Technology, Education | featured news

Twitter like all other social media is a virtual Aladdin’s cave. It is a gateway to riches. But just like in the story, this Aladdin’s cave is also booby-trapped. Use it right and you will come away with the genie of knowledge ready to do your bidding. Use it wrong and you will be a casualty of wasted time. So, ‘rub’ it just right.

Educators from nine universities are testing technology from a Silicon Valley start-up, CourseSmart, that allows them to track their students’ progress with digital textbooks.

Harvard said it had not notified most of the employees involved because it wanted to protect the one who inadvertently leaked confidential material to the news media.

Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. is set to unveil a tablet computer for public schools on Monday at the SXSWedu education technology conference in Austin, Texas, Bloomberg reports. The $299, 10-inch tablet is the brainchild of Amplify, News Corp.'s education division, which is fronted by former New York City schools chancellor (and current News Corp. executive vice president) Joel Klein. A 2-year subscription will cost $99 per year. A 4G model will also be available for $349, for students without Wi-Fi at home, at an annual cost of $179. The device will come loaded with curriculum materials and apps, including a graphing calculator, the Encyclopedia Britannica, and Merriam-Webster's dictionary. Some content will be provided by other News Corp. units such as HarperCollins.

iPad apps that college students have developed soon could help high school and middle school students crack the code of algebra, often a gatekeeper to college entry.

The American Council on Education, a non-profit organization that represents most of the nation's college and university presidents, is preparing to weigh in on massive open online courses — MOOCs, for short — a new way of teaching and learning that has taken higher education by storm in recent months.

Imagine taking a university exam in your own home, under the watchful eye of a webcam or with software profiling your keystrokes or your syntax to see whether it really is you answering the questions.

In groups of four, the soon-to-be graduates of LivingSocial’s inaugural Hungry Academy stepped in front of their peers last week to present their capstone projects: a fully functional Web site built to help school teachers raise money for classroom projects.

The Obama administration unveiled plans Wednesday to create an elite corps of master teachers, a $1 billion effort to boost U.S. students' achievement in science, technology, engineering and math. The program to reward high-performing teachers with salary stipends is part of a long-term effort by President Barack Obama to encourage education in high-demand areas that hold the key to future economic growth - and to close the achievement gap between American students and their international peers.

As the mother of an autistic son, Marlena Odon says she used to worry about sending Kharon off to school into the hands of others who might not be able to interpret what he was trying to say. But now, thanks to the integration of the iPad into Kharon's New York public school, Odon says he is able to communicate his wants and needs -- and his excitement over this is unmistakable.