I am a skeptical person, especially when it comes to anti-drug education. This may be because my first experience with drug education consisted in a teacher “burning a little pot” in the gym so that “we would know what it smells like” when we got to middle school. But last night I was watching Now and saw this video (it is in the second half of the show) about billionaire Tom Siebel's anti-Meth program. He has created a high powered marketing campaign that is beginn...

After our meeting yesterday about how social networks can be utilized to help colleges rethink traditional models of alumni outreach, I remembered an interesting Marketplace report on The Point, an innovative organization that uses online networks to accomplish social change.

Reading the Times today, I was reminded once again how academics can do a much better job thinking about how data can be represented. How many times have you read an article about education that had one graphic–a set of interlocking rings, or concentric circles with descriptions like: “Classroom,” “School,” “Society”? Compare this with this. There is a clear and immediate difference in the meaningfulness of the images. Se...

Finishing my first semester teaching in higher education, the biggest thing I learned from the experience is that the expectations students have for their own education are incredibly low. I don't know if this is a product of a high school education that inculcates passivity, or a general sense of disempowerment. But, I don't think my students are exceptions; from the most prestigious colleges and universities to the least, students don't know what to expect from college.

Take a look at Philosophy Bites. I like the format. Philosophers–like two of my favorites, Onora O'Neill and Miranda Fricker–are interviewed in a way that makes important topics in contemporary philosophy engaging to a non-expert audience. This program seems like a good model that we can try to emulate as we work to make current topics in education engaging to a wider audience.

I just heard about the Rubber Room while listening to This American Life. I had no idea that such a thing existed for the teachers of New York City.

In an elegantly written opinion piece for the New York Times, Stanford junior Sophie Egan describes what it is like living and studying abroad in Perugia in the aftermath of the murder of British student Meredith Kercher. The main suspects in the case are her American roommate Amanda Knox and Ms. Knox's Italian boyfriend. As Egan describes it, the Italian media is conflating Ms. Knox's online identity Foxykn...

In September's Harper's, Peter Schrag offers an interesting interpretation of the past fifty years in education in his article “Schoolhouse Crock.” Schrag is excellent with description, and I found his overall picture of the educational reform landscape compelling. He argues that in attempting to meet all of the demands placed upon it, schools necessarily come up short. Having diagnosed the current state of education, where are we left? Schrag writes, “Are schools good enough? Of course n...

Take a look at a project I just started using Google's Page Creator. In all, this took me about half an hour, and I am pretty happy with the results. The program is easy to use, and I can see myself using this for a number of other projects.