|
|||||||||||||
|
|
Thursday, May 10, 2012
For love of Mothers. MADRE: Mothers's Day Emergency Fund.
Educational Entrepreneurship - THE FUTURE: Offer Free Online Classes. Then......
Harvard and MIT launch edX to offer free online classes
By James O'Toole @CNNMoneyTech May 2, 2012: 3:48 PM ET
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Always wanted to take a Harvard class? Soon you'll be able to do so from the comfort of your own home.
Harvard and MIT announced a partnership Wednesday to offer free online courses to students around the world. The initiative, known as edX, will be run by a non-profit organization controlled by the two schools. Each has committed $30 million to the effort.
The first official courses will be announced this summer and are set to begin in the fall.
EdX students won't receive university credit for the classes, which will span a variety of disciplines. There's no admissions process, but there are exams and other assessments, with certificates available "for a modest fee" to students who demonstrate mastery of the material.
The project builds on an online education program that MIT announced last year. A prototype course on circuits and electronics began in March and attracted more than 120,000 students, though only about 10,000 stayed with the course through the mid-term exam, an MIT spokeswoman said.
The first official set of edX courses will be announced this summer, and will begin in the fall.
The Harvard-MIT project faces some competition in the push to make high-quality educational courses available online.
Last month, Princeton, Stanford, Michigan and the University of Pennsylvania announced that they would offer free Web-based courses through a for-profit company called Coursera that was founded by two Stanford computer science professors. One of those professors, Andrew Ng, taught a free online course in machine learning this past fall with an enrollment of more than 100,000 students.
There's also Udacity, co-founded by a former Stanford professor, andKhan Academy, which boasts 3,100 free educational videos across a variety of subjects.
MIT and Harvard said that they hope to eventually partner with other universities to expand the offerings on the edX platform.
"Harvard and MIT will use these new technologies and the research they will make possible to lead the direction of online learning in a way that benefits our students, our peers, and people across the nation and the globe," Harvard president Drew Faust said.
Wednesday, May 9, 2012
New Email address for BEMA
Don't forget to update you records with our new email address: BEMA@BlackEmergManagersAssociation.org
Get youths in your community involved. Youth Preparedness in your Community or Organization.
Empowering Our Youth in Ohio!
Do you live in or around the
Columbus, Ohio area? Are you interested in learning more about youth
preparedness in your community or organization?
On Friday,
May 11, FEMA Region V and Citizen Corps will
join the Ohio Emergency Management Agency and South-Western City Schools in Columbus,
Ohio for a
day-long workshop on implementing youth preparedness in community-based
organizations.
The
workshop will provide participants with valuable information to start
integrating youth preparedness into their organization’s existing youth
offerings and the steps to launch a new youth preparedness
program.
As a workshop
attendee, you will receive live instruction and a “how-to”
guide on key topics,
including:
- Engaging Partners
- Identifying Curriculum
- Implementation
- Promotion
- Evaluation
- Sustainability
Date: Friday, May 11,
2012
Time: Registration
begins at 8:30 AM; workshop runs from 9:00 AM to 4:30 PM EDT
Location: The Ohio Rehabilitation Service
Commission (400 E. Campus View Blvd. Columbus, OH 43235)
RSVP: Click here to create a profile
on the Ohio EMA training Website and then register for the FEMA Youth
Preparedness Workshop
Rick Rescorla National Award for Resilience. Deadline: 11:59 p.m. on May 15
The Rick Rescorla National Award for Resilience
is the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) first national resilience
award for superior leadership and
innovation by a non-governmental individual (or organization)
who exemplifies the qualities and achievements of Rick Rescorla, who exhibited
leadership during 9/11 in effective preparation, response, and
recovery.
The deadline to nominate someone from your community for the
first-ever Rick Rescorla National Award for Resilience is quickly approaching.
Nominations must be received by 11:59 p.m. on May 15 in order
to be eligible!
Submit a nomination application to rescorlaaward@hq.dhs.gov and learn more about
Rick’s extraordinary courage.