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Computer Science
What Obama's $4B Computer Science Initiative Means for K12 Schools (EdTech Magazine)
President Barack Obama has laid out his vision for enhancing computer science education in K12 schools, and it starts with $4 billion in federal funding. The White House announced the Computer Science for All initiative in a blog post, building on a series of actions that have been bolstering computer science education in public schools nationwide including Obamas becoming the first president to write a line of code. In his 2016 State of the Union address, the president broached the subject, saying that public schools should offer "every student the hands-on computer science and math classes that make them job ready on day one."
New Ways to Teach Young Children to Code (WSJ)
Many parents want their children to learn to code. Tech leaders and educators are pushing schools to add more computer-science classes, and families often see programming as an essential skill for the future. But unlike reading to your children or teaching them how to count, preparing children to code can fel daunting and unnatural. Many parents think they can't help because they don't know math or programming themselves. Increasingly, though, parents who have never written a line of code are finding ways to teach their children basic programming skills.
Start Ups
Y Combinator Absorbs Edtech Accelerator Imagine K12, Creating Specialized Vertical (Tech Crunch)
Y Combinator, the popular accelerator program, has made its first acquisition of a kind. The fund is today announcing that it has formed a specialized vertical within Y Combinator by bringing into the fold Imagine K12, an edtech-focused accelerator. The new program, YC/Imagine K12 will groom its first combined batch of students this summer. Applicants will be routed through the regular Y Combinator application. The move isnt likely to herald a wave of consolidation involving Y Combinator, say IK12s cofounders, Geoff Ralston and Tim Brady, both former executives at Yahoo. The reason: IK12 and Y Combinator have always enjoyed a singularly close relationship. Indeed, Ralston and Brady sought out the advice of Y Combinator cofounder Paul Graham before creating the accelerator. (Graham, who wasnt interested or prepared to focus on more than the occasional edtech startup at the time, encouraged them to do it and provided them with Y Combinators playbook.)
Baltimore edtech company acquired by education marketplace (Technical.ly)
Baltimore edtech company Words and Numbers was acquired by DC-based company Wisewire, the companies announced last week. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. The combined companies will have about 50-100 employees, and maintain offices in both Baltimore and Washington, D.C., said Wisewire Chief Creative Officer Laura Seuschek. The deal comes as Wisewire exits stealth mode to launch an education content marketplace, which gathers curated and searchable learning tools focused around middle- and high-school math, science and language arts. Along with offering free and paid content, teachers or publishers can also build content. As EdSurge notes, the education marketplace concept is quickly gaining steam as a way to provide teachers a place to buy or obtain content, or sell what they have created. Seuschek notes that Wisewire is aiming to keep the platform open to many different creators.
In The Classroom
Can video conferencing technology keep kids in school? (Tech Target)
In this edition of The Subnet, we chat with Dhia Belhajali, a telecommunications engineer at Tunisia's Tunisie Télécom, where she works as a project manager in the network operator's department of engineering and planning for its transport network. Belhajali was also one of 99 women to be selected as a 2015 TechWomen fellow, an initiative headed up by U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. The program connects women from Africa, Central Asia and the Middle East with professional mentors and "host" companies in their particular field of science, technology, engineering or mathematics. Belhajali completed her five-week fellowship at Polycom, where she developed a pilot program for using video conferencing technology to improve educational opportunities for at-risk students at underserved schools in rural Tunisia.
How The Education System Is Leveraging Innovation And Technology To Help Students Compete (Forbes)
The US education system is going through a Renaissance in how students learn. Especially when it comes to those learners focused on college preparedness. While many teachers still teach to a test, others are turning to new technologies and systems to help their students to move beyond the traditional instruction-led environments to an experiential environment where many kids thrive. Companies like Pearson PLC, McGraw-Hill Education and Cengage Learning must work harder to maintain their leadership positions versus emerging education content providers that leverage technology to adapt to how students learn and excel.
Integration
Pushing education forward with education technology standards (Brookings)
Recently, the U.S. Department of Education released the 2016 National Education Technology Plan (NETP). Technology has improved dramatically since the last update of the plan in 2010. Mobile devices and relatively inexpensive high-speed Internet access have served as platforms for numerous advanced education technologies. Yet despite these gains, new education technologies have not revolutionized schools as some once thought was possible. The growing digital divide in the access to these advanced technologies is also an area of concern.
Transformational Technology in Higher Education Attendees to Explore Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality, Wearable Technologies and More (Benzinga)
Hundreds of higher education technology decision makers including chief information officers and campus IT administrators will gather in Denver at the Transformational Technology in Higher Education (TTHIED) conference from March 24 25, 2016. Attendees will explore the latest digital solutions, discover best practices being employed on campuses and participate in collaborative learning with colleagues and industry leaders. Formerly Campus Technology Forum, TTHIED will include a variety of keynote and concurrent sessions that feature new and emerging technologies. Program tracks include Leading Campus Transformation, Technology Pedagogy in the Digital Age, Designing a Connected Campus and Technology Solutions.
Viewpoints
Why Ideological Diversity Might Be a Strength Of the EdTech Profession (Inside HigherEd)
The edtech profession is more politically diverse than higher ed as a whole is based solely on my own observations. Ive spent time across a number of different roles in higher ed - from faculty (sociology) to technology to teaching and learning centers. From what Ive observed, the campus technology folks cover a wider range political orientations than what I saw amongst the faculty (certainly in sociology), and in other roles on campus. Colleagues in administrative computing - including network engineers, developers, and system administrators - are all over the place in their political leanings. However, from what I have been able to tell - our most highly technical colleagues are as likely to be politically conservative as they are politically liberal.
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Olin College and the Kern Family Foundation Form Partnership to Accelerate the Transformation of Undergraduate Engineering Education
 Olin College of Engineering and the Kern Family Foundation today announced a partnership to transform and broaden undergraduate engineering education by emphasizing abilities and perspectives often overlooked in traditional curricula, particularly design thinking and an entrepreneurial mindset. The initiative will be funded by a $6 million grant from the Foundation to expand the capacity of Olins Collaboratoryprimarily by adding facultyto support its transformational work with engineering and other educators, hundreds of whom have visited Olin over the last few years to pursue fundamental curricular change.
100 CIO/CTO Leaders in STEM- Isaac Sacolick, Global Chief Information Officer and Managing Director at Greenwich Associates
 Isaac Sacolick is the Global CIO and a Managing Director at Greenwich Associates, a leading provider of global market intelligence and advisory services to the financial services industry. Isaac is leading Greenwich's Business Transformation Initiative and implementing business intelligence platforms, upgrading its CRM processes, and leading a digital transformation of Greenwich's marketing practices.
Experience the Largest Celebration of STEM Ever: Attend the USA Science and Engineering Festival!
 What is the universe made of? What do magic tricks and hip-hop have to do with math? What will be the next medical breakthrough? Is space tourism in your future? What is the connection between baseball and physics? Find out in 2016 at the 4th USA Science & Engineering Festival Expo where more than 350,000 K-12 students and parents, over 5,000 teachers and over 3,000 STEM professionals will experience the largest celebration of STEM! The Festival -- Americas only NATIONAL science festival -- brings attendees up close and personal with some of the most inspiring minds and personalities in STEM and will culminate in a Grand Finale Expo next April 16-17 in Washington, DC.
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