VirtEd

Online Revolution in Higher Education

"Higher Education's Online Revolution" in May 31st Wall Street Journal details the possibility of allowing millions of students to obtain a world class education from top professors via online education.  Authors John Chubb and Terry Moe say that the obstacles - underwriting or monetizing the process, reaching and meeting students' needs are doable.

This challenge can be met. Over the long term, online technology promises historic improvements in the quality of and access to higher education. The fact is, students do not need to be on campus at Harvard or MIT to experience some of the key benefits of an elite education. Moreover, colleges and universities, whatever their status, do not need to put a professor in every classroom. One Nobel laureate can literally teach a million students, and for a very reasonable tuition price. Online education will lead to the substitution of technology (which is cheap) for labor (which is expensive)—as has happened in every other industry—making schools much more productive.

 

Employers Can Tell How Good Prospective Workers Will Be - Based on Facebook Profile!

According to a study from Northeastern and Auburn Universities, one's Facebook profile may be a good predictor of an applicant's success on the job.  This comes as employers ask for applicants passwords to check out their profiles.

 

Researchers found that there was a strong correlation between someone's job success and certain characteristics displayed on a Facebook page.

These included a high number of friends, a wide range of interests and photographs showing far-flung travels, as these show agreeability.

Schoolhouse Moneyball

Sunday's New York Times features two articles highlighting the influence of money and commerce in our schools.

The first, School Cafeteria’s Fruits and Vegetables Vie With Food Trucks’ Sweet and Salty Treats, documents how schools' efforts to provide healthy meals for students are being sabotaged by the latest iteration of the Good Humor ice cream truck.  These well stocked junk food emporiums on wheels park outside of schools where hungry teens needing a sugar high shell out for a lunch of chips, desserts and sodas.  It is also undermining school cafeteria programs' profits.

Yet, as the school lunch offerings in the cafeteria have become more restrictive, snack food trucks have moved in, sometimes as many as four at a time. And the drivers have been aggressively pursuing the business, even paying the students to save the best parking spots for them, said Rey Mayoral, the principal of Novato High.

 

The second, "On Campus It's One Big Commercial", details how companies are using students as brand ambambassadors to sell all manner of gear for big spending collegiates.  

This fall, an estimated 10,000 American college students will be working on hundreds of campuses — for cash, swag, job experience or all three — marketing everything from Red Bull toHewlett-Packard PCs. For the companies hiring them, the motivation is clear: college students spent about $36 billion on things like clothing, computers and cellphones during the 2010-11 school year alone, according to projections from Re:Fuel, a media and promotions firm specializing in the youth market. And who knows the students at, say, U.N.C., better than the students at U.N.C.?

 

Tracking your child's app-etite on Facebookents, eating, meals

For the parent who is anxious to know what their child is ingesting at school there is an app for that.  One has to wonder about those birthday cupcakes or food contraband brought in by students.  

With the success of the software, Meals Plus announced a new Facebook application that lets parents monitor what their children are eating and purchasing at school.Lunchprepay.com connects parents directly to their students’ lunch history. While on the site, parents can make payments directly into their child’s cafeteria account, view what products their students are buying, and observe the school district’s menu.