EdTech Weekly May 5-12, 2015

Tuesday May 5, 2015
Online Education Robert Morris launches online criminal justice degree (Pittsburgh Business Journal) Robert Morris University on Tuesday said it is launching a bachelor of science degree program in criminal justice. It will be fully offered online, beginning in fall 2015. The 120-credit degree program includes classes in corrections, policing, juvenile delinquency, law and government, sociology, psychology, political science and optionally cyber forensics, as well as electives. It also requires a 120-hour internship in the final year. Frank Hartle, assistant professor of criminal justice, is the key faculty member for the new program, RMU said. He worked for the Pittsburgh Bureau of Police for 10 years and is currently assistant federal security director for law enforcement for the Federal Air Marshal Service under the Department of Homeland Security. Mergers, Acquisitions, and Funding ATT Announces First Class for Edtech Accelerator (edSurge) Hundreds came calling, only a few got the final call back. Of the 345 companies and nonprofits that applied for a spot in the ATT Aspire Accelerator, the following five will participate in the first cohort: eduCanon, GradGuru, Lea(R)n, MindBlown Labs, and Quill. The three startups and two nonprofits will each get $50,000, along with another $25,000 to support participation and logistic costs. The six-month, remote program will start on May 6 and wrap up with a demo day in October. Industry Inside the School Silicon Valley Thinks Will Save Education (Wired) So you're a parent, thinking about sending your 7-year-old to this rogue startup of a school you heard about from your friends neighbors sister. Its prospective parent information day, and you make the trek to San Franciscos South of Market neighborhood. You walk up to the second floor of the school, file into a glass-walled conference room overlooking a classroom, and take a seat alongside dozens of other parents who, like you, feel that public schoolswith their endless bubble-filled tests, 38-kid classrooms, and antiquated approach to learningjust arent cutting it. At the same time, youre thinking: this school is kind of weird. On one side of the glass is a cheery little scene, with two teachers leading two different middle school lessons on opposite ends of the room. Amazon launches Whispercast 3.0 tool, emphasizes free services for schools (Geek Wire) Amazon is intensifying its efforts to go after education market customers by releasing a significant upgrade to its Whispercast tool plus tossing in a free service to ease the transition from paper to pixel. Whispercast 3.0, released today, adds more mass deployment and management features long missing for Amazon in K-12 and higher education. Whispercast is generally used to distribute free or paid content that organizations either upload themselves or get from Amazon (eBooks, eTextbooks, and certain apps) to a wide variety of devices. The new version now supports buying digital content with purchase orders and purchase cards, not just credit or gift cards. It also gives administrators more granular permissions control over device and content management features. That means certain types of activities can be decentralized and handed off, for example, from school districts to individual schools, teachers or others in tiers and groups. Google Launches Education Conference on Hangouts (EdTech Magazine) Google is launching an online education conference in May that's focused on innovating with the company's tools in classrooms. Google Education on Air runs May 8-9 on Google Hangouts, the company's video chat platform. The event will feature more than 100 sessions led by education leaders and influencers, including keynotes from Reading Rainbow host LeVar Burton and educational researcher Michael Fullan, who led the CoSN 2015 keynote in March. Early registrants voted on the conference sessions themes after the event was announced in March. The top-voted theme was "innovating within schools," which captured 43 percent of the vote, followed by "using Google tools for teamwork," which captured 19 percent. Government Obama to provide 10,000 free e-books through your library (Engadget) President Barack Obama announced a new program on Thursday aimed at delivering access for more than 10,000 e-books to financially strapped schoolchildren throughout the United States. The $250 million program will feature titles from numerous publishers including Macmillan, Simon & Schuster, Penguin Random House, HarperCollins and Hachette, selected by volunteers from Digital Public Library of America. The New York Public Library has signed on to develop the free app. "It's very different than from our generation," Cecilia Muñoz, Obama's domestic policy adviser, told Reuters. "More and more, you're going to be seeing kids using devices, and what we're doing is making sure that there's more books available on those devices." North Carolina In an old Mooresville cotton mill, a plan for an education technology center (Charlotte Observer) An ambitious plan to turn part of an old cotton mill in downtown Mooresville into an education technology development center is moving forward, as economic development officials and school leaders here are seeking investment. The Mooresville Center for Digital Innovation would serve as an incubator for education technology companies, enabling them to develop and test their software while receiving feedback from educators and students. For an area whose school district has drawn wide attention over the years for its progressive approach to digital learning, the center makes sense, said Mark Edwards, superintendent of the Mooresville Graded School District. Viewpoints Mark Koba: Education tech funding soars -- but is it working in the classroom? (Forbes) From iPads in kindergarten to virtual classrooms in high schools to online graduate degrees, technology has captured the American education system. As it does, the money keeps flowing in and so do questions about its impact. In 2014, venture funding for education technology reached $1.87 billion dollars. Its expected to hit $2 billion this year. Thats a big jump from $385 million in 2009, according to CB Insights, the first year the venture capital research firm started tracking education funding. The education space is attractive because its a big and important part of the economy, said Rob Hutter, managing partner of Learn Capital an education based venture capital firm.		Stay Connected STEMconnector^TM STEMconnector® Join our Internet of Things (IoT) Town Hall on May 20th! The Internet connects virtually everything. Over the last decade, however, Internet connectivity has migrated to "things" in addition to computers. From cars and mobile devices to thermostats and lawn mowers to power plants and stoplights, every aspect of the world around us is connected. This phenomenon, known as the Internet of Things (IoT), will have implications for our future workforce. This Virtual Town Hall will shed light on how industry is implementing this innovation into their business models and the implications for their workforce. The program will provide an overview of national trends followed by industry viewpoints. Viewers can watch live on YouTube and engage in a live dialogue on Google+ or on Twitter with the hashtag #STEMIoT. Infosys Foundation USA Partners with Code.org to Bring Computer Science Education to Millions of Students Across the U.S. CInfosys Foundation USA, a non-profit organization focused on bridging the digital divide in America, has announced a partnership with Code.org to expand access to computer science education for millions of students across the United States. The program includes professional development for teachers, curriculum development and social outreach programs. Infosys Foundation USA has also committed its support to Code.org's annual Hour of Code initiative, a global grassroots campaign that has introduced millions of students to computer science in over 180 countries. Code.org will run its third Hour of Code campaign in December 2015, encouraging students of all ages to try a one-hour computer science tutorial. These lessons are designed to demystify code and show that anybody can learn the basics. With the support of Infosys Foundation USA, Code.org will be able to expand its professional development program, training approximately 350 middle and high school teachers across the United States. The Code.org partnership is part of the Foundation's larger mission to expand computer science education and training in the United States, particularly for those in underrepresented communities.