EdTech News Roundup: "Video Books," Slow Internet Speeds, and the Perfect Storm of College Education

In this week’s EdTech Roundup, check out articles on Maine’s 1-1 student-laptop program, the National Broadband Plans’ startling data on school internet speeds, MIT’s OpenCourseWare program, and more.

1. A Perfect Storm in Undergraduate Education

A column from the Chronicle of Higher Education delineates everything that’s wrong with undergraduate education today — most significantly, the fact that “at least 45 percent of undergraduates demonstrated “no improvement in critical thinking, complex reasoning, and writing skills in the first two years of college, and 36 percent showed no progress in four years.” How do you think this problem might be solved? Could ed tech innovations be part of the answer?

2. Maine Laptop Program Offers Lessons in Ed-Tech Implementation

Nine years ago, Maine became the first state in the nation to implement a 1-1 laptop program in its schools. Read about the program’s challenges and lessons in this article from eSchoolNews.

3. Free ‘Video Book’ From MIT Press Challenges Limits of Scholarship

When Pitzer College professor Alexandra Juhasz began teaching a class about YouTube in 2007, her critics thought that was taking things far enough. But now, Juhasz has produced a “Video Book” reflecting on YouTube in its own medium. The Video Book has an ISBN number and is available through its own website — raising more questions about where the future of publishing lies. Read the article from the Chronicle of Higher Ed for more.

4. National Broadband Map Suggests U.S. Schools Need More and Better Investment in Technology Infrastructure

For schools, slow Internet speeds are more than just a nuisance. The release of the National Broadband Map reveals that a large number of schools’ Internet connections are “woefully inadequate to meet education goals.” Learn more about the implications of this data in this article from THE Journal.

5. MIT OpenCourseWare 10: What’s Next for Higher Education?

Ten years ago, MIT made the bold decision to release its course content online to anyone interested in listening in. Since then, they’ve shared their content with over 100 million people around the world. With all the technological innovations that have occurred since 2001, what’s the next step for MIT’s OpenCourseWare? Read more in this piece from ReadWriteWeb.