiped clean every time a new student uses it. Apple’s account system works in its favor to ensure that it sells more devices to schools, but some schools would rather have multiple students use the same device. With a Chromebook, that’s entirely possible and far more enticing to a school that can only afford a set of Chromebooks for one class instead of every student at the school.
All of this isn’t to say that Apple will eventually exit the education market. There’s far too much money to be made. What’s going to happen is that Apple starts to focus more on high schools and college where digital textbooks are all the rage, or they change their account settings for schools so more than one student can use the same iPad. I’m betting Apple will focus on the former.
