How to choose the best bulbs to replace incandescent

How to choose the best bulbs to replace incandescent

BY STACY CHANDLER / MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS

Buying a light bulb used to be easy. And it used to be something you did several times a year.

But now, “a lot of people are starting to look at light bulbs as an investment,” says Jaclyn Pardini, a spokeswoman for Lowe’s Home Improvement stores.

The incandescent bulbs in wide use ever since Thomas Edison received a patent for his version in 1880 are being phased out. A federal law passed in 2007 ends incandescent manufacturing and importing in the U.S. by the end of 2014, though stores will be allowed to keep them on shelves until they’re sold out.

In their place are more energy-efficient replacements that come in a dizzying array of hues and shapes.

But you’ll want to choose carefully. Those CFLs might be with you for the next nine years or so. And if you spring for an LED bulb, you’re really in it for the long haul.

“From the time a child enters kindergarten to the time they graduate from college, that bulb will still work,” said Pardini of LEDs.

So as those last incandescents flicker out in your lamps and light fixtures, how do you decide what will replace them? Read on:

INCANDESCENT

Cost: (one bulb): Less than $1; (to run a year): $7.32

Life: 1,000 hours

Pros: It’s the warm, soft light you grew up with.

Cons: A hot-blooded energy hog. Federal law is phasing them out after 2014.

HALOGEN

Cost (one bulb): $2–$3; (to run a year): $5.18

Life: 1,000–3,000 hours

Pros: The closest still-legal thing to the soft glow of an incandescent light. They’re now “the designer’s choice in bulbs,” said Pardini.

Cons: You’re not gaining much in life span or efficiency over incandescents.

CFL (Compact fluorescent lamp)

Cost (one bulb): $1–$2.50; (to run a year): $1.57

Life: 10,000 hours

Pros: Here’s where energy efficiency really steps up. CFLs use two-thirds less energy than incandescents.

Cons: Early CFLs got a bad rap for being slow to warm up and casting harsh light. But they’ve improved a lot. Still, you reduce the life span a bit if you turn the light on and off a lot (less than 15 minutes of on time). Using CFLs in an enclosed fixture can also reduce their life span, but some newer models have overcome this.

Check the packaging for the bulb you’re considering.

Disposal can be a hassle. Each CFL contains a small amount of mercury, so you need to recycle old bulbs. Several retailers offer this service, and many municipalities allow drop-off at their household hazardous waste facilities. (Check search.earth911.com for listings.)

LED (Light-emitting diode)

Cost (see note) (one bulb): $10–$30; (to run a year): $1.50

Life: 20,000–50,000 hours

Pros: Extremely long life. Cutting-edge technology.

Cons: Much higher upfront cost than other bulb types. But, Pardini added, “the potential return in energy savings and your time in changing out light bulbs is far greater over time. So it’s more of a longer-term investment.” Like CFLs, some LED bulbs can deteriorate in the heat of an enclosed fixture, so consult the packaging.

(Cost figures are averages and based on 60W-equivalent single bulbs. Annual cost and life span based on three hours of use daily.)

THE RIGHT HUE

CFL and LED bulbs come in a variety of colors (“color temperature” is the correct term) that will really affect the look of the room you’re illuminating.

Here are your options, with tips on what will put each room of your home in the very best light.

SOFT WHITE/WARM WHITE

Where to use: Living areas, bedrooms, dining spaces. This is the most common color temperature, and closest in color to the traditional incandescent bulb. Works well with earth tones like brown and tan.

COOL WHITE/NEUTRAL/BRIGHT WHITE

Where to use: Office and work areas. Fine for general lighting. Works well with neutral tones like gray and beige.

 COST SAVINGS

Here are some stats from the Environmental Protection Agency’s Energy Star program, which adds its stamp to light fixtures and bulbs that are at least 75 percent more efficient than traditional lighting.

By replacing your home’s five most frequently used bulbs, you can save $70 each year.

The average U.S. home has about 30 light fixtures; a switch to Energy Star lighting can save more than $400 a year on your electric bill.

If every American household replaced its five most frequently used light fixtures or the bulbs in them, the national savings would be $8 billion each year in energy costs, and that action would prevent greenhouse gases equivalent to the emissions from 10 million cars.

You can save energy in 3-way and dimmable fixtures, too. Look for CFL and LED bulbs in packages marked “dimmable” or “3-way” to make sure you’re getting a bulb that will work.

—Lowe’s Home Improvement, Home Depot, energystar.gov, eartheasy.com, Consumer Reports

CONVERSION CHART

With the phaseout of incandescent bulbs, the term “watts” is fading from importance. Now the word to know is “lumens”—a unit of measure for the brightness of light that a bulb produces. This watt-conversion chart will make shopping easier. The wattage equivalent is still listed on the packaging of newfangled bulbs, but can be hard to find sometimes.

150 watts—2,600 lumens

100 watts—1,600 lumens

75 watts—1,100 lumens

60 watts—800 lumens

40 watts—450 lumens

—Federal Trade Commission

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Don’t call me again, period!

By Susan Salisbury

Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Telemarketing calls are an annoyance, but putting your number on the Do Not Call list does not mean you won’t receive any unwanted calls. It should reduce the number of sales calls, but there are many exceptions.

For example, political calls aren’t stopped by placing your number on the Do Not Call list.

Confused? A recent survey from the Consumer Federation of America found that most adults don’t know their basic telemarketing rights. The CFA is offering a guide on its website to help consumers avoid telemarketing fraud. It can be found at consumerfed.org/fraud.

“This is all very complex and confusing,” said Susan Grant, CFA’s director of consumer protection. “If people want to know more, the guide will give them the ins and outs. Knowing your rights can help you tell the difference between legitimate telemarketing offers and scams.

“We want consumers to ask themselves, ‘Should this company be calling me? Why am I getting a recorded sales pitch when I never gave this company written permission to make them to me? Why doesn’t the company’s phone number show on my Caller ID’? And then hang up if something is wrong,” Grant said.

“There are other clues to look for as well, such as whether telemarketers are asking for payment up front to help you settle your debts and whether they only accept payment using a money transfer service or a prepaid card product,” she said.

In 2012 the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services received 17,728 consumer complaints about possible violations of the Do Not Call list. Those complaints ranked first, with complaints about telemarketing ranking second at 4,288.

The most frequent violations of the Do Not Call law occur because a solicitor: failed to identify his or her true first and last names and the business on whose behalf he or she is soliciting immediately; called a telephone number on the Do Not Call list; or made a pre-recorded sales call to either a subscriber to the list or a non-subscriber.

There’s lots to know. Companies with which you have an existing business relationship are not violating the rules when they call you. A company may call you for up to 18 months after you buy something, or for three months after you inquire about something or submit an application.

Calls from political organizations, charities, newspaper publishers, debt collectors and people conducting surveys also are not covered by Do Not Call, along with a few other exceptions. But you can screen them on Caller ID and not answer them. If you don’t have Caller ID, let the calls go to voice mail. However, if a telemarketer is hired by a charity to call seeking donations, it is covered by these rules.

Registrations with the National Do Not Call Registry and on Florida’s Do Not Call list are free, and the state recommends registering on both.

Landline and cellphone numbers can be registered. Go to www.donotcall.gov or call 1-888-382-1222 to register with the national list. Sign up for the statewide Do Not Call program at www.800helpfla.com

It takes up to 31 days from registering a phone number on the national list for companies to remove it from their telemarketing lists. The state’s list is updated quarterly.

Even if you don’t put your number on the Do Not Call list, telemarketers must stop calling you if you tell them over the phone not to call again.

Keep in mind that no sales calls are allowed before 8 a.m. and after 9 p.m.

When you answer the call, the telemarketer must promptly tell you that it is a sales call or a call on behalf of a charity, the name of the seller or charity, and what it is selling or that it is asking for a donation.

The telemarketer must tell you the total cost of the product or service before asking for payment, and can’t charge your account until you have agreed to make a purchase or donation and to have that account charged for it.

Telemarketers are not allowed to ask for any payment in advance for services to help you settle or reduce your debts, repair your credit record, get a loan, or recover money you lost to another telemarketer.

Specific rules cover robocalls — calls that use a prerecorded message or are made with an autodialer. A telemarketer can only call your landline or cellphone using a prerecorded message to try to sell you something if you gave the company written consent to make such calls to you. Learn more at http://www.fcc.gov/guides/robocalls

If you have Caller ID a telemarketer must transmit its phone number.

If the Caller ID says “blocked,” “unknown” or something similar, it’s a danger sign of fraud, the CFA says.

However, Caller ID rights do not apply to political calls, calls made by charities and calls to take surveys.

Your Caller ID rights exist even if your number is not registered on Do Not Call.

To file a complaint in Florida go to .800helpfla.com or call 1-800-435-7352. To file a complaint with the national Do Not Call list, go to donotcall.gov.

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America’s education system is being placed under arrest

America’s education system is being placed under arrest

By Byron Williams, contributing columnist © 2013, Bay Area News Group

Were it not for award-winning broadcaster Tavis Smiley and Princeton professor Cornel West, the issue of poverty would have largely gone ignored during the 2012 presidential campaign.

t's not that candidates openly discussed it, but Smiley and West, through their "Poverty Tour," gave it a name and face that had been lacking for several decades.

As an extension of the "Poverty Tour" Smiley will host a primetime special on PBS that looks at the connection between the juvenile justice system and the dropout rate among American teens, as well as the efforts by educators, law enforcement professionals, judges, youth advocates and at-risk teens themselves to end what has become known as "the school-to-prison pipeline."

According to Smiley, "One of the most significant problems that our country faces that does not get the attention it deserves is the reality of the school-to-prison pipeline."

Or to put it another way, Smiley bluntly states, "We are criminalizing our children in ways we never have."

Smiley's report unveils a juvenile justice system that is pervasive nationwide that has been hamstrung by an ineffectual zero tolerance policy.

"We have gone into overdrive on zero tolerance, which has turned out to be punishment on steroids," Smiley said.

Stuff that once earned students detention or a one-day suspension -- such as foul language, fighting, or truancy -- is now part of the criteria that saddles them with a police record. Smiley's findings reveal a student expelled for excessive gum chewing.

"You end up kicked out of school for chewing gum, you're hanging out, and that turns into truancy, the next thing you know, you're in front of a judge," he said.

Zero tolerance is systematically trickling downward to younger and younger students.

One case in Florida, the sheriffs were called to address the unruly behavior of a 7-year-old girl that resulted in her being handcuffed and arrested. In my interview with Smiley, he states schools have become the number one location for student arrest.

By visiting a cross section of America, Smiley demonstrates the draconian zero tolerance policy is not reserved for specific groups. Though African-American and Latino students are disproportionately impacted, the policy is inclusive in its scope with no bearing to color.

"I saw so many white kids on lockdown. It's not just a black thing or a brown thing; this is an American catastrophe," Smiley said.

Silently, without much fanfare we are giving up on far too many of our children. What does connect these students with varying ethnicities to this comprehensive policy is poverty.

"Poverty has so many tentacles. There is a direct link between poverty and the criminalization of our children," Smiley stated.

The zero tolerance policy is not exclusively focused on low-income communities, but there is little doubt that the overwhelming majority of its application falls on those who come from impoverished backgrounds.

The link that Smiley draws between education, or lack thereof, and poverty is undeniable. The underlying question that Smiley's work raises: How can school reform be addressed in any meaningful way without addressing poverty?

Moreover, how can the same tough-on-crime mentality that is reserved for adults be applied to children and have us expect that schools will produce constructive members of society?

In several recent columns, I have opined that for reform to occur in underperforming schools there must be a corresponding transformation of school culture. If Smiley's work is any indicator, the cultural transformation that has occurred in far too many schools has been to provide children with same failing policies once reserved only for adults.

Contact Byron Williams at 510-208-6417 or byron@byronspeaks.com.

Posted:   03/21/2013 04:00:00 PM PDT

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STEM Center offers McClymonds HS students a curriculum with real-world focus

Program gets West Oakland students on the path to science, technology, engineering and math

By Serena Valdez Oakland Tribune

OAKLAND -- For sophomore Kelton Runnels, being a McClymonds High School Warrior meant playing football and competing on the track team.

But this school year, 16-year-old Runnels has found a new hobby: engineering.

He is one of 13 sophomores at McClymonds High School selected to take the new science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) class. The class was revealed to the community Tuesday with the grand opening of the school's West Oakland STEM Center, a lab of computers needed to teach the STEM curriculum.

"The class keeps you thinking on your feet, and I have friends in the class who make me want to stay," he said. "We learn more and have more fun."

In partnership with Project Lead the Way, a nonprofit organization that develops the STEM program in schools nationwide, and Chevron, ¿Principal Kevin Taylor spent almost three years working to get STEM into his school.

"We are proud to bring a program we believe wholeheartedly will be the difference," he said. "This plus the pipeline will hopefully get students fully integrated with engineering."

The pipeline is a plan to keep students in West Oakland by establishing STEM programs at elementary, middle and high schools in the area so the curriculum stays consistent from kindergarten to graduation.

"What impressed me was that Taylor said, 'If we can change these students, we can change the community,'" said Duane Crum, state leader for Project Lead the Way. "The magic is in the teachers, in the classroom."

Kathryn Hall, who teaches the STEM class, joined the McClymonds staff this school year for the sole purpose of teaching STEM.

What students need most is a basic understanding of how the world functions today and in the future -- and STEM does that, she said.

"Engineering is so unique, just the educational experience is the exact opposite of writing essays. You're not just solving problems; you're taking real world problems and using critical thinking to solve it," she said."This is all I ever wanted to do as a teacher. It's phenomenal."

Runnels plans to stay in the STEM class until he graduates. Since taking the class, his interests have expanded to include science and engineering and hopes to study biology or forensic science in college. Even his mom is happy he's found this new hobby, he said.

Updated:   03/21/2013 05:56:52 PM PDT

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How math and science education can lead to a brighter future for students

How math and science education can lead to a brighter future for students

BPT

(ARA) – In a world that is defined by rapid change – particularly in technology – there are concerns that students today won’t be prepared for the challenges of the future. Of all U.S. high school students who graduated in 2011, only 45 percent were ready for college-level math and 30 percent for science, according to ACT, a college-entrance testing agency. As jobs increasingly require proficiency or expertise in STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering, and math), it’s more important than ever that children are inspired to explore these subjects and understand their real impact on our everyday lives.

STEM drives an incredible number of the innovations we see today, from the fastest jet planes to the cars in our driveways to the televisions in our living rooms. Even the video and computer games that children and teenagers turn to for entertainment are based on STEM.

However, interest among students in these important subjects is lagging. And with the extraordinary number of careers and opportunities for growth in STEM fields, many organizations in both the private and public sectors are taking action to bolster student interest and enthusiasm in this area. Samsung, for example, is working to make STEM fun and exciting with their STEM education program called Solve for Tomorrow. It’s a national contest that encourages teachers and students to creatively use STEM to explore and improve their local environment and community.

“Our goal is to raise awareness and interest in STEM subjects, while providing teachers and students with the resources they need to innovate and grow,” says David Steel, executive vice president of corporate strategy for Samsung Electronics North America.

“We as a nation need to make STEM education a top priority,” says Betsy Landers, President of the National Parent Teacher Association (PTA), who joined as a program partner this year. “According to the U.S. Department of Labor, 15 of the 20 fastest growing occupations projected for 2014 require significant mathematics or science preparation. It is clear that making STEM education a priority is important, for our nation’s short and long-term future. We commend Samsung for their efforts in making a difference in the education and lives of children.”

 To learn more about the contest or submit an application, please visit samsung.com/solvefortomorrow.

As the world continues to change in unexpected ways, the demand for technological developments will only increase. By equipping students of today with knowledge and interest in STEM subjects, we’re fostering the innovators of tomorrow.

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Shooting Vacation Video Like a Pro

Shooting Vacation Video Like a Pro

By EMILY BRENNAN

No longer is travel programming the sole territory of television and big budgets. A younger generation of filmmakers like Daniel Klein is producing Web travel series pretty much on their own, thanks largely to new digital cameras that are (relatively) small in size and price.

“The visuals you’re able to get for the cost of the camera is stunning,” Mr. Klein said.

Which is perfect for filming food — the subject of the online videos he produces with his girlfriend, Mirra Fine, “The Perennial Plate.” In its third season, the documentary series follows the couple to sustainable farms, seasonal markets and organic restaurants in countries like China, Morocco and Argentina.

Below are edited excerpts from a conversation with Mr. Klein on how you can shoot professional-quality videos while you travel.

Q. Do you need equipment worth tens of thousands of dollars to shoot like a pro?

A. No, the average traveler can totally make it happen with a digital single-lens reflex (DSLR) camera, which looks like any other still camera but has video capabilities. We use theCanon EOS Rebel T2i, about $700, and the Canon EOS 5D Mark III, which is more high-end, about $3,500. DSLR cameras can film at 24 frames per second — the standard for film stock — so the image looks more like film, with colors that are vibrant, beautiful, as opposed to a soap opera. It’s also smaller, so you can go anywhere. Having a camera that doesn’t look “professional” is key to capturing an authentic experience. Most people don’t even know you’re taking video.

Q. What other equipment do you use?

A. One drawback of these cameras is their limited audio capabilities, so you have to have an external audio recorder. We use the Zoom H4N and then plug Sennheiser lavalier mics into it when we interview subjects. We also bring along a tripod and a shoulder brace to steady the camera.

We edit on Final Cut Pro X, which is slightly more user friendly, slightly less professional than the old Final Cut Pro, also much less expensive, about $300. Apple computers work with whatever the voltage is — we’ve never had any trouble in any country.

Q. You’ve got all the gear. Now what?

A. Find a story that’s visually appealing, beyond just being an interesting topic.

We once tried to do an episode on this nonprofit in Iowa that preserves heirloom seeds. Fascinating topic, but it didn’t work visually; all you had were shots of refrigerators with seed packets. But when we did a similar seed-saving story in India, we had the visual backdrop of a beautiful organic farm, women in their traditional dress, and it really worked.

Q. How do you go about finding stories abroad?

A. English-language blogs are a great resource. That’s how we met a woman in China’s Yunnan province who uses her family’s organic produce in her restaurant. She invited us to the countryside, where we made tofu with the soybeans her parents grew.

Q. What was the tofu like?

A. So much more delicious than any other tofu I ever had. The video shows how first you drink a cup of the warm soy milk while it’s cooking. Then they put this limestone in it that sets the tofu, and it becomes kind of custardy, silky. You drink that too. Then they press it and fry it. It has an almost grassy flavor to it.

Q. So the video really captures the process of making it. Is that important?

A. Absolutely. Whatever you’re filming, capturing actions is key. Food on your plate, for example, is one second of interesting content. It’s that much more interesting if someone is plating that food, eating that food. The experience, the scene, the colors, the heat are all part of it.

A version of this article appeared in print on March 3, 2013, on page TR3 of the New York edition with the headline: Want to shoot video like a pro? DANIEL KLEIN offers some tips..

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Tablet shift at U.S. schools

Well before the cleanup from Superstorm Sandy was in full swing, students could read about the weather system that slammed the East Coast in their textbooks.

Welcome to the new digital bookcase, where traditional ink-and-paper textbooks have given way to iPads and book bags are getting lighter. Publishers update students' books almost instantly with the latest events or research. Schools are increasingly looking to the hand-held tablets as a way to sustain students' interest, reward their achievements and, in some cases, actually keep per-student costs down.

"We must use technology to empower teachers and improve the way students learn," said Joel Klein, a former New York City schools' chief who now leads News Corp.'s education tablet program. "At its best, education technology will change the face of education by helping teachers manage the classroom and personalize instruction."

News Corp. officials planned to debut their Amplify tablet during a breakfast Wednesday at the South by Southwest conference in Austin, Texas. Priced at $299, the 10-inch unit runs on a school's wireless Internet system and comes with software for teachers to watch each student's activities, offer instant polls and provide anonymous quizzes to gauge student understanding.

Orders placed by June 30 will be ready for the start of the school year in the fall, officials at Rupert Murdoch's company said ahead of the official announcement, adding yet another platform for schools to consider.

Putting a device in every student's hand is not a pie-in-the-sky dream. Some 2,000 schools already have partnered with Google to use its lightweight Chromebooks, which start at $199. Some 20 million students and teachers are already using them, company officials said.

And a study from the Pew Research Center's Internet and American Life Project found that more than 40 percent of students or teachers use some sort of tablet in their Advanced Placement and National Writing Project classrooms.

"When you think about it, these are A.P. classes and National Writing Project classes, and 4 in 10 say they are using these devices," said Kristen Purcell, associate director for research at Pew Research Center's Internet and American Life Project. "That's 6 in 10 who aren't using them. We still have a lot of room for growth."

In coming years, growth seems to be the norm.

Christine Quinn, the speaker of the New York City Council, has suggested replacing textbooks—they cost the city $100 million a year—with tablets. Schools in Los Angeles last month allocated $50 million to start buying tablets for every student; the project is expected to cost $500 million by the time it is completed. Schools in McAllen, Texas, distributed 6,800 Apple tablets last year at a cost of $20.5 million.

But it's not just the biggest school districts making the shift. The Eanes Independent School District in Austin is distributing more than 2,000 iPads to every student, from kindergarteners to high school seniors. The cost: $1.2 million.

Students, unlike some of their parents, aren't blinking.

"The biggest challenge is that they're growing up as digital natives, but when they get to the school door, they have to leave that at the door," said Scott Kinney, who trains teachers on how to use Discovery Education's products, which work on various platforms. "Kids are very comfortable with these things, so why aren't we reaching them in a way that's most beneficial to students?"

Discovery, the top digital content provider to U.S. schools, recognizes its potential to keep students interested with the most up-to-date material. For instance, it updated its science lessons for students in grades six through high school to incorporate Superstorm Sandy within weeks of its making landfall.

Students traced the path of the storm using digital maps, compared the changes in barometric pressure with wind speed and proposed cleanup plans for the region—even while cleanup crews were still working.

That fast turnaround is one of the main advantages of shifting to digital textbooks. So, too, are their language functions. For instance, a student working on his homework with a parent who isn't fluent in English can switch to Spanish. The textbooks can toggle between languages so students who aren't native speakers can check their understanding.

Another advantage: the digital books' cost. Discovery's lessons—branded "Techbooks" that run on laptops, desktops, iPads or other tablets—run between $38 and $55 per student for a six-year subscription. The average traditional textbook is $70 per student.

More than a half-million students are using Discovery's texts in 35 states on various platforms.

But technology doesn't guarantee success.

"If the teacher doesn't know how to use it, obviously it's not going to make much difference," said Mevlut Kaya, a computer teacher at Orlando Science Schools, a charter program that offered each student a leased iPad if he or she achieved a 3.5 grade point average.

In classrooms at the private Avenues: The World School in New York City, students at all levels receive an iPad and then receive an iPad and MacBook Air in middle school. The school doesn't buy textbooks and, in most cases, teachers automatically send students their reading and homework assignments over the school's wireless Internet network.

It's a system that's normal for students, who often already have mastered the technology.

"They live in the world where they have these distractions, where they have an iPad on their desk or a smartphone in their pocket," said Dirk Delo, the school's chief technology officer.

That's not to say there should be an instant shift, even technology evangelists warned.

"All too often, the technology programs I observed seemed more focused on bells and whistles, gadgets and gizmos, than on improving learning," Klein said. "And in many school districts, teachers have been handed technology they either don't think is effective or don't know how to use. The last thing we need is just another pile of unused laptops in the back or the classroom."

Copyright 2013 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

 Published Online: March 6, 2013

Schools Shift From Textbooks to Tablets

By The Associated Press

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The model in online education

The Professors’ Big Stage

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

I just spent the last two days at a great conference convened by M.I.T. and Harvard on “Online Learning and the Future of Residential Education” — a k a “How can colleges charge $50,000 a year if my kid can learn it all free from massive open online courses?”

You may think this MOOCs revolution is hyped, but my driver in Boston disagrees. You see, I was picked up at Logan Airport by my old friend Michael Sandel, who teaches the famous Socratic, 1,000-student “Justice” course at Harvard, which is launching March 12 as the first humanities offering on the M.I.T.-Harvard edX online learning platform. When he met me at the airport I saw he was wearing some very colorful sneakers.

“Where did you get those?” I asked. Well, Sandel explained, he had recently been in South Korea, where his Justice course has been translated into Korean and shown on national television. It has made him such a popular figure there that the Koreans asked him to throw out the ceremonial first pitch at a professional baseball game — and gave him the colored shoes to boot! Yes, a Harvard philosopher was asked to throw out the first pitch in Korea because so many fans enjoy the way he helps them think through big moral dilemmas.

Sandel had just lectured in Seoul in an outdoor amphitheater to 14,000 people, with audience participation. His online Justice lectures, with Chinese subtitles, have already had more than 20 million views on Chinese Web sites, which prompted The China Daily to note that “Sandel has the kind of popularity in China usually reserved for Hollywood movie stars and N.B.A. players.”

O.K., not every professor will develop a global following, but the MOOCs revolution, which will go through many growing pains, is here and is real. These were my key take-aways from the conference:

¶Institutions of higher learning must move, as the historian Walter Russell Mead puts it, from a model of “time served” to a model of “stuff learned.” Because increasingly the world does not care what you know. Everything is on Google. The world only cares, and will only pay for, what you can do with what you know. And therefore it will not pay for a C+ in chemistry, just because your state college considers that a passing grade and was willing to give you a diploma that says so. We’re moving to a more competency-based world where there will be less interest in how you acquired the competency — in an online course, at a four-year-college or in a company-administered class — and more demand to prove that you mastered the competency.

¶Therefore, we have to get beyond the current system of information and delivery — the professorial “sage on the stage” and students taking notes, followed by a superficial assessment, to one in which students are asked and empowered to master more basic material online at their own pace, and the classroom becomes a place where the application of that knowledge can be honed through lab experiments and discussions with the professor. There seemed to be a strong consensus that this “blended model” combining online lectures with a teacher-led classroom experience was the ideal. Last fall, San Jose State used the online lectures and interactive exercises of M.I.T.’s introductory online Circuits and Electronics course. Students would watch the M.I.T. lectures and do the exercises at home, and then come to class, where the first 15 minutes were reserved for questions and answers with the San Jose State professor, and the last 45 were devoted to problem solving and discussion. Preliminary numbers indicate that those passing the class went from nearly 60 percent to about 90 percent. And since this course was the first step to a degree in science and technology, it meant that many more students potentially moved on toward a degree and career in that field.

¶We demand that plumbers and kindergarten teachers be certified to do what they do, but there is no requirement that college professors know how to teach. No more. The world of MOOCs is creating a competition that will force every professor to improve his or her pedagogy or face an online competitor.

¶Bottom line: There is still huge value in the residential college experience and the teacher-student and student-student interactions it facilitates. But to thrive, universities will have to nurture even more of those unique experiences while blending in technology to improve education outcomes in measurable ways at lower costs. We still need more research on what works, but standing still is not an option.

Clayton Christensen, the Harvard Business School professor and expert on disruptive innovation, gave a compelling talk about how much today’s traditional university has in common with General Motors of the 1960s, just before Toyota used a technology breakthrough to come from nowhere and topple G.M. Christensen noted that Harvard Business School doesn’t teach entry-level accounting anymore, because there is a professor out at Brigham Young University whose online accounting course “is just so good” that Harvard students use that instead. When outstanding becomes so easily available, average is over.

Posted on March 5, 2013 NY Times

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Coursera class offers peek into determination of student body

Cassidy: Coursera class offers peek into determination of student body

By Mike Cassidy, Los Angeles Newspaper Group

My first attempt at taking one of those new online college courses was even more like my real college experience than I ever imagined. With the class still in the early going I was about a week behind on my assignments, nearly flunking my first quiz and seriously contemplating dropping the class.

So much for the old college try.

But two things made me stick with it (at least up until now, with two more weeks to go) -- one a little embarrassing and the other somewhat profound.

First the embarrassing: My Coursera class called "Developing Innovative Ideas for New Companies" comes with a promise: If I can finish the course work and score at least 70 percent on my assignments, I'll receive a statement of accomplishment. I want that statement.

But more important than that, were the classmates I've encountered. Yeah, classmates. I've got a few, like 85,000 by the instructor's count in week two of the course. Let's just say the lecture hall would have been a little crowded in pre-Internet days. No we don't gather together physically, but we are able to socialize, commiserate and help and encourage each other on a series of message boards. And it is from those message boards that I've found both my inspiration to press on and a spirit that points to the powerful potential these new courses have.

The courses are known in the industry as MOOCs -- massive (as in 85,000 students), open (as in to anyone) online (as in Web-based), courses (as in college). Almost all of Coursera's classes are free, though the company is working on a track that for a price will provide rigorous verification that the student who signs up for a particular class is actually the person doing all the work.

My fellow students are living in South Africa, Bangladesh, Algeria, the Philippines, Iran, Portugal, Peru, Amsterdam, Madagascar, Greece, Pakistan and on and on. Our teacher, James V. Green of the University of Maryland, told us in the second week that he found 20 countries represented that started with the letter B alone.

Nearly two-thirds of the students were taking their first entrepreneurship class and 45 percent of the students, who skewed on the young side, intended to start a business soon. In other words, the class represented the future and not just any future, but in many cases the future of the developing world.

"I have seen and encountered my fair share of human suffering," Yusuf Abdulrasheed Alimi, a veterinarian from Nigeria, wrote in a thread asking students to introduce themselves. "That is my chief motivation for wanting to start my own business; to empower myself and my community."

The posts are full of dreams and determination, though often thin on details of the poster's fledgling business. (These students might still be learning, but they're smart enough to know you don't give your ideas away.)

When I talked to Andrew Ng, the Stanford computer science associate professor who helped launch the for-profit Coursera not quite a year ago, he said that providing the developing world with potential was one of the most satisfying aspects of the company so far.

"When everyone in the world has access to a great education, it really means we can move forward to a world where there is an equality of opportunity," says Ng, who was inspired to start Coursera in part by an online Stanford Machine Learning course he offered that attracted 100,000 students worldwide who were interested in that branch of artificial intelligence.

That course showed Ng almost immediately the sort of reach online education can have. He was taken by the stories of his many students -- from a poor man in India with a passion for machine learning to a single mother in the United States who had a long-standing goal.

"There was a single mother that had been working to go back to school and for whom an online class really gave her her first opportunity to do so," Ng says.

Green, the University of Maryland lecturer who teaches my class, says part of the appeal of teaching a MOOC is that you are faced with a class of students who bring with them a nearly limitless variety of life experiences, including those not found on U.S. campuses.

"I have University of Maryland students that are going to miss class because they have an interview with Google (GOOG)." "In our course," he says of the innovative ideas class, "I had a student who emailed me because he was late with a submission, because the Internet was spotty in a refugee camp in Thailand, I think it was."

The accessibility and flexibility of the online classes appear to be a winning combination. What started as a research project run by Ng and four students is now a massive venture-backed online university offering more than 300 courses from 62 schools and serving about 2.7 million students, according to Coursera. All of which leaves its founders slightly stunned.

"The progress of Coursera, and the MOOC adoption more broadly, has greatly exceeded my wildest expectations," co-founder, Daphne Koller says in an email.

No doubt that is a good thing for those rooting for the big online classroom model. Even better for the rest of us is the fact that because of the idea's early successes, the expectations for the way the world gets educated are being rewritten on a daily basis.

Contact Mike Cassidy at mcassidy@mercurynews.com or 408-920-5536. Follow him at Twitter.com/mikecassidy.

Copyright ©2010 Los Angeles Newspaper Group.

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Wealth of data on community colleges

Wealth of data on community colleges

By Kathleen Pender, San Francisco Chronicle

   Students shopping for a four-year college or university can find a wealth of reviews and ratings comparing them on anything from SAT scores and acceptance rates to dorm food and party scenes. Finding such data on community colleges is hard, even though they serve far more students.

   The California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office is about to release some new reports that should make comparison shopping a bit easier, at least when it comes to academic and career achievement.

   Within a month, the office will issue a report comparing the median income of students before and after they got an associate degree or certificate from each of the state’s 112 campuses. It will show their income two years before they started school, compared with two years and five years after they got their degree or certificate. It will show median wages of graduates by program and school.

   In early April, the office will roll out a new student success scorecard that will show each college’s success rates in six areas. They include the percentage of students who are seeking a certificate, associate degree or transfer to a four-year university and who achieve that goal within six years; the percentage of such students who complete at least 30 units; and the percentage who enroll in three consecutive terms.

   Another data point is the percentage of students who needed a remedial course in English, math or English as a second language and then completed a college-level course in the same subject. The score sheet will break out these numbers by race, ethnicity, gender and age group.

   Assessing schools, programs

   Much of the scorecard data is already available on the office’s website, but not in a way that’s fit for ordinary human consumption.

   The chancellor’s office still won’t rank colleges from best to worst, but the new data should make it easier for those who want to compare colleges or programs.

   “Generally students choose (community) colleges based on proximity and convenience,” says Davis Jenkins, a senior research associate at Columbia University’s teachers college.

   The scorecard might sway some to look further afield for the best program, even if it means taking a BART trip or moving. (Some community colleges have dorms or private residence halls. For a partial list, see   www.cccco.edu/communitycolleges/collegehousing.aspx   )

   In the meantime, how can students compare schools?

   Spar ratings

   One way is by looking at the Student Progress and Achievement Rating, which measures the percentage of students seeking a degree, certificate or transfer and who complete it within six years. My column lists the colleges with the best and worst ratings for the student cohort that entered community college in 2005-06. To see ratings for all colleges, visit my blog at http://blog.sfgate.com/pender

   In the past, this so-called Spar calculation was criticized for ignoring a large percentage of community college students. The denominator only included students who already had taken at least 12 credits and enrolled in a college-level math or English class. That covered only about 40 percent of all incoming students, says Colleen Moore, research specialist at the Institute for Higher Education Leadership and Policy at Sacramento State University.

   For the scorecard, this rating has been expanded to cover students who have taken at least six credits and any math or English class. Moore predicts that “rates will go down because they capture more of the entering cohort.”

   Not surprisingly, “a college serving poor students is going to have a lower rate” than one in a higher socioeconomic area, Jenkins says. So take that into account, and don’t rely on this one rating alone.

   Other resources

   The U.S. Department of Education’s College Navigator website http://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/

 also has information on community colleges nationwide, including costs and financial aid.

   Students intent on transferring to a certain four-year college should see if it has an articulation agreement with nearby community colleges that guarantee admission if they complete a certain course of study.

   There is no list of articulation agreements, but you can track the flow of students from individual California community colleges to individual state four-year institutions at

http://www.cpec.ca.gov/OnLineData/TransferPathway.asp

   The state has created a program that guarantees admission into the California State University system to students who get a new associate degree for transfer from any community college that offers one. For more information, see http://www.adegreewithaguarantee.com

  or my colleague Nanette Asimov’s Feb. 20 story at http://tinyurl.com/arj555k

 

   No matter which community college students choose, they do best “when they have a clear idea of what they want to do,” Jenkins says. There is a lot of support within colleges from counselors, faculty and department chairs, “but it’s up to the students to find them. You are generally not going to get directed.”

   With college costs rising and financial aid getting tighter (the maximum Pell Grant has been cut to 12 semesters from 18), “you have less time anymore to find yourself,” he adds.

   Kathleen Pender is a San Francisco Chronicle columnist.  Net   Worth runs Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. E-mail: kpender@sfchronicle.com   Blog: http://blog.sfgate.com/pender

 Twitter: @kathpender

Will online learning save us?

As president of a local community college I can't help but notice that the latest "quick fix" for California's underfunded public colleges and universities is being heralded in news stories touting a golden age of "digital learning."

These articles propose online classes as the solution to the ongoing crisis in funding for all of California public education; a crisis that persists even with the much-needed passage of Proposition 30.

Call it "The Wizard of Oz" effect: someone posing as the Wizard dazzles us with terms like "digital access," "MOOCs," and "virtual colleges" from behind the think-tank curtain.

These ideas then proliferate in media, touting the cost-saving virtues of online education as a cure for what ails our public systems of higher education. The governor appears sold on this concept, recently proposing that the first two years of university could be completed by many students online.

In an age in which online media has exploded in importance, why not an "app" for your entire college degree!

As president of a college that has excelled in the development of rigorous online class offerings I support the role of online education. But here is the harsh reality: while online classes have an important role, they are not for every student, and will never replace the access to quality education provided by a teacher in a classroom.

This is especially true for the underprepared students who make up the majority of those entering community colleges.

The attrition -- read: dropout rate -- from online classes is high, as even their most fervent supporters acknowledge.

Here are some facts largely unexamined by the corporate and political promoters of the online panacea: of the approximately 2.5 million students served by the California community colleges, including returning veterans, the vast majority come unprepared for college-level work. With retention rates of 10 percent in many digital classes statewide, online classes will never serve every student, especially the ones needing face-to-face support and basic skills education.

At my college, 96 percent entering full-time freshmen lack college readiness. Research shows that it is these very students who do not thrive in the online environment. They benefit from the classroom setting, the skill of expert teachers and counselors, and the modeling of habits of mind in a real, not virtual, community of learners. Despite the hyperbole about digital classrooms, they will not increase access for those most in need. On the contrary, as corporate think tanks and politicians push the new digital agenda, the large gap between the "haves and the have-nots" in our state will only increase.

Those with tuition money and preparation will enter elite private universities in which they have the full attention of professors and classmates in face-to-face freshman seminars.

Here they are known as "whole" human beings, not just digital presences, advantages that translate into lifetime opportunities. Meanwhile, many underserved students from poor and working-class communities will need to vie for time at library computers (do not assume all students have access to computers at home) to enter a "virtual college class" in which, evidence suggests, they are likely to fail.

California's personal income, already in decline, will decline by 11 percent further by the year 2020 unless the state increases the number of first generation college students successfully completing their degrees and credentials.

The big push to turn the first two years of college for the least prepared into a virtual "make it online or drop out" system distracts from the reality of the real reform we need in California -- a state that is largely failing its youth in public education.

Currently, a minority rules our ability to offer quality public education. The ability to block school funding by a minority vote has turned our state public system, from preschool through university, into among the poorest in the nation.

One good start would be to urge the passage of current legislation allowing a 55 percent majority to vote for parcel taxes in support of their local schools. This would be in the spirit of American democracy and the right to equal access of all California youth to quality public education.

Susan Sperling, Ph.D., is president of Chabot College.

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