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Podcast Series: Innovations in Education
Explore the full series of eCampus News podcasts hosted by Kevin Hogan—created to keep you on the cutting edge of innovations in education.
Skepticism of Facebook Student Groups grows on college campuses
To understand why Facebook’s unveiling of Student Groups didn’t send higher-education technologists into a tizzy, it might be helpful to examine the case of Oberlin College in Ohio, where 95 percent of its Student Groups have seen no student activity since they were made live in a pilot program that started in early March.
Facebook’s April 11 announcement, making Student Groups public after pilot programs on college campuses across the country, harkens back to the social network’s younger days, when members had to have “.edu” eMail addresses to create a Facebook account.
Student Groups will allow students and faculty members on hundreds of campuses to make private group pages that will be off limits to Facebook members outside the campus community. Students can share files–homework or class projects, perhaps–and interact with fellow students even if they’re not friends of the social network.…Read More
Colleges defend humanities amid tight budgets
Like many humanities advocates, Abbey Drane was disheartened but not surprised when Florida’s governor recently said its tax dollars should bolster science and high-tech studies, not “educate more people who can’t get jobs in anthropology.”
Drane, a 21-year-old anthropology major at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, has spent years defending her choice to pursue that liberal arts field.
And now, as states tighten their allocations to public universities, many administrators say they’re feeling pressure to defend the worth of humanities, too, and shield the genre from budget cuts.…Read More