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Preview of Google PLus's value to HE Excerpt: "Facebook does allow some selective sharing, but doing so is difficult to master. As a result, many professors have decided to reserve Facebook for personal communications rather than use it for teaching and research. "I don't friend my students, because the ability to share is so clunky on Facebook," says Jeremy Littau, an assistant professor of journalism at Lehigh University. "This gives us ways to connect with people that we can't do on Facebook." In Google Plus, users can assign each new contact to a "circle" and can create as many circles as they like. Each time they post an update, they can easily select which circles get to see it. B.J. Fogg, director of Stanford University's Persuasive Technology Lab and a consulting faculty member for computer science, says he plans to use Google Plus to collaborate on research projects: "Probably every project in my lab will have its own circle." Mr. Littau is even more enthusiastic. He posted an item to his blog on Thursday titled: "Why Lehigh (and every other) University needs to be on GPlus. Now." "I want to start using this in my class next term," he says, adding that he aims to expose his students to the latest communication technologies in all of his classes. He plans to try the video-chat feature of Google Plus, called "hangouts," to hold office hours online. The new system allows up to 10 people to join in a video chat. Mr. Littau may also hold optional review sessions for exams using the technology. "I can host chats a few nights a week," he says."

by Derek Bruff, November 6, 2011. The best justification of the Innovation Lab premise that I have seen. "Sharing student work on a course blog is an example of what Randall Bass and Heidi Elmendorf, of Georgetown University, call "social pedagogies." They define these as "design approaches for teaching and learning that engage students with what we might call an 'authentic audience' (other than the teacher), where the representation of knowledge for an audience is absolutely central to the construction of knowledge in a course."" Often our students engage in what Ken Bain, vice provost and a historian at Montclair State University, calls strategic or surface learning, instead of the deep learning experiences we want them to have. Deep learning is hard work, and students need to be well motivated in order to pursue it. Extrinsic factors like grades aren't sufficient-they motivate competitive students toward strategic learning and risk-averse students to surface learning. Social pedagogies provide a way to tap into a set of intrinsic motivations that we often overlook: people's desire to be part of a community and to share what they know with that community. My students might not see the beauty and power of mathematics, but they can look forward to participating in a community effort to learn about math. Online, social pedagogies can play an important role in creating such a community. These are strong motivators, and we can make use of them in the courses we teach.

Housed at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, "At SERVE Center, we believe that education is advanced through knowledge, innovation and action."

SERVE was funded to follow ECHS students in North Carolina into post-secondary.

These publications, authored by David T. Conley, all look at issues relating to college and career readiness. CEPR is located at the University of Oregon.

Online resource for understanding and teaching science. The site was produced by University of California Museum of Paleontology, in collaboration with a diverse group of scientists and teachers and funded by National Center for Science Education.

Online resource for understanding and teaching evolution. The site, like Understanding Science, was produced by University of California Museum of Paleontology, in collaboration with a diverse group of scientists and teachers and funded by National Center for Science Education.

The Community College Research Center (CCRC) is part of the Insitute on Education and the Economy, Teacher's College, Columbia University. From their site: "CCRC"s mission is to conduct research on major issues affecting community colleges in the United States and to contribute to the development of practice and policy that expands access to higher education and promotes success for all students."

Website of Daniel T. Willingham, professor of psychology at the University of Virginia. In 2009, Willingham authored Why Students Don't Like School and writes extensively on applications of cognitive psychology to K-12 education.

By Jane Stancill in the Education section of the North Carolina NewsObserver.com, December 31 2010. "North Carolina has become the nation's incubator of early college high schools, with one-third of the total in the United States," 71 schools with 15,000 students. In 2011, NC State University will launch a new early college high school. This article provides background on the ECHS.

Curt Bonk is an amazing instructional design professor at Indiana University. Here he has 27 videos (about 10 minutes long each) covering everything from discussion forums (I learned a lot!) to Blended Learning to wiki uses and applications. All free!

"Corporations use TWO process form, BOTH missing entirely from dowdy lazy sloppy dishonest (Harvard) universities; a) process weaves----emediated process flows PUNCTUATED with mass workshop EVENTS b) pulsed systems---rhythms of engagement with disengagement, sameness with difference, local with global---so that mere addition of connectedness is not allowed to destroy all creativity. "

Article about how Colleges United to Drive Down Cost of "Cloud Computing" published October 22, 2011. One issue is that the preponderance of 'free' cloud tools such as WordPress, DropBox, etc. are being used in great abundance by college professors. But these tools are not supported by the university, scatter the work across all kinds of platforms, and may cause violations of student privacy. So what are the implications for high school students and their teachers when a national organization uses the same tools in their online work?

The New York State Education Department is part of the University of the State of New York (USNY). Its "mission is to raise the knowledge, skill, and opportunity of all the people in New York."

A membership organization representing presidents and chancellors of all types of US-based post-secondary institutions (both 2-year and 4-year colleges, as well as universities).

Published by Teachers College, Columbia University, this is the site for the Record, "a journal of research, analysis, and commentary in the field of education." Most (perhaps all) articles require a subscription for full access.

Students can use this application and apply to as many participating schools (see list of Member Colleges and Universities) as they care to.

From the Overview, "Cal-PASS is an initiative that collects, analyzes and shares student data in order to track performance and improve success from elementary school through university."

One Jam participant noted that data from Cal-PASS was useful in helping them gauge their students' success post-graduation.

A network of professionals from non-profit and campus-based college prep programs, university admissions and financial aid offices, and the School District of Philadelphia. The aim of this group is to increase the number of Philadelphia high school students who are college-ready, matriculate and graduate from post-secondary institutions.

Resources on College and Career Readiness (CCR) Act Pilot, including Conley's Comprehensive Model. These resources are on the site for Office of Community College Research and Leadership at the College of Education, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Reports on the Illinois College and Career Readiness Act and other resources available on the site.