I've published the eighth article in my "Top Ed-Tech Trends of 2015" series. You can find it here.
I also wanted to make note some of the news items that didn't make the story. So I've decided to include those below.
“Fake Female Ole Miss Fan Used Twitter To Recruit Athletes For Years.”
Common has been uninvited to speak at Kean University’s graduation (because of his 2000 song about Assata Shakur.) He’s still scheduled to speak at the graduation of the City Colleges of Chicago.
Evan Young has been blocked by his high school, Twin Peaks Charter Academy High School, from giving a valedictorian speech in which he planned to out himself as gay.
The ACLU has filed a lawsuit in Kentucky, highlighting the use of restraints in school and releasing a video of an 8 year old boy crying as a school police office handcuffs his arms behind his back. The ACLU claims that the schools’ practice of shackling students (this boy and a girl, age 9) violated the ADA. More via The Guardian and the AP.
Seattle public school teachers remain on strike.
Jared Keller on “The Criminalization of the American Schoolyard”:
The simple facts of the case surrounding the 14-year-old student’s arrest are infuriating. Mohamed, a ninth-grader at Irving MacArthur High School in Irving, Texas, loved to tinker with electronics. One evening, he built a clock from circuit boards and wiring, which he stashed in a pencil case. On Tuesday, he showed his creation to his teachers. His engineering instructor praised the design; the English teacher thought it was a bomb. Mohamed was handcuffed by police officers and interrogated for hours. No charges were filed.
Via SB Nation: “The State v. Robertson: How Four Football Players Beat the Rap and Changed Free Speech in Oregon”
Black Men Being Killed Is The New Girls Gone Wild
According to the Dallas News, Texas officials are not too concerned about students’ STAAR-related tweets.
Following the murder of a student, a feminist group at the University of Mary Washington have filed a complaint with the Department of Education, saying that “the university failed to protect them from a ‘sexually hostile environment’ in which they were verbally harassed in person and threatened on Yik Yak.”
Do your kids Yik Yak? Time for a chat."
“A New Faculty Challenge: Fending Off Yik Yak.”
“Investigating the Yik Yak Attack.”
“Student Government Poses Yik Yak Resolution.” “Should College Administrators Yik Yak Back?”
Bloomberg News finds that “5 [SAE] chapters were closed or suspended over the past three years. Their investigation turned up 10 deaths tied to SAE events since 2006 - more than any other fraternity.”
Racism at college is widespread, researcher says.
“What Are Los Angeles USD’s Plans to Combat Sexting?” asks Edsurge. (Answer: apparently, show educational videos.)
Vox’s Libby Nelson collected Simon Cvijanović’s tweets, arguing they “show why college athletes need unions.” Cvijanović is a former offensive lineman at the University of Illinois who experienced a season-ending injury.
Via The Atlantic: “Race and Discipline in South Carolina Schools.”
Via The San Jose Mercury News: “A 17-year-old Lincoln High School student has been criminally cited after he hosted an Instagram account that featured nude photos of underage girls, authorities say, including some from Lincoln.”
In June, the AAUP voted to censure the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign over the Salaita case.
In other Salaita news, a judge has ordered the university to release donor emails that Salaita argues influenced the university’s decision to revoke his employment.
“Email scandal plunges U. of Illinois into turmoil.” The university’s board of trustees voted to reject a deal in which Wise would receive $400,000 after resigning as chancellor. More legal battles to follow…
E. Chris Summerhill, a Boston history teacher, says he was dismissed following his arrest during a #BlackLivesMatter protest.
The Orange, New Jersey school board has decided to fire Marylin Zuniga, a third-grade teacher who allowed her students to write “get well” cards to Mumia Abu-Jamal.
“Neither the legal principle of academic freedom nor the receipt of outside financial support for his work gives a public-college lecturer a right to declare his correspondence private, the University of Kansas argued this week in state court.” More on the legal battle between the university’s director of Center for Applied Economics and Students for a Sustainable Future in The Chronicle of Higher Education.
The chancellor of the Columbia campus R. Bowen Luftin resigned. The University of Missouri has selected Michael Middleton as its interim president.
The NYT on the campus climate.
the left should support speech rights because the left is weak
UC System president Janet Napolitano was caught on tape saying to student protestors, “We don’t have to listen to this crap.”