Google Amends Terms for Scanning User Data (Education Week) – After coming under fire for scanning student Gmail accounts for advertising purposes, Google has announced that it will no longer use data from its Apps for Education for advertising. Given that 30 million students and educators use these apps, this is a big step forward for improving their privacy.
Tulsa partnership provides community supercomputer (NewsOK) – A group of colleges and private businesses in Tulsa, Oklahoma have pooled their resources to purchase a supercomputer. The Tandy Supercomputer will be the first community owned and operated supercomputer in the country.
Ohio's renewable energy industries spent $1 billion here, employs 3,500 (Cleveland.com) – A group of executives from renewable energy companies have written a letter to urge lawmakers not to freeze Ohio’s mandate to increase renewable energy to 12.5% by 2025. They cite that over $1 billion has been invested since 2008 and the industry has added 3,500 thanks to these standards.
Smithsonian Makes Deal to Offer Online Courses (NBC News) – The Smithsonian Institute has announced that it will be providing a series of online courses centered on research and artifacts from the Institute. While there is a few involved, these courses do not require any homework but instead will focus purely on sharing new knowledge with enrollees.
Common Core brings over-testing into question (Norwalk Reflector) – As Ohio gets ready to shift to Common Core based tests next year, concerns are growing about the sheer amount of time students spend taking and preparing for tests each year. A 2013 study found that testing and prep took up nearly 100 hours per year, which takes away from valuable teaching time.
