For Uganda’s Poor, a Cellular Connection

CAROL’S SUMMARY
Todayâ€™s article focuses on an initiative spearheaded by the Grameen Foundation and Google to provide easy access to information in rural Uganda. Founded by Muhammad Yunus, the Grameen Foundation is leading the way in the fight against global poverty through microfinance and technology-based initiatives. In Uganda , where there are likely more cell phones than there are light bulbs, this initiative has found a unique way to disseminate information on health, agriculture, trade, and the like: text-message based search and query services.

What makes Grameen and Googleâ€™s initiative different is the execution: they canvassed citizens to see what information was most needed and stationed more than 10,000 â€œhelpersâ€ in the form of local â€œvillage phone operatorsâ€ who can teach their neighbors how to use the service. This entrepreneurial, innovative approach to bridging Uganda â€™s information may have deep impacts far beyond mere snippets of information: it can be used for education, business, improved agriculture and personal empowerment.
If this model can be applied as successfully to educating people in third-world countries what might be possible for the globe? How many more diseases and deaths could be prevented? How many more people could know about their medical and family choices?

Forty years ago today, the United States sent a man to the moon. Today, the world is reminded of the remarkable achievements that are possible when people stretch their imaginations to their fullest capacity to solve problems: including eliminating poverty in our lifetime. The small steps toward educating impoverished people mentioned in this article are a giant opening toward a new possibility: a world where all people have access to education and thereby can contribute their gifts and talents to the world in positive, sustainable ways.

ARTICLE
CNET News
by Dara Kerr

In many parts of the world, electricity is a luxury. People spend hours gathering firewood to cook their dinners or warm their homes. In Uganda, only 10 percent of the population has electricity, the vast majority doesn’t have microwave ovens, computers, or televisions. People don’t have access to the latest information on disease outbreaks, weather forecasts, or soccer championships. But this may soon change.

More than a third of Uganda’s population, about 10 million people, own a cell phone, and many more have access to these phones through family members and neighbors. Cell phones can be found in every desolate corner of the countryside, where 85 percent of the country’s residents live. With the dire need to be connected, people go to great lengths to use cell phones, charging them with car batteries or solar chargers.

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In Search for Intelligence, a Silicon Brain Twitches

Todayâ€™s article from the Wall Street Journal describes an array of scientists who are attempting to replicate the structure, functionality and processing power of the human brain. Using supercomputers, these scientists are painstakingly mapping the structure and complexity of animal brains. While the science mentioned in this article is fascinating in and of itself, it also begs the question: How does human intelligence emerge and develop?

Perhaps the most important functions of the human brain mentioned in the article are making connections, expanding knowledge based on prior information, and adapting and evolving oneâ€™s thinking. To the scientists, these are the functions that create and expand human intelligence. Essentially, these scientists arenâ€™t simply trying to fire off a series of neurons â€“ they are trying to replicate critical thinking, one of the most complex and powerful functions of the human brain.

The sheer amount of resources â€“ more than ten years and countless millions of dollars â€“ required to even come close to replicating human critical thinking power provides a startling indicator of the power of our minds. When we develop our own abilities to make connections, to plan, to evolve, and to expand our own intelligence, we utilize our own personal â€œsupercomputerâ€ brain power to the fullest. As educators, we must ensure that our students develop the critical thinking abilities needed to maximize the power of their minds. By teaching students to ask powerful questions, compare and contrast information, and move beyond what they already know, we will create a generation of inquisitive, powerful thinkers who will make a difference in the world.

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ARTICLE
by By GAUTAM NAIK
For the last four years, Henry Markram has been building a biologically accurate artificial brain. Powered by a supercomputer, his software model closely mimics the activity of a vital section of a rat’s gray matter.

Dubbed Blue Brain, the simulation shows some strange behavior. The artificial “cells” respond to stimuli and suddenly pulse and flash in spooky unison, a pattern that isn’t programmed but emerges spontaneously.

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New Funding for Community Colleges: A Vital Resource for the American Workforce

On Tuesday, President Obama is expected to make a major announcement regarding federal support for community colleges.Â With up to $9 billion in federal support for community colleges rumored, Obamaâ€™s announcement serves as a recognition of the vital importance of theseâ€21^st century job-training centersâ€ that have the capacity to create the flexible American work force needed to compete in todayâ€™s global economy.Â This announcement comes at a period of critical mass for community colleges: many of these institutions are bursting at the seams due to increased demand for job retraining for the unemployed and because of students seeking a new option for affordable higher education.Â

This new support for community colleges will serve a wide array of populations.Â First, community colleges are a critical remedial option for underprepared college students, allowing them to gain the skills and abilities necessary to thrive in a traditional four-year institution.Â As noted in the article, the increased funding (including financial aid support) will be of great help to college students unable to afford the ever-increasing price tag of 4 year institutions, especially in an economy where personal savings have dwindled and many sources of financial aid have dried up.Â Â Â Another population that will be well-served by this proposal is foreign students.Â As more and more international students opt for community colleges as an affordable option to attain a higher education in the United States, the funding Obama will propose will help to create the capacity and space needed to educate this influx of students.

This funding for community colleges also has another beneficiary: both unemployed and working adults.Â Community colleges serve as a crucial resource for laid-off employees who need retraining due to changes such as the failure of their company or the exporting of their jobs overseas.Â Employed adults also would be wise to take advantage of this educational resource to keep their skills current and relevant in todayâ€™s rapidly evolving world of work.Â Finally, community colleges provide a launching pad for students over 50 wishing to reinvent themselves for the 20+ years remaining in their working life.

One final effort briefly mentioned in the Chronicle article involves the development of free, federally-sponsored online courses available through the community college network.Â These classes will enable students to step into the digital age and refresh their skills from home â€“ but they arenâ€™t a guaranteed boost to skills.Â Without the self-discipline, motivation and willingness to adapt to new technologies needed for students to succeed in an online platform, these courses will be much less effective.

In the end, Obamaâ€™s announcement comes as a challenge to the American student population and workforce: take advantage of the learning opportunities that surround you so that America can continue to provide the agile, skilled and enterprising working population that has made our country so great.

ARTICLE:

Obama Expected To Announce Major Proposal to Support Community Colleges

by Marc Parry

President Obama called for fresh financial support for Americaâ€™s community colleges on Sunday as two-year institutions anticipate the rollout of what could be a multibillion-dollar new proposal for an education sector that is straining to accommodate a surge in students amid the recession.

Writing in The Washington Post, Mr. Obama cast community colleges in a lead role as the country rebuilds its economy from the â€œwreckageâ€ of financial collapse. His call for reforming Americaâ€™s network of community colleges comes as the president prepares to visit Michigan on Tuesday for a speech about two-year institutions.

â€œOur community colleges can serve as 21st-century job-training centers, working with local businesses to help workers learn the skills they need to fill the jobs of the future,â€ Mr. Obama wrote in an opinion piece published on Sunday. â€œWe can reallocate funding to help them modernize their facilities, increase the quality of online courses, and ultimately meet the goal of graduating five million more Americans from community colleges by 2020.â€

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Hot Academic Jobs of the Future: Try These Fields

Many changes are expected in academia over the next few years. Tenured positions of the past may be replaced with more adjunct and part-time faculty creating a need for more virtual learning, self-paced study and hybrid classes. Students will need to have strong skills in self-advocacy and personal accountability to make the most of this new learning environment. High schools will need to promote those skills beginning freshmen year.

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How Much Is Too Much for College?

CAROL’S SUMMARY
College expenses have sky-rocketed. Authors Thakor and Kedar believe that when you graduate from college and a get a job, 25% of your earning will go for taxes and 15% should go to down payments for a car and eventually, a home. When the costs of college are way out of proportion to earnings in the first ten years, debt can become unmanageable. There are many options right now for students:

1) Begin at a community college. The community college is one of the best educational values around. If you start at a community college, build your basic college level learning skills, figure out your interests and abilities then you can transfer to a strong four year school or an Ivy League school, often with plenty of financial aid.

2) Go in state. A great deal of money can be saved by going to school in state. With the money you save, you can study in Shanghai, Dubai or Paris for a semester. You can take internships in cities like Chicago, San Francisco or New York City. These experiences will stand you in good stead as you build your career skills in addition to your knowledge skills.

3) Sacrifice. People who do well over the arc of their careers often sacrifice today so that they can have more in the future. In the book, The Millionaire Next Door, the authors chronicle many people who became millionaires by driving really old cars, taking the bus and shopping at places like Target and Walmart. So, delay gratification, quit spending on things you donâ€™t need and ride the bus or take your bike to school.

4) Work. Even if your parents can afford to help you pay for college, insist that you pay for at least half of your education. Why? Because if you donâ€™t have a stake in what you are doing, you are likely to waste your time by being undirected and unfocused. If you are paying for college, chances are you will figure out who you are, what you want and where you want to go in your life. Recommended work hours for college is 12-15 per week with a fifteen unit course load.

5) Plan for a bright financial future. Survey your options. Set your goals. Ask yourself what kind of life you want to live in five years, ten years, twenty years? What will you need to do to create that life? Who will you need to be? What will you need to earn? How hard will you need to work? What changes do you need to make today to make that happen?

Finally, your commitment to your own success matters much more than how much money you have or donâ€™t have today or what your IQ is or isnâ€™t. If you believe in yourself and you are willing to get an education and work hard, the world will be your oyster in any kind of economic climate.

ARTICLE
New York Times
by Rebecca R. Ruiz
In a Huffington Post article, Manisha Thakor and Sharon Kedar, authors of â€œOn My Own Two Feet: A Modern Girlâ€™s Guide to Personal Finance,â€ pose the question, â€œHow High is Too High for the Cost of Higher Education?â€

For years the subliminal messaging most of us received was that â€˜no price tag is too high for a quality higher education.â€™ As we rethink virtually everything in this post-AIG, post-Madoff, post-housing bubble world, it may be time to ask if that graduation cap tassel is really worth the financial hassle.

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Study Examines How Students’ Financial Behavior Is Formed, and How It Affects Their Future

CAROL’S SUMMARY
In the article below from todayâ€™s Chronicle, researchers at the University of Arizona are exploring financial patterns in college and long term success in college, career and life. To do this, they are looking at studentsâ€™ spending patterns in high school and the role that parents and schools may or may not play in financial education.

Three things are clear: One, if students get exposure in high school or before to managing money, delaying gratification, controlling their spending influences and planning ahead, they are likely to apply the same strategies to other areas of their life like being smart about not having sex or using birth control or delaying the impulse to insult someone or incite an argument.

They are also are more likely to apply the same critical thinking skills they use for managing their finances to other areas of their lives like planning for college and career success, which requires a great degree of self-knowledge and discipline.

Two, if students are in a home where smart money decisions are modeled, including living within your means, saving and staying out of credit card debt, they are more likely to form those patterns as adults. If students see a pattern of debt and heavy spending with their parents, they are likely to adopt those same behaviors. So, schools would do well to help parents with financial literacy and college planning beginning when their students are freshmen in high school.

Three, some students will not have a model at home of anything positive to follow financially or otherwise. These students will need to rely on this material being part of their student success course in the freshmen year of high school and other stair-step success classes throughout their high school career. If students realize and master these skills early in life, it can mean the difference between living in the housing projects and living successfully in a Habitat Home. It can mean the difference between not being hired for a minimum wage job and starting in a minimum wage job, then moving up the ranks to manager with a company who will pay for your college. It can mean the difference between a workforce that can solve problems creatively and one that doesnâ€™t see problems in the first place. It can mean the difference between graduates and workers who have strong thinking and leadership skills and people who are waiting around wondering why opportunities donâ€™t approach them. Letâ€™s change that dynamic.

ARTICLE
by Beckie Supiano

For most traditional-age students, beginning college marks a new level of financial independence. Itâ€™s a time when key financial habits are formed, but relatively little is known about how that happens or what impact those habits have on a studentâ€™s future. A new longitudinal study aims to find out.

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Phoenix Risen

CAROL’S SUMMARY
The 88-year-old founder of the University of Phoenix, John Sperling, is an inspiration for lifelong learning and career success. At age 53, he changed careers and began a concept for working adults which has, years later, mushroomed into the $10 billion company called the University of Phoenix. Now, at age 88, his next life goal is working toward sustainable energy while continuing to steer U of P.

U of P has its critics as a for-profit institution, but no matter what you think of the concept, it has caused traditional higher education universities to be more student-centeredâ€”a culture which many American universities lacked. The vision that Sperling launched with $24,000 dollars in 1974, was an alternative for working adults who wanted to learn from people who were role models in the world of workâ€”not just professors studying those theories. This was â€œout thereâ€ at the time, especially from someone trained as a professor. But Sperlingâ€™s unique perspective as an irascible professor allowed him to see how the system was failing certain students. Now, University of Phoenix has some 400,000 students and employees 26,000 faculty. Competition is good for education and good for students.

So, if you are in mid-life and you are wondering how to turn around your current job situation, ask what John Sperling asked: What problem that you see can be solved with an innovative solution that others donâ€™t realize? Many new businesses emerge from times of extreme discomfort and constriction. What opportunities exist for you in your current situation that can propel your purpose and your passion for the rest of your days? Or, at least until you turn 88.

ARTICLE
Chronicle of Higher Education
By THOMAS BARTLETT

John G. Sperling, as he often reminds those around him, is running out of time. At 88, he is in relatively good health, despite a weak kidney and back problems. He still walks the dog, drives himself to meetings, and seems to have no shortage of nervous energy.

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Cell Phones Used to Deliver Course Content

CAROL’S SUMMARY
Cell phones are playing a role in how some college students learn and in the future they may impact how we all learn. Starting back in November of 2007, Japanâ€™s Cyber University has experimented successfully with on-line cell phone content. The university offered the classes for free as long as students signed up for the Smart Bank 3G phones, which delivered the electronic course material. Ball State University in the U.S. has worked with 800 undergraduate and graduate students with cell-enabled texts. Students purchase the text for $250 and then receive downloads for study outside of class, as well as some projects in class.

Many students in foreign countriesâ€”both developing and developed– are learning through cell phones as well. In some poorer countries where students lack access to brick and mortar buildings, they can take on-line classes and get their material downloaded through their phones. This concept may have great traction in countries like India and China where the number of students may outpace the physical locations available and the costs which are required from traditional universities.

To what extent will publishers need to partner with the makers of cell phones which have web-enabled capabilities?

How can contentâ€”especially out-of-class-materialâ€”in little bites help students to study and learn?

What other creative ways can students capture and interact with information in the areas where they areâ€”on the phone, on FaceBook, on Twitter?

How will teachers and professors adapt to these new opportunities for learning and teaching?

ARTICLE
Dennis Carter, Assistant Editor
Ecampusnews.com
U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan says schools and colleges should deliver course content to the cell phones that students use to talk and text every day. Some campus officials are listening, and classes via web-enabled cell phones could be mobile learning’s next evolution.

“Kids are on their cell phones the 14 hours a day they are not in school,” Duncan said in a recent interview with eCampus News at Education Department (ED) headquarters in Washington, D.C. With teenagers and young adults using cell phones constantly, Duncan said, technology officials should find ways to send homework, video lectures, and other classroom material so students can study wherever they are.

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Korean School Preps Students for Ivy League

The article below discusses an elite and rigorous Korean preparatory school that sends many of its graduates to Ivy League universities here in the United States.Â This story is far from unusual: many elite colleges and graduate schools have an international population topping 30% of their total class size.

With increased global competition for these already-coveted spots at Ivy League schools, what can American students do to stand out?Â Test scores and grades are clearly important, but are not the answer in and of themselves.Â As the article notes, the South Korean students are not merely academic “robots” – they have a wide array of interests outside of the classroom.

LifeBound’s Director of Business Strategy, Kelly Carson, is currently completing her MBA summer internship at our offices while enrolled at Harvard Business School.Â She describes the admission process this way:

“You definitely need to do your best to get great test scores and have an impressive academic record.Â Unfortunately, as many schools note, these metrics are what can keep you out, rather than what will guarantee you a spot.Â Once you’ve surpassed a basic level, it’s your job to distinguish yourself from the rest.”

“Use your admissions essays to tell a compelling story about yourself – who you are, what you’re passionate about, and why, specifically, this school is the one for you. If you can tell a story that demonstrates a clear history of leaderhsip and makes the admissions panel connect with you and want to know more about you, you’re head and shoulders above many other applicants.”

As Kelly notes, you need to be in touch with what you are passionate about to tell a compelling story on your admissions essay.Â As our Gifts and Talents for Teenagers text emphasizes, being in touch with your strengths, weaknesses and passions can make you a compelling candidate – no matter what school you may apply to.

ORIGiNAL ARTICLE:

Korean School Preps Students For Ivy League

by Anthony Kuhn

All Things Considered, July 2, 2009 Â· With admissions getting more competitive every year, spots at top American colleges are becoming a globally coveted commodity. In Seoul, one elite South Korean prep school has become the envy of many upper-crust U.S. prep schools with its success at getting its students into Ivy League colleges.

The Korean school’s formula is simple: Select the country’s brightest and most ambitious students and work them extremely hard.

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Top-Scoring Nations Share Strategies on Teachers

CAROL’S SUMMARY
Yesterday at the Global Education Competitiveness Summit, American officials explored what they could learn from the best-practices of the highest performing countries from around the world. Two examples, from Singapore and Finland, top the list. While these nations achieve their high performing status in different ways, as the article below indicates, both have very high standards for teachers. In both cases, teachers need masterâ€™s degree, are part of a professional and societal â€œeliteâ€, and receive many hours of professional development and career track challenge.

What if we start to look closely at why so many new teachers drop out in the first five years of teaching? What if we had much more of a rigorous filter for students who want to become teachers in the U.S? What if we emphasized overall critical thinking and problem-solving strategies and cultivated a culture of future teachers who embrace rigor and challenge? What if we rebuilt the curriculum emphasized in most schools of education, which is arguably not meeting the needs of todayâ€™s students or young teachers? What if we imported some of the teachers from the worldâ€™s highest performing nations to help us make these kinds of changes on the ground level?

In addition to the educational performance success of countries like Finland and the city-state of Singapore, it is important to also ask:

1) what is the unemployment rate in these countries?

2) How many citizens have health care?

3) What is the crime rate?

4) How many citizens are in prison?

5) What are the taxes?

6) What emphasis does the society as a whole place on education?

Surely, for the United States to radically change educational outcomes and compete for the 21st century, some of these other societal areas will need to be dealt with and improved simultaneously. A healthy, vital nation has a far greater chance of having strong teachers with world-class graduates than a nation that is tapped out, unhealthy, uninsured and in many areas, impoverished. We can and should work on each of these fronts for long term gain.

ARTICLE
Education Week
By Sean Cavanagh
American education officials trying to learn from the policies and practices of top-performing nations seem to have two exemplary models in Singapore and Finland.

Yet in some respects, those two nations have risen to the top in very different ways.

That was one of the lessons that emerged yesterday at what was billed as the Global Education Competitiveness Summit, which brought state officials and business leaders together here to discuss lessons from high-achieving countries that could be applied to U.S. school systemsâ€”an omnipresent theme in American education circles these days.

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