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"The new Learning and Work Institute - an independent policy and research organisation, which joins the National Institute of Adult Continuing Education (NIACE) and the Centre for Economic & Social Inclusion - held an OER Jam in Leicester, as part of the Institute's work on Open Education Resources (OERs) across Europe. The face-to-face event supported adult education practitioners in using OERs for teaching and learning. The Jam was designed as a follow-up to the OERUP! Online training - with supports people working in adult education, and can be started at any time."

"In the end, young adults need more education and training -- something the U.S. post-secondary system seems curiously bad at delivering. The U.S. ranks first among developed countries in spending on post-secondary education, but eleventh in the share of young adults (ages 25 to 34) with a college degree."

"This presentation will outline the topic of digital citizenship, footprint, and identity for adult basic/upgrading educators. This topic is especially important in better understanding the common use of youth and adults with social media and both negative and positive outcomes that results from technological illiteracy or misuse. The presentation focuses on a positive, empowered view of technology rather than one of restricting and banning use."

Just in time for Creative Commons' 10th birthday celebration of its license suite, the Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges (SBCTC) announced a 3.5 million dollar grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for a new program - Integrated Digital English Acceleration (I-DEA) - that will help adult English language learners improve their language skills while simultaneously providing career and college readiness training through technology-based tools and resources.

"You'll hear a reasonable amount of discussion about "new traditional" students today. But the common assumption - in Washington at least - seems to be that they require more vocational education to fill a "skills gap," particularly in STEM or technical fields. Or that they need quicker, cheaper paths to a degree."

"the program is simple: If you don't have a degree, and you want one, your tuition is free. That's important because research shows the greatest obstacle for adults looking to go back to school is money. They often have to maintain a household budget while reducing work hours, paying for dependent care, and more."

"As a former K-12 teacher and a current educator in higher education, I grappled with the idea of creating a Facebook account to communicate and become "friends" with my students. I was less concerned with using Twitter because of the difference between "following" and "friending." In my youth I was told by parents and teachers, "I'm not your friend." They said this to distinguish between the roles of friends and adults in the rearing of a child. An assumed level of respect was maintained between teacher-student and parent-teacher when such boundaries were made clear. Today's shift in learning environments to learner-centered classrooms thus raises these questions: Do educators now want to be friends with their students? Do students actually prefer not to be friends with their teachers?"

"Prior Learning Assessment, or PLA, is a little-discussed strategy to facilitate time-to-degree, particularly for non-traditional students. The concept is to set up the structure and processes to evaluate corporate training from employment, military training, civic responsibilities, travel, and independent study and award academic credit from these out-of-the-classroom learning situations. As the higher education population diversifies with much higher percentages of working adults, PLA can be an important factor in reducing total cost and time-to-degree."

" Instructors will offer a "special 'flipped' version of an electrical engineering course ... where students watch online lectures from Harvard and MIT at home." So the good is the flipped part because it's more interactive and dynamic and there's less lecture-based didacticism in the classroom due to watching videos at home? Really? The 1970s just called: they want their Open University courses back. This model perhaps moves the Cal State system forward as it offers more accessibility to content for working adults in a hybrid format. I wish they would just step away from the MOOC terminology, which is, let's be honest, copying and lending out a videotape in another name."

In the OER4Adults survey, we identified over 170 OER Initiatives across Europe and other countries (mainly the US). Many of these initiatives - those who provide OER for adult and lifelong learning - are from the higher education, vocational and school sectors. These initiatives assume that the primary users of OER are teachers and registered students, but the might not necessarily think about 'nonformal' learners.

Silicon Valley has wielded its growing political clout at the state Capitol to kill a digital privacy bill that would have given consumers access to information about them being collected online. Had the Right to Know Act become law, California would have been the first state to take direct aim at an online industry that stockpiles and trades in a wide range of personal data about nearly every adult in the United States. In a major defeat for consumer groups and privacy watchdogs, AB 1291 will instead become a two-year bill, effectively putting it into a deep freeze until next year.

The Council for Adult and Experiential Learning (CAEL) links learning and work. CAEL is a nonprofit that works at all levels within the higher education, public, and private sectors to make it easier for people to get the education and training they need.

""This flies in the face of all these traditional views that all structural development happens in infancy, early in childhood," Schlegel said. "Now that we actually do have tools to watch a brain change, we are discovering that in many cases the brain can be just as malleable as an adult as it is when you are a child or an adolescent.""

"BrandYourself recently conducted a national study with Harris Interactive that looked into the Googling habits of over 2,500 online US adults. It was surprising to see how much a persons Google results influence everything from who we vote for, do business with and even date. You can view it here and below we included a summary of the key findings and key takeaways from each of the main sections of the study."

"It speaks to students learning at their developmental level - what is right for them at that particular time (differentiated instruction, maybe even restructuring the grade system). Even as an adult, learning benefits when you have someone there to guide you through the process. My tile job is far from perfect. It would have been much better had there been someone to model the processes and give me feedback towards my performance. For other types of learners, videos would suffice (something which Salmon Khan banks on)."

"Los Angeles Public Library is now adding another innovation to this lengthening list: It's planning to offer high school diplomas. The library announced Thursday that it will work with a private online education company to offer classes for high-school credit with in-person support at individual branches. The program is geared toward adult drop-outs, who would ultimately receive a diploma, not a GED."

"The definition of "a state education" may also change. Far more money should be spent on pre-schooling, since the cognitive abilities and social skills that children learn in their first few years define much of their future potential. And adults will need continuous education. State education may well involve a year of study to be taken later in life, perhaps in stages."

I absolutely love it when teachers and students create, remix, and mash up media; it's a fantastic way to encourage deeper learning and media literacy. But one issue that complicates digital freedom of expression is copyright law. While many would argue that copyright law is outdated and badly in need of an overhaul, it's still critical that adults and kids alike have a basic understanding of what's legal and ethical while playing with other people's intellectual property. Here's a list of videos I collected to help you navigate the murky waters of copyright law in educational settings.

"But from 1960 to 2060, our pyramid will turn into a rectangle. We'll have almost as many Americans over age 85 as under age 5. This is the result of longer life spans and lower birthrates. It's uncharted territory, not just for us, but for all of humanity. And while it's certainly good news over the long haul for the sustainability of the earth's resources, it will create political and economic stress in the shorter term, as smaller cohorts of working age adults will be hard-pressed to finance the retirements of larger cohorts of older ones."

"Until we address the scarcity in children's lives and schools, addressing teacher quality is a futile distraction, just as continuing to change standards and tests is a futile distraction. Instead of labeling, ranking, and then firing teachers, our first best step would be to end the cult of high-stakes testing because the problems of education are mostly systemic (social and educational) and not the adults who choose to teach or the children we seek to serve."