Free Online University Receives Accreditation

Free, Accredited, Online, Accessible to all --

Free Online University Receives Accreditation, in Time for Graduating Class of 7 - NYTimes.com: "Just in time for its first graduates, the University of the People, a tuition-free four-year-old online institution built to reach underserved students around the world, announced Thursday that it had received accreditation....The University of the People, almost from the start, has attracted high-level support, with partnerships or backing from New York University, the Clinton Global Initiative, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the OpenCourseWare Consortium and many others. In August, Microsoft agreed to provide scholarships, mentoring and job opportunities to 1,000 African students who enroll at the University of the People."

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Chinese Top Universities Corruption

Chinese Top Universities Plagued With Corruption | Dragons and Pandas | Big Think: "... Here’s a quote from WSJ: “Some 70% of research funds, he [Mr. Xia] says, goes to personal use—"travel, hotels, meals, computers, mobile phones, iPads, printers, all things you can imagine […]" State media reports that the government is closely investigating the entire ‘C9 League’ – the alliance of China nine top universities. Xi Jinping’s massive crackdown on corruption has finally reached the ivory towers."

Online MPA and Graduate Certificate Programs: SPEA Connect: "Enroll in an online MPA or graduate certificate program from a school that U.S. News & World Report ranked 2nd in the nation."

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Talented and gifted classes, not much extra benefit

Talented and gifted classes don’t provide much extra benefit, say researchers - Quartz: "But the positive effects of talented and gifted programs may be overstated, according to a recent study in American Economic Journal: Economic Policy. Scott Imberman, Sa A. Bui, and Steven G. Craig analyzed the standardized test scores of more than 14,000 fifth-graders in an urban school district in the United States. They focused on students who just barely made the threshold for their schools’ gifted and talented programs—and those who just barely missed it. The goal was to compare how students of roughly the same abilities do when they’re in gifted classes with how they do in regular classes. If the gifted and talented programs are effective, then the marginal students should end up with higher test scores than the marginal students in regular classes. If they’re not effective, then both sets of students would have around the same scores. The researchers found that, after a year and a half of gifted and talented classes, the scores of the marginal students were about the same as those of the marginal students who’d taken regular classes. “There is essentially no difference,” said Imberman."

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Amazon, The Kindle, Education

Amazon: 5 bold predictions for 2014 | Internet & Media - CNET News: "2. The Kindle, your tutor
Thanks to Mayday, your Kindle Fire can tell you how to change the brightness of your tablet or how to order an e-book. So why couldn't it also teach your kids math? If Amazon's acquisition of TenMarks is any indication, the company may be looking to delve into education. TenMarks creates math practice programs and is a teaching tool. When Amazon purchased it in October, it said TenMarks would develop new education apps for Kindle tablets. It's not a huge stretch to see a potential marriage of TenMarks' education resources and the Mayday service -- perhaps a premium option that allows for tutors to help with math equations via one-sided video tutelage ... Couple that with Amazon's newly released free-time features on a tablet designed for penny-pinching parents, and Amazon makes the Kindle the ideal children's tablet."

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