{"id":6,"date":"2012-01-03T05:12:56","date_gmt":"2012-01-03T05:12:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jeffyoung.net\/?page_id=6"},"modified":"2026-05-01T13:33:54","modified_gmt":"2026-05-01T13:33:54","slug":"selected-articles","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.jeffyoung.net\/?page_id=6","title":{"rendered":"Articles"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Fake student loan debt offers proliferate as federal government rolls back enforcement.<\/a> The Hechinger Report<\/em>
\u2018It\u2019s a great time if you\u2019re in the scam business\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Scammers are targeting student-loan borrowers trying to make payments. Do this to protect yourself.<\/a> MarketWatch<\/em>
Skilled trades are typically seen as professions that won\u2019t be permeated by AI. But that\u2019s starting to change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is Your Plumber Using AI? Hands-On Trades Try Chatbot Helpers<\/a>. Marketplace<\/em>
Skilled trades are typically seen as professions that won\u2019t be permeated by AI. But that\u2019s starting to change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Leading in the AI Era.<\/a> The Chronicle of Higher Education<\/em>
With exclusive survey data and reporting based on dozens of interviews, the report shows how innovative colleges are working to infuse their operations with AI, the guardrails they are building to avoid pitfalls, how they propose to evaluate their students\u2019 learning, and how they envision paying for it all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Colleges Struggle to Make Manufacturing Training Hot Again<\/a>. Signal Cleveland | The Hechinger Report<\/em>
Trump wants to add jobs in manufacturing, but colleges are already having difficultly recruiting and keeping up with companies\u2019 fast-changing needs. An Ohio community college has had more success than most.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump Administration Immigration Policies Are Pushing International Students Away from the United States, Experts Say<\/a>. Teen Vogue | The Hechinger Report<\/em>
Foreign-born students often pay double or triple the tuition of domestic students \u2014 and are key to universities\u2019 bottom line.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Professors Try \u2018Restrained AI\u2019 Approach to Help Teach Writing.<\/a> Fast Company | EdSurge<\/em>
Can ChatGPT make human writing more efficient, or is writing an inherently time-consuming process best handled without AI tools?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Can Using a Grammar Checker Set Off AI-Detection Software?<\/a>, Fast Company | EdSurge<\/em>
A college student says she was falsely accused of cheating, and her story has gone viral. Where is the line between acceptable help and cheating with AI?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Technologist Spent Years Building an AI Chatbot Tutor. He Decided It Can\u2019t Be Done.<\/a> Fast Company | EdSurge<\/em>
Companies and technologists are rushing to apply the latest AI chatbots to fulfill the long-held dream of building a personalized digital tutor. But at least one longtime AI developer argues that it isn\u2019t possible, and that the best use of AI is to assist human tutors and teachers, not replace them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some Schools Are Changing How They Grade Students. Here’s Why Some Parents Are Upset.<\/a> USA Today | EdSurge<\/em>
Many schools have moved to standards-based grading systems that are meant to shift emphasis away from winning points on tests and homework in favor of stressing student mastery of material. But some parents and educators have pushed back, worried that students get the message that homework no longer matters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We Wondered If NFTs Could Change Education, So We Decided to Sell This Article on the Blockchain <\/a>EdSurge <\/em>
With all the hype around NFTs, it was tough to get basic details about how this technology works and why it is getting so much attention (and why some artists and athletes are making millions selling them). So we decided to make our own NFT to document the process and explore its potential in the education sector. Won an award from the American Society of Business Publication Editors<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Who Gets Left Out of ‘Bootstrapping’?<\/a> The Hustle<\/em>
A popular phrase among startup founders raises issues of social justice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When the SAT Feels Like a Lock, Not a Key<\/a> The Chronicle of Higher Education<\/em>
Who is the SAT really for, is it fair, and how does it trade on notions of merit?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This New 2-Year College Is Unlike Any Other. And That Could Be Its Biggest Challenge.<\/a> EdSurge<\/em>
A president in magician\u2019s robe. A degree in \u201cSelf & Society.\u201d A tiny house. Can a university be any more Portland? Here\u2019s a deep look at @WayfindingAcad, a crowdfunded, experimental college.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The New Frontier in Online Education.<\/a> Slate | EdSurge<\/em>
Meet the Microcredential.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Coding Boot Camp Closures Prove There Are No Shortcuts in Education<\/a> Slate | EdSurge<\/em>
EdSurge article that also ran on Slate. Part of a series on the future of coding boot camps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Double Win: Educating Syrians to be Teachers<\/a> Al-Fanar Media<\/em>
Freelance article written during a week-long reporting trip to Lebanon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here Comes Professor Everybody<\/a> The Chronicle Review<\/em>
The \u2018sharing economy\u2019 meets higher education.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When a Flipped-Classroom Pioneer Hands Off His Video Lectures, This Is What Happens<\/a> The Chronicle of Higher Education<\/em>
At Brigham Young University, an accounting professor became something of a rock star on camera. Then he retired.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What MIT Learned From a Mongolian Teenager Who Aced a MOOC<\/a> Slate<\/em>
Over the past year, a boy genius from Mongolia has been schooling MIT on how to improve the elite institution\u2019s free online courses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The New Rock-Star Professor<\/a> Slate<\/em>
Free online courses do big numbers these days. So-called MOOCs, or massive open online courses, typically get tens of thousands of sign-ups to watch video lectures delivered by tweedy academics, some more photogenic than others. But imagine how many students would tune in\u2014or make it through the class without dropping out\u2014if instead of bookish professors, Hollywood stars delivered the lessons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Inside the Coursera Contract: How an Upstart Company Might Profit From Free Courses<\/a> The Chronicle of Higher Education<\/em>
I obtained the agreement between Coursera and the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, using a freedom of information request. Coursera has been operating for only a few months, but the company has already persuaded some of the world’s best-known universities to offer free courses through its online platform. Colleges that usually move at a glacial pace are rushing into deals with the upstart company. what exactly have they signed up for?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Conversation With Bill Gates About the Future of Higher Education<\/a> The Chronicle of Higher Education<\/em>
I sat down for an interview with Bill Gates about views on tech in education. The interview was excerpted on NPR’s Marketplace podcast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Should Video Games Be Considered Art?<\/a> New Scientist<\/em>
The cultural stronghold of gaming – now a $25 billion industry – is undisputed, but the earliest game creators saw themselves primarily as computer programmers or engineers. And those among them who do see their work as art are seldom exhibiting on the gallery circuit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Merit Badges for the Job Market,<\/a> The Wall Street Journal<\/em>
What if employers didn’t care whether applicants held a college diploma but instead asked what educational “badges” they had collected? Like Boy Scout merit badges for professionals, these marks of achievement would show competence in specific skills, and they could be granted by any number of institutions. This is the vision of a growing number of education reformers who feel that the standard certification system no longer works in today’s fast-changing job market.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What Happened When The Chronicle Sat Down With Steve Jobs Back in 1998<\/a> The Chronicle of Higher Education<\/em>
I interviewed Steve Jobs early in my journalism career.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Caught Between the Moon and a Jug of Cheese Puffs<\/a>, New Scientist<\/em>
Entering a new exhibit in Washington, DC\u2019s Corcoran Gallery of Art is like walking into a movie mash-up of Stanley Kubrick\u2019s 2001: A Space Odyssey and National Lampoon\u2019s Animal House.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

College 2.0 in Asia,<\/a> Wired Campus<\/em>
I filed dispatches from wired classrooms and high-tech research labs in Singapore, China, South Korea, and India during a month-long reporting trip to Asia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Taking Video Games Seriously, as Art and Product<\/a> The New York Times<\/em>
“Trigger Happy: Video Games and the Entertainment Revolution” is both an eloquent rationalization for the guilty pleasures of video gaming and a persuasive argument for taking electronic games seriously as an art form worthy of critical attention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Longform<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The Unabomber’s Pen Pal,<\/a> The Chronicle Review<\/em>
The Unabomber’s warnings about the dehumanizing nature of technology are popping up in more and more serious books and articles these days\u2014even if most of the writers don’t cite the infamous killer directly. What can be learned from the Unabomber?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Programmed for Love: The Unsettling Future of Robotics,<\/a> The Chronicle Review<\/em>
Imagine standing in front of a robot, gazing into its wide, plastic eyes, and falling in love. Your heart revs up, and you hope this Other\u2014this humanoid machine\u2014turns your way again, tilts its head in interest, likes you back. It happened one summer to Sherry Turkle, at a lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she is a professor studying the impact of technology on society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Rise of Crowd Science,<\/a> The Chronicle of Higher Education<\/em>
Alexander S. Szalay is a well-regarded astronomer, but he hasn’t peered through a telescope in nearly a decade. Instead, the professor of physics and astronomy at the Johns Hopkins University learned how to write software code, build computer servers, and stitch millions of digital telescope images into a sweeping panorama of the universe. Along the way, thanks to a friendship with a prominent computer scientist, he helped reinvent the way astronomy is studied, guiding it from a largely solo pursuit to a discipline in which sharing is the norm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Berkeley Engineer Searches for the ‘Truth’ About the Twin Towers,<\/a> collected in Best of Technology Writing 2007<\/em>
When the World Trade Center’s burning south tower crumbled to the ground five years ago, just 56 minutes after terrorists crashed a Boeing 767 passenger jet into its upper floors, Abolhassan Astaneh-Asl’s horror was mixed with professional surprise. As a professor of structural engineering at the University of California at Berkeley and an expert on steel structures, he thought that the buildings should have stood longer, even after such a catastrophic impact, and that the collapse should not have been so nearly vertical.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In College Admissions, Princeton Decided It Couldn\u2019t Stand Alone: Early Admission, Take Two,<\/a> Princeton Alumni Weekly<\/em>
Today, many students view college admissions as a game. Princeton had hoped to stop the gamesmanship when it decided in 2006 to end the early-admission program for the class entering in 2008, along with Harvard University and the University of Virginia. But this spring Princeton reversed course, reinstating an early-admission program. What happened? And where does this leave today\u2019s students and parents?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Mud-Wrestling Media Maven From MIT,<\/a> The Chronicle Review<\/em>
If this profile of Henry Jenkins III were a YouTube video, it would begin with footage of the influential scholar mud-wrestling his wife at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. If it were a podcast, the introduction would note that Jenkins has been called the Marshall McLuhan of the 21st century. And if this were an interactive graphic, it would trace the millions of dollars in research grants he has won from foundations, companies, and the government of Singapore. Any of those media would be a fitting way to tell the story of a scholar who is at the forefront of exploring how digital technologies are reshaping popular culture. But just as Jenkins still reveres words on paper (and online), so too does much of his story lend itself to good old ink on paper.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fake student loan debt offers proliferate as federal government rolls back enforcement. The Hechinger Report \u2018It\u2019s a great time if you\u2019re in the scam business\u2019 Scammers are targeting student-loan borrowers<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-6","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jeffyoung.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jeffyoung.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jeffyoung.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jeffyoung.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jeffyoung.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6"}],"version-history":[{"count":88,"href":"https:\/\/www.jeffyoung.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":891,"href":"https:\/\/www.jeffyoung.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6\/revisions\/891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jeffyoung.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}