Elite Universities, like Stanford University, are putting their brand and prestige behind online education and offering diplomas to 30 seniors from "Standford Online High School." Harold O. Levy, a former New York City schools chancellor and founder of Kaplan's online master's of education program, believes Stanford's involvement in this sector could be a watershed.

Best practices and lessons learned for online learning.

Influence of Politics and business on education with Florida as a case in point. What is Good for Business, may not necessarily good for education. Interesting article with interactive maps.

Obama's American job act to spend $944 million for modernization projects for schools in Pennsylvania. Karen Cator, Director of Education Technology for the U.S. Department of Education, says US classrooms are in the midst of transition from print to digital learning environment, that is highly engaging and people focused.

Is textbook dead? In the Networked Society Forum (NEST Forum), leaders and authorities discuss how Technology could be utilized to accelerate education and learning for everyone, everywhere. Hole-in-the-wall founder Dr. Mitra speaks of minimally invasive education (MIE), global rise in online education, among others.

Chips for Artificial Intelligence? "These chips could eventually become building blocks for artificial intelligence devices, said Dr. Rachmuth"

Pearson's adds new capabilities to allow teachers differentiate, individualize, and customize topics that can be learned at accelerated pace and topics that require additional help.

Professor Clayton Christensen says, now more than ever, online education is ready for disruption.

Microsoft hosted a Global Forum of educators all over the world for the annual "Partners in Learning" event. Educational leaders presented their own innovative projects that leverage technology in the classroom. Here Secretary Arnie Duncan announced that Microsoft will take over Department of Education's TEACH campaign.

Samsung establishes "smart classroom" which moves class study from pen and paper style learning to tablet based learning, but also allows schools in remote island, that lack educational infrastructure, connect students through electronic dashboards and share ideas and information.

LearningSpace, a new tool from ePals that is also COPPA (Children's Online Privacy Protection Act) and FERPA (Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act) compliant, provides K-12 appropriate selective access to the applications within a protected, customizable social learning environment. Schools and districts can customize the rules and policies that determine which groups, classes and projects have access to third-party applications.

The Cyberlearning Research Summit will take place in Washington DC, with speakers from industry and academia, who will share visions for the future of learning with emerging technologies. Topics include role of emerging technology in learning, individualized learning, augmented reality, and many others topics covered in T561. HGSE Faculty Dr. Todd Rose will also be a speaker.

The U.S. Departments of Education and Defense are launching "Learning Registry," an open source community that will allow educator share information and learning resources, with a price tag of $2.6m. ""Learning Registry addresses a real problem in education, by bridging the silos that prevent educators from sharing valuable information and resources," said Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. "The Registry also allows content developers, curriculum coordinators, principals, counselors, and everyone else who supports good teaching in the classroom to benefit from the combined knowledge of the field.""

Over 6 million students are learning online. More importantly, the rate of growth is 10% per year compared to 2% student population growth in higher education.

Georgia's Hall County partnered with Dell and transforming the classrooms "one student at a time", using 1) personalized 2) blended 3) data collection and 4) results. Sounds familiar? "wouldn't believe that these types of classrooms existed if I hadn't seen it for myself. When you get a group of dedicated educators together with a shared vision that is designed to remove the business-as-usual stigma and support total transformation you can achieve amazing things."

Chattanooga school is using clickers, as we use at HGSE, to improve retention rate?

CNN on "Fixing Education." Secrets of Seoul and Mr. Bill Gates focus on teachers.

This article weighs in both side of flipping classrooms. "Good teaching, regardless of discipline, should always limit passive transfer of knowledge in class, and promote learning environments built on the tenants of inquiry, collaboration and critical thinking."

"Innovation and technology will not be centered around a piece of technology," Paul Kim, assistant dean and CTO at Stanford School of Education, "suggesting instead that educational reformers should focus on content and promoting self-initiated learning."

In India, three young men redefine teaching in the slums of India through the "smile school" project.