Even the U.S. government is proactive with social media
When you think of the government, in general the words early adopter usually don’t come to mind. Yet more politicians and other governmental officials are using social media tools like Twitter to get their messages heard, and now the U.S. government has recently launched Apps.gov, introducing web tools to lower costs and improve communication.
Check out their lists of social media and productivity applications.
Education and social media
Occasionally, I will highlight how other fields utilize social media and how it is changing how we learn and work.
Recently, high profile news sites like CNN and the New York Times have written about an online University that is going bold with tuition free schooling called the University of the People.
University of the People (UoPeople) is the world’s first tuition-free, online academic institution dedicated to the global advancement and democratization of higher education. The high-quality, low-cost and global educational model embraces the worldwide presence of the Internet and dropping technology costs to bring university level studies within reach of millions of people across the world. With the support of respected academics, humanitarians and other visionaries, the UoPeople student body represents a new wave in global education.
The Times article shows the vision:
“The idea is to take social networking and apply it to academia,” said Shai Reshef, an entrepreneur and founder of several previous Internet-based educational businesses. “The open source courseware is there, from universities that have put their courses online, available to the public, free. We know that online peer-to-peer teaching works. Putting it all together, we can make a free university for students all over the world, anyone who speaks English and has an Internet connection.”
A CNN description further demonstrates how Reshef “gets it”
“We are fitting the current culture into the academic culture.”
“A recent study conducted by the U.S. Department of Education found that “on average, students in online learning conditions performed better than those receiving face-to-face instruction.”
Education is changing and will continually become cheaper as information becomes more free and available, and formal schooling saves by shifting to online mediums.
*It should be noted that the University may not receive accreditation, but nonetheless represents a change in the educational landscape, giving those an opportunity to learn who otherwise could not. As more schools try this method, we will likely see a forced recognition of the validity of this type of learning.
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Join the Nutrition 2.0 FriendFeed room to further discuss these topics: http://friendfeed.com/nutrition20 -