budgets

California Department of Education now on iTunes U

On 11/16/2010, in budgets, K-12 related, podcasting, United States, by Daniel Christian

California Department of Education now on iTunes U — from edweek.org by Canan Tasci
Teachers can now download educational content from the Apple site at no charge

The California Department of Education is following in the footsteps of Texas by launching an official presence on iTunes U, a dedicated area within Apple Inc.’s iTunes store that offers free downloads of lectures, lab demos, and access to educational content from state agencies and nonprofit groups.

With districts and schools under tremendous pressure to make every dollar count, California teachers can now download top-rated content from the site at no charge, said state Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell.

Tagged with: budgetary • iTunes U • K-12 • podcasting • United States • vodcasting

Trends in college pricing

On 10/28/2010, in budgets, business side of he, cost of getting a degree, by Daniel Christian

Tagged with: budgetary • business side of he • cost of getting an education • financial aid

Concept, graphics, idea from Daniel S. Christian:
But free for your taking and implementing!

What:

Choir Practice: A mobile-based method of practicing one’s part

Features

The ability for the choir member to go directly to measure ____
The ability for the choir member to highlight measures ____ through ____ (like highlighting text in Microsoft Word), then click on the play button to loop through those measures
One could speed up a song up or slow it down (without affecting pitch)
The application would allow for all of the vocal parts to begin playing upon downloading a pre-packaged song or the application could always start playing with a certain part (i.e. 1st or 2nd soprano, alto, tenor, or bass)
The musical notes could be the same color or one could choose to display the notes in different colors
Bonus features might include a video of a director directing this song

Why:

This type of thing would be a great cross-disciplinary assignment for your institution’s curriculum — Music and Computer Science come to mind for this application
Your institution could sell this application on Apple’s App Store to develop a new revenue stream
Your choirs could produce the packaged songs / tracks
Plus, such an app would help choir members learn their parts — 24x7x365 — in the car, on the road, in the gym, etc.
Enhances one’s ability to listen to other parts as well
Aids your marketing departments as you point to this as a solid deliverable from your programs
Creates “study aids” for your own school’s choirs/students as well as for choirs at smaller churches and institutions (worldwide)
Helps those choir members who don’t have access to a piano or don’t know how to play a piano

Have fun whomever takes this idea and runs with it! The choirs of the world will appreciate you — and so will their audiences! 🙂

Along these lines…another win-win here includes:

That students in the future (I hope) will be able to choose from a multitude of potential roles when presented with multi-disciplinary projects/assignments/courses:

Vocalists, pianists, and other type of musicians
Composers
Programmers
Graphic artists
Videographers / video editors
Audio specialists
Writers
Project Managers
Actresses/Actors
etc.

As such, students could:

Learn to appreciate other disciplines
Participate in/contribute to projects that could be published on the web
Exercise their creativity
Practice being innovative

Daniel Christian

Tagged with: Apple • budgetary • business side of he • collaboration • computer science • creativity • cross-disciplinary assignments • curriculum • Daniel S. Christian • digital audio • digital learning • digital video • educational technology • emerging technologies • engagement • higher education • ideas • iPad • iPhone • iPod • iTunes • K-12 • Mobile learning • mobile technology • multimedia • music • new business models in he • programming

Student debt and the Class of 2009

On 10/22/2010, in budgets, career development, cost of getting a degree, higher education, student-related, by Daniel Christian

Student debt and the Class of 2009 — from projectonstudentdebt.org

Our new report, released today, finds that college seniors who graduated from public and private nonprofit four-year colleges in 2009 carried an average of $24,000 in student loan debt, up 6 percent from the previous year. Meanwhile, unemployment for recent graduates climbed from 5.8 percent in 2008 to 8.7 percent in 2009 – the highest annual rate on record for college graduates aged 20-24.

The report shows that average student debt levels vary widely by state as well as by college. To view debt levels for all 50 states plus the District of Columbia and more than 1,000 public and private nonprofit four-year colleges and universities, visit our interactive online map.

Download the report, Student Debt and the Class of 2009.

Read the press release

New Data on College Insight

The Institute’s dynamic higher education data site, College InSight, lets users view student debt levels in context with data on affordability, diversity, and student success. Through its user-friendly interface, College InSight makes a wide variety of data easy to find, compare, and analyze.

Tagged with: budgetary • cost of getting an education • higher education • student-related

Massive cut in Britain

On 10/21/2010, in budgets, business side of he, change, cost of getting a degree, dangers of the status quo, future of higher education, game-changing environment, higher education, UK, by Daniel Christian

Massive cut in Britain — from InsideHigherEd.com

Government funding for higher education in Britain is to be cut by 40 percent over four years, suggesting that public funding for teaching in the arts, humanities and social sciences may come to an end.

The Comprehensive Spending Review unveiled Wednesday includes a reduction in the higher education budget of £2.9 billion – from £7.1 billion to £4.2 billion – by 2014-5.

The Treasury says in a statement that the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, which oversees higher education, will “continue to fund teaching for science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) subjects.”

However, no mention is made of other subjects.

Tagged with: budgetary • business side of he • change • cost of getting an education • dangers of the status quo • future of higher education • game-changing environment • higher education • UK

New initiative will advance the best uses of technology to improve college readiness and completion

On 10/11/2010, in budgets, education technology, funding / grants, higher education, by Daniel Christian

New initiative will advance the best uses of technology to improve college readiness and completion — from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Multi-year “challenge” grant competition will identify and fund most promising innovations

SEATTLE — The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation today announced the Next Generation Learning Challenges, a collaborative, multi-year initiative, which aims to help dramatically improve college readiness and college completion in the United States through the use of technology. The program will provide grants to organizations and innovators to expand promising technology tools to more students, teachers, and schools. It is led by nonprofit EDUCAUSE, which works to advance higher education through the use of information technology.

Next Generation Learning Challenges released the first of a series of RFPs today to solicit funding proposals for technology applications that can improve postsecondary education. This round of funding will total up to $20 million, including grants that range from $250,000 to $750,000. Applicants with top-rated proposals will receive funds to expand their programs and demonstrate effectiveness in serving larger numbers of students. Proposals are due November 19, 2010; winners are expected to be announced by March 31, 2011.

Tagged with: educational technology • funding • grants • higher education

Increasing tuition — the wrong direction!

On 10/09/2010, in budgets, business side of he, cost of getting a degree, New "Amazon.com" of Higher Education, by Daniel Christian

Increases up to 25 percent proposed for college tuition in Colorado

From DSC:
Given the technological changes occurring (and the higher ed bubble already bursting in some locales), this is a step in the wrong direction.

A review of the postings over at Recession Realities in Higher Education (from Ray Schroeder) will show that while some institutions are cutting budgets and programs, others are increasing tuition. For those increasing tuition — unless the tuition is already very low in comparison to others to begin with — this is a step in the wrong direction.

Tagged with: budgetary • business side of he • cost of getting an education • Walmart of Education

How the Gates Foundation will spend its education-technology dollars

On 10/04/2010, in assessment, budgets, education technology, online learning, by Daniel Christian

How the Gates Foundation will spend its education-technology dollars — from The Chronicle by Marc Parry

From DSC:
Mentioned in that article is the following site that I thought further addresses the need to come up with different kinds of assessments/assignments:

Tagged with: budgetary • educational technology • online learning

Perhaps the last few years of scholarships for some sports…

On 10/04/2010, in budgets, business side of he, cost of getting a degree, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
If you are a parent and you have hopes of your son(s) or daughter(s) obtaining athletic scholarships, your days may be numbered. I come from an athletic scholarship background and I’m glad that I do. However, the days of athletic scholarships may be pruned down a bit in these next few years as budgets continue to get tighter and tighter.

My guess at this point is that the smaller team sports — such as tennis, golf, wrestling, softball, lacrosse, etc. — may see fewer teams competing in the future. I don’t have data here (so I may be wrong), but I would guess that programs will have to be self-sustaining in order to remain open. The larger, revenue-producing sports will probably survive.

This article points to this topic:
‘Curriculum Review’ for Athletics — from InsideHigherEd.com

So if you are counting on a college scholarship, I hope your kids are at least in high school…if not, I would not count on this source of funding in the future…at least for smaller sports (and even that may be generous w/ the time frames here).

Tagged with: budgetary • cost of getting an education • costs • financial aid

Kiva begins offering education microloans

On 09/30/2010, in budgets, cost of getting a degree, education, student-related, by Daniel Christian

Kiva begins offering education microloans — from wired.co.uk by Duncan Geere

Crowdsourced microlending service Kiva has begun offering educational loans to students in three countries around the world, with the objective of expanding its successes with small businesses into encouraging the spread of learning.

Tagged with: budgetary • cost of getting an education • costs • education • student-related

How long does it take to create learning? (2010 Research)

On 09/20/2010, in budgets, consortiums, corporate universities / corporate training, training / L&D, by Daniel Christian

How long does it take to create learning? (2010 Research) — from Brandan-Hall.com by Bryan Chapman

From DSC:
I have it that in the near future, it will take a team of specialists to create and deliver effective learning content that is able to engage folks (the for-profits, as we’ve seen, are already doing this). No doubt this takes time and money. That is why, within the world of higher ed, I think the use of pooling resources and expanding the use of consortiums might take off; and/or…perhaps there will be more contributions to open source alternatives…I’m not sure. But this report shows that it can take a significant amount of time to create the content.

The important thing for the online world here is to leverage these efforts again and again and again. The more times that a course is used/taken, the ROI goes up and the cost per delivery goes down.

Tagged with: budgetary • consortiums • corporate training / universities • costs • pooling resources • training

As interest in online learning grows, Udemy lands $1 million in angel funding

On 09/13/2010, in budgets, business, business side of he, new business models, online learning, by Daniel Christian

As interest in online learning grows, Udemy lands $1 million in angel funding — from ReadWriteWeb.com by Audrey Watters

In that spirit, Udemy is a website that seeks to “democratize online learning” by providing the tools so that educators can easily create their own online courses. Udemy announces today that is has raised $1 million from a number of prominent angel investors, including Keith Rabois, Naval Ravikant, and Dave McClure’s 500 Startups Fund – a successful round that Udemy co-founder Gagan Biyani notes came with help from both the Founder Institute where the startup was incubated and from VentureHacks’ AngelList. The funding will go, in part, to hire more engineers for the site.

Tagged with: budgetary • business side of he • new business models in he • online learning

Tagged with: 1:1 • 24x7x365 • budgetary • cost of getting an education • course redesign • curriculum • dangers of the status quo • Daniel S. Christian • disruption • education reform • educational technology • engaging students • future of higher education • game-changing environment • Global learning • higher education • information overload • Keeping students engaged • leadership • learning ecosystem • Mobile learning • multimedia • new business models in he • ocw • online learning • open • Open Learning Network (OLN) • perfect storm • strategy • student expectations • student-related • surviving • traditional • ubiquitous learning • United States • willingness

Tagged with: budgetary • education • K-12 • United States

A quote re: a piece of the perfect storm in higher ed…

On 08/24/2010, in budgets, business side of he, dangers of the status quo, future of higher education, game-changing environment, higher education, new business models, by Daniel Christian

“While I still haven’t given up on state government’s role in supporting public higher education,” [Boise State University President Bob Kustra] said, “with each passing year I see more clearly that the funding of higher education as we experienced it in the past will not be replicated in future years.” Boise State needs to re-examine the business model universities use and construct a new one, according to Kustra.

— from What’s next for Boise State?: Kustra asks for a new business model at State of the University Address

Tagged with: budgetary • business side of he • dangers of the status quo • future of higher education • game-changing environment • higher education • new business models in he • perfect storm

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