Category Archives: Education

Midnight in Paris

The funny thing about change is that it often happens slowly over an extended time – so slowly we often don’t notice it – and we often even forget to look. Then one day you wake up and you’re hit with an inflection point – the point where there seems to be a dramatic shift. …

February 26, 2013 – 4:07 pm | By admin | Posted in Education | Comments (0)

Minisota is Protecting Itself from FREE Education

In what can only be described as government bureaucracy taken to the most illogical extreme, the state of Minnesota has decided to protect its residents from FREE education. The Minnesota Department of Education has informed Coursera, a web site that provides courses from some of the world’s top universities for free, that it must either …

October 19, 2012 – 4:44 pm | By Tom Coughlan | Posted in Education | Comments (0)

Holding Back the Future – Online Education

Far too often we fear what we don’t understand, and we assume that the current paradigm is the only possible paradigm worth pursuing. As humans we look to protect what we are familiar with to the exclusion of what is possible and valuable. In this vein there are still ongoing attempts by many traditional educator …

July 21, 2012 – 9:28 am | By Tom Coughlan | Posted in Education, technology | Comments (1)

Innovating from the edges of education

As an academic I am keenly aware of the controversy that has been swirling around education and its need for serious reform. Like many Americans I have firsthand experience with the kind of strain the cost of putting three kids through college has on a family of middle class means – not to mention having …

May 5, 2012 – 12:10 pm | By Tom Coughlan | Posted in Education, Innovation | Comments (1)

Social Understanding

I am constantly amazed by the lack of basic understanding of the social media paradigm by the public at large. Today a ran across a story in the BBC News about how Scottish teachers are being warned that Facebook could present a career risk. The general fear being that by revealing too much personal information …

January 2, 2012 – 11:46 am | By Tom Coughlan | Posted in Education, management, technology | Comments (1)

Denying the Market and Income Distribution

This morning I read a disturbing opinion piece  PAUL KRUGMAN recently published in the New York Times (2011). Dr. Krugman points out that the US is developing into an oligarchy where the wealthy are getting wealthier and the middle class and the poor have seen their real income remain flat or decline over the past …

November 5, 2011 – 12:58 pm | By Tom Coughlan | Posted in Education, Logic, Marketing | Comments (0)

Occupy Wall Street – What’s the Point?

There is endless data on how the top 1 percent of Americans control 34.6 percent of the wealth and the bottom 90 percent control only 26.9 percent of the wealth. This is in stark contrast to the distribution of wealth in the US just after the end of World War II were the top 10 …

October 16, 2011 – 12:07 pm | By Tom Coughlan | Posted in Education, Innovation | Tagged | Comments (1)

Do We Need an Education?

In the first three months of the calender year, as high school seniors wait for their college decision letters, we are typically inundated with articles on the increasing cost of education – and the inevitable question on whether or not it is all worth it. Lately I have seen far too many articles that parade …

March 27, 2011 – 1:25 pm | By Tom Coughlan | Posted in Education | Comments (0)

Can you teach College Prep?

Today’s New York Times ran an article about how college prep has become the latest perk for union members (Steinberg, 2010). It seems that the A.F.L.-C.I.O. and Princeton Review have begun to offer special deals to over13 million union members on course and counseling in preparing for college.  Of course as an academic nothing brings …

June 22, 2010 – 12:25 pm | By Tom Coughlan | Posted in Education | Comments (0)