Community

When we think of education technology, we often imagine large-scale impact and reach. But it’s not that straightforward.Stacked amidst temporary shelters, tents and thatched huts in Burundi’s Kavumu refugee camp are a pile of bright blue, green and yellow boxes. Stowed away in these 800 kg metal palette-size boxes are countless ideas to educate, entertain and foster creativity among refugees. The self-contained watertight boxes are packed with e-readers, tablets, cameras, e-books, paperbacks, board games and e-learning tools to offer educational and training opportunities to refugee children and adults and prepare them to reintegrate the world. In less than 20 minutes, the boxes are unfolded into interactive media centres with tables and chairs.

More than half of the world’s countries have failed to achieve gender parity in education for girls in primary and secondary schools, according to a new U.N. report.

The ups and downs of gentrification have been chronicled thoroughly, but one of its consequences hasn’t been widely addressed: the effect on neighborhood schools when a critical mass of well-educated, well-off people move in. Gentrification usually brings some benefits with it to a neighborhood, such as more attention from the city—as Spike Lee noted, suddenly the trash gets picked up! But does an influx of children from wealthier families make a positive difference to local public schools?

Photo Credit: WonderlaneBy Matt PicklesWhen considering the effects of the debt crisis on Greece, most people probably think of long queues outside banks and protests in the streets.A less visible but perhaps further reaching outcome is that Greece’s education system has become one of the most unequal in the developed world.Read the rest of the story at BBC.com.

Adult literacy is often overlooked, but it’s a social issue that helps to explain issues of intergenerational poverty, outcomes for youth, and the global divide between rich and poor.

Ron Turiello’s daughter, Grace, seemed unusually alert even as a newborn.At 7 months or so, she showed an interest in categorizing objects: She’d take a drawing of an elephant in a picture book, say, and match it to a stuffed elephant and a realistic plastic elephant.At 5 or 6 years old, when snorkeling with her family in Hawaii, she identified a passing fish correctly as a Heller’s barracuda, then added, “Where are the rest? They usually travel in schools.

World leaders and education activists met at the United Nations today for a high-level event to mark the inclusion of education as a transformative stand-alone goal in the new 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

This week, leaders from around the world will convene in New York at the United Nations to launch the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), an ambitious plan to end poverty that includes 17 goals from eliminating hunger to building more sustainable cities to providing a quality education for every child.

B urck Smith, CEO at Straighterline, discusses his approach to solving the skyrocketing cost of college with low-cost online courses built to transfer to over 90 accredited colleges.  Smith, along with nearly 900 participants, including some 250 global education companies, was in New York for the BMO Capital Markets 15th Annual Back to School Education Conference. Dr. Berger, in collaboration with MindRocket Media Group and edCircuit captured views from business leaders to investors taking a look behind the scenes of investment in education and technology.