While the majority of Americans see their country falling behind other nations economically, they also believe the nation can improve its standing with more college degrees, according to a new survey from Kaplan. The Kaplan University Education Insights Survey found 83 percent of adults in the United States agree that the country is falling behind, with seven in 10 saying that the nation can improve its standing if more people earn college degrees.

“America has the talent to be competitive,” said Peter Smith, senior vice president for Academic Strategies “If we can help close the ‘degree gap’–by making higher education more accessible to more Americans–we will stop wasting our talent, increase our global competitiveness, and get more people into sustainable, higher paying careers.”

Community college student Colby Seymore has gone online 26 times in the last three weeks, begging other students to rate his chances of transfer to UCLA or UC Berkeley.

With admission decisions from top institutions due in coming weeks, Seymore’s chat room postings have become increasingly panicked: “I am antsy and have to know!! HELP?” and “I have the right grades . . . right?”

In a twist on the college admissions frenzy, thousands of students like Seymore are putting their test scores, grade-point averages and other stats on college discussion websites, hoping their peers will reassure them they’re on their way to their dream schools. Many students already get most of their admissions tips online and say these “chance me” postings are a good way to blow off steam and to connect with other people in the same state of anticipatory freak-out.

If ever there were a teaching moment about the perils of financial ignorance, it’s the current economic crisis.

Millions of Americans are learning the hard way about the pitfalls of teaser mortgage interest rates and runaway credit card debt. Sadly, their children may be doomed to repeat the mistakes of their overdrawn elders.

Financial teaching at home and in the nation’s schools is skeletal at best, educators say. American youngsters who can Twitter, text, blog and download with ease are downright clueless when it comes to old-school chores like balancing a checkbook or understanding retirement savings.

“We’ve been going for years without that education, and it’s one of many factors contributing to the whole mess we’re in,” said Karen P. Varcoe, a consumer economics specialist for the University of California.

President Barack Obama laid out his vision for a 21st century education system this morning, unveiling plans for federal grant programs meant to inspire better performance but also calling on states, schools and parents to take part even where there is no financial incentive.

Obama’s blueprint includes a controversial plan to hike pay for high-performing teachers, as well as money for states that raise student standards, track student progress and cut the drop-out rate.

Yet much of Obama’s speech to business leaders with the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce — his first address on education since taking office — focused not on detailing federal programs but on encouraging Americans to raise the standards on their own.

He called for longer school days and school years, more charter schools and a greater effort to recruit promising candidates to the teaching profession, as well as a renewed commitment from parents to support their children’s education.

Title: League of Innovations
Location: Reno, Nevada
Link out: Click here
Start Date: 2009-03-15
End Date: 2009-03-17

Using smart phones and other mobile devices for learning isn’t just a trend, but rather a sustainable approach to educational technology that can adapt to future assessments and help raise student test scores significantly, said presenters at the first-ever Mobile Learning Conference in Washington, D.C., Feb. 17.

“Year after year, when students are asked on our Speak Up Survey what they’d most like to have, I get the same answer,” said Julie Evans, CEO of Project Tomorrow, a national education group that publishes the largest annual survey of student, parent, teacher, and administrator attitudes toward school technology.

“I hear: I want a laptop,” Evans said.

But it’s not the specific nature of the device itself that kids desire, she explained; instead, it’s what a laptop gives them: the ability to control their own knowledge. According to Evans, a laptop serves as a proxy for intellectual freedom–and with recent advancements in handheld and smart-phone devices, these technologies can offer much of the same experience, at a typically lower cost.

“With handheld devices, students can have that freedom,” said Evans. “It’s learning on the go, it’s portable, it’s anytime, anywhere access, and it can provide a personalized learning experience.”

Jill Smart, an Accenture executive, was skeptical the first time she stepped into her firm’s new videoconferencing room in Chicago for a meeting with a group of colleagues in London. But the videoconferencing technology, known as telepresence, delivered an experience so lifelike, Ms. Smart recalled, that “10 minutes into it, you forget you are not in the room with them.”

Accenture, a technology consulting firm, has installed 13 of the videoconferencing rooms at its offices around the world and plans to have an additional 22 operating before the end of the year.

Accenture figures its consultants used virtual meetings to avoid 240 international trips and 120 domestic flights in May alone, for an annual saving of millions of dollars and countless hours of wearying travel for its workers.

As travel costs rise and airlines cut service, companies large and small are rethinking the face-to-face meeting — and business travel as well. At the same time, the technology has matured to the point where it is often practical, affordable and more productive to move digital bits instead of bodies.

According to Chris Dede, Timothy E. Wirth Professor in Learning Technologies at Harvard University, education is evolving “due in large part to emerging information and communications technologies.” And that’s got him excited.

“I am more excited about educational technology right now than at any other time in my career,” said Dede, speaking at FETC 2009 in Orlando, FL last week. “And this talk is really about why I am so excited about what’s happening now.”

We live at a really interesting time in the evolution of education, he continued, referring to the extraordinary range of new media available to students and educators. “These technologies are doing three very important things at once:

* They are causing a shift in the kinds of knowledge and skills the world values;
* Driving the development of new methods of teaching and learning; and
* Changing the basic characteristics of learners of every age.”

People using the Post-9/11 GI Bill for distance learning would be eligible to receive a living stipend under legislation introduced Tuesday by the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee chairman.

The bill sponsored by Rep. Bob Filner, D-Calif., addresses one of the biggest complaints about the new veterans education benefits plan that takes effect Aug. 1.

In addition to covering tuition and fees and providing a $1,000 annual allowance for books and supplies, the new GI Bill provides a monthly living stipend equal to the military basic allowance for housing for an E-5 with dependents for the ZIP code where the school is located.

New Jersey education officials are working on an ambitious redesign of the state’s public high schools that is intended to better prepare students for college and the work force in the 21st century.

The redesign had called for every student - not just those who are college bound - to study Algebra II, laboratory sciences and foreign languages, pass more state tests and complete at least one online course in order to graduate. But education officials recently backed away from the online requirement because of concerns over the cost and whether such courses would meet state standards.

Tougher courses and testing are hardly surprising - but an online course?