Education Person of the Year Reboots

“We saw that there is a big difference between graduating from high school and being ready for college,” said Gates.

And THAT is especially true for low SES students who are the first in their family to go to college.

The Value of a College Degree in the Networked World says:

Selling students a degree does not fulfill the responsibility of schools. It’s not enough. To prepare college students for success in the world in which they will live, schools must teach the students to share. Schools much teach students how to be public; public in the world of digital.

I have had difficulty with this. No matter how much I tell my students, they often do not do what I’ve said. I just went in today and deleted one student’s name from a post. She’s given her last name as her handle and I don’t want the two connected.

Do teach them to blog. Encourage them to connect their public blogs at conferences and create a personal learning network of their peers.

I am trying to do this within our class blog, getting the student connected and paying attention to others who are like them (or not). Tinto says that connection helps students stay in college and I want that for them.

I think as the cohort class for health science majors comes to fruition that the sort of connected blogging that the article is talking about will flourish.  I certainly hope so, anyway.