Students Mobile | Image Source : Mashable.com

The modern American school faces rough challenges. Budget cuts have caused ballooning class sizes,  many teachers struggle with poorly motivated students, and in many schools a war is being waged on distracting technologies. In response, innovative educators are embracing social media to fight back against the onslaught of problems. Technologies such as Twitter and Skype offer ideal solutions as inexpensive tools of team-based education.

Why force students to yawn over a textbook when a real-life native speaker is only a Skype call away? At Marquette University, Spanish students hone their foreign language skills with frequent webcam chats with their English-learning counterparts in South America.

Perhaps the greatest benefit of using Skype is the radical increase in motivation. A whopping 85.3% of Janet’s students kept in touch with their digital pen-pals outside of the classroom through Facebook.

While many schools around the country have declared all-out war on mobile devices, Wiregrass High School took a decidedly different approach, integrating cell phones into the entire educational experience. Students exchange questions and answers with their teachers via SMS and browse classroom blogs for additional instruction. Moreover, as an efficient collaborative tool, students can quickly trade notes or take a snapshot of the blackboard for later studying.

Many universities have internal e-mail systems and message boards. But getting students to routinely check these systems for updates can be a chore. As a college teacher myself, my students have been required to participate in group message boards, which is a poor substitute for genuine intellectual curiosity. As a solution, Leicester University in the UK turned to Twitter, hoping that the popular micro-blogging technology would encourage collaboration outside of class. Read more ……

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Apple Netbook | Image Source : Gizmodo.com

BAYBORO — Pamlico County Primary School students will have some of the latest technology at their fingertips when iPod touch devices from Apple Inc. are delivered to the school.

The Pamlico County Board of Education unanimously approved an informal bid on Saturday to purchase the devices and other Apple technology using part of a $1.25 million grant that came from Enhancing Education Though Technology and American Recovery and Reinvestment Act program dollars. Read more ……

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EnchantedLearning.com

A comprehensive educational directory and homework helper that provides a wide variety of resources on Inventors. Each individual becomes more expert in his own peculiar branch, more work is done upon the whole, and the quantity of science is considerably increased by inventions.

Thrown into the mix are entertaining, informative and even funny segments on the history of inventing, inventions of the future, and about some of the extraordinary inventors who have helped shape our world.

If you are interested in the world, curious about the future, and own a television, it’s the show for you. More about the show»

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Education. General Science. Flight Education. Living Things, Rockets and Rocketry, Planet Earth, Solar System and Stars Education.  Robots and Robotics,  Space Vehicles, Spinoffs (Benefits from NASA). Visit : NASA Kids’ Club

Guinness World Records is the universally recognized authority on record-breaking achievement. First published in 1955, the annual Guinness World Records book is published in more than 100 countries and 25 languages and is one of the highest-selling books under copyright of all time with more than 3 million copies sold annually across the globe. Guinness World Records celebrated its 50th anniversary edition in 2004, a year after the sale of its 100 millionth copy.

Guinness World Records also annually publishes the Gamer’s Edition; a records book devoted solely to the world of computer gaming and high score record achievements. The Guinness World Records website receives more than 11 million visitors a year.

Guinness World Records is part of the Jim Pattison Group, one of Canada’s largest privately owned companies which is a conglomerate of interests, including entertainment, advertising, broadcasting, grocery stores and automotive retailing. Source : Guinness World Record

On his way home from school later that day, Trevor notices a homeless man, Jerry (James Caviezel) and decides to make a difference in Jerry’s life. Trevor then comes up with the plan to “pay it forward” by doing a good deed for three people who must in turn each do good deeds for three other people, creating a charitable pyramid scheme. Trevor’s plan is to help Jerry by feeding and housing him so he can “get on his feet.” 

Read more / Movie Info / Foundation

During his childhood, Cohen was accused of being a troublemaker in school and was punished by his teachers for the tics and noises caused by TS. He decided to “become the teacher that he never had”. After he graduated and received his teaching certificate, 24 elementary schools rejected him before he was hired at Mountain View Elementary School in Cobb County, Georgia. As a new teacher, he was named Georgia’s First Class Teacher of the Year.

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Image Source : Interawesome.com

TED Talks provide viewers with insightful and thought-provoking commentary and ideas. The contents of many TED Talks can be directly or indirectly applied to your classroom practices. While you’re on holiday break, you may want to watch one or all of these TED Talks. If you’re interested in learning more about using TED Talks in your classroom, check out Teaching With TED.

TED Talks directly about education.

• John Wooden on Winning vs. Success.
• Clifford Stoll Teaches Physics to Eighth Graders.
• Don’t Eat the Marshmallow
• Bill Gates Talks About Mosquitoes, Malaria, and Education.
• David Merrill Introduces Siftables
• Tom Wujec – 3 Ways the Brain Creates Meaning.
• Jimmy Wales – The Birth of Wikipedia.
• Julian Treasure – 4 Ways Sound Affects Us.

• How Cell Phones, Twitter, and Facebook Can Make History
• Matthew White Gives the Euphonium a New Voice
• Pranav Mistry – The Thrilling Potential of Sixth Sense Technology
• Benjamin Zander – On Music and Passion
• Dan Pink – The Surprising Science of Motivation
• David Pogue on the Music Wars

Read more ……

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Solar Charging Stations | Image Source : Gas2.org

Pictured above is a solar charging station under development by Toyota. The company has plans to open the first of 21 in the Spring of 2010, signaling a move by Toyota to become a vertically integrated company. First, make the plug-in car.

Then, build the charging station that it plugs in to. It’s comparable to the same company both digging up the oil, and building the car that runs on the oil. But better.

In many ways this is an understandable move. Toyota has held a leadership position in the hybrid market, and, as such, the company has long resisted any mention of a future move to plug-in vehicles.

Why cut sales short, with all the expense that that entails: retooling assembly lines and so on – when yours is the market leader? Read more ……

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Source : HowStuffWorks.com

HowStuffWorks is a commercial edutainment website that was founded by Marshall Brain explaining the way many things work. The site uses photos, diagrams, videos and animations to explain complex terminology and mechanisms in easy-to-understand language. A documentary television series with the same name also premiered in November 2008 on the Discovery Channel.

In 1998, former North Carolina State University professor Marshall Brain started the site as a hobby. In 1999, Brain raised venture capital and formed HowStuffWorks, Inc. In March 2002, HowStuffWorks was sold to the Convex Group, an Atlanta-based investment and media company founded by Jeff Arnold, founder and former chief executive officer (CEO) of WebMD.  The headquarters moved from Cary, North Carolina to Atlanta, Georgia. HowStuffWorks originally focused on science and machines, ranging from submarines to common household gadgets and appliances. After adding a staff of writers, artists, and editors, content expanded to a larger array of topics.

In November 2004, HowStuffWorks moved its entertainment section to Stuffo.  However, in 2006, the team disbanded and the site now redirects visitors to the site’s entertainment channel.

The domain HowStuffWorks.com attracted at least 58 million visitors annually by 2008, according to a Compete.com survey. Read more ……

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]]> http://krisarunews.com/2009/11/27/howstuffworks/feed/ 1 http://krisarunews.com/2009/11/27/indias-100-richest/ http://krisarunews.com/2009/11/27/indias-100-richest/#comments Fri, 27 Nov 2009 03:15:52 +0000 KRISARU.com Intellectual Services http://news.krisaru.com/web/?p=723

Source : ListzBlog.com

Happier days are here again for India’s super rich, thanks to a rebounding stock market, up two-thirds in the past year, and a still buoyant economy that’s growing at least 6% a year. The nation is now home to 52 billionaires, up from 27 last year and only two short of what India had at the peak of its stock market boom in 2007.

The combined fortune of India’s 100 richest is $276 billion, almost one-fourth the country’s GDP. That is well below the total worth of $775 billion for the 100 richest Americans, but well ahead of the equivalent sum for China’s top 100. Although China has more billionaires–79 vs. India’s 52–India’s wealthiest are worth over $100 billion more than the $170 billion total net worth of their Chinese counterparts.

India’s wealthiest person, once again Reliance Industries’ Mukesh Ambani, has a fortune of $32 billion, more than five times the $5.8 billion net worth of BYD’s Wang Chuanfu, China’s richest citizen at the time we published our China 400 rankings earlier this month. (Wang’s fortune has since dropped along with BYD’s shares.) Read more ……

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Source : eSchoolNews.com

The automobile, moving pictures, personal computers, cell phones, and social networks—all of these technologies, once considered frivolous, have made such a huge impact on our culture that our daily lives would change dramatically without them.

Could 3-D video be next?

It’s a question made relevant by new improvements (and falling costs) that soon could make 3-D video commonplace in theaters, homes, and even schools.

Owing to rapid advances in technology, 3-D video already is taking cinema by storm—and mainstream use of 3-D video in the home and elsewhere isn’t far off. What’s more, advocates of 3-D video say it has the potential to revolutionize the way students learn.  Read more ……

How Shockwave 3-D Technology Works

In the past year or so, you may have heard about a new technology that lets you manipulate 3-D images over the Internet. Many Web sites have been using this sort of software for a while, but it has mostly remained a niche market due to a lack of universal 3-D viewer programs.

Macromedia, in conjunction with Intel, NxView and others, hopes to bring this technology to many more Web users with the newest versions of the Shockwave player and the Shockwave authoring program Director. Read more ……

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Digital Citizenship Today

Digitally delivered content is part of the fabric of students’ lives today. There is enormous access to content, yet it typically comes with many different underlying usage rights that few understand. Very few students are exposed in a positive way to how they can properly manage and use digital or commercial content – whether their own or others’; whether music, movies, art, software, or other creative material; and whether free, licensed, purchased, or subscribed.

The Digital Citizenship and Creative Content Curriculum program was developed to create awareness around the issue of creative content and to foster a better understanding of the rights connected with it. Ultimately, its goals are to instill in students an appreciation of the value that creative content has for the creator, and to establish a personal respect for creative rights in a way that changes their behaviors and perceptions about digitally delivered content.

Creative rights and the materials they protect are an important part of our culture. It’s crucial that students understand the options for managing content and respect the wishes of others regarding creative content — at a personal level that is meaningful to their everyday lives. Students interact online with music, movies, software, images, and other digital content every day.

Are they aware that these works are protected and that some of their uses may not be consistent with the creator’s wishes? Students themselves are often creators. Do they understand how creative rights are relevant to them? Where can they go to get information about appropriate online behaviors to help them make the right decisions for themselves and as citizens in a digital world? Download the full article 1 or Article 2

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Professor Derek Keats, of the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, used the term in 2007 to apply to the use and impact on education of collaborative and personalized learning, reusable learning content, and recognition of prior learning (RPL) whether by formal or informal means. Keats explorations seems to have been focused on higher education. Dr. John Moravec at the University of Minnesota broadens this view, and describes Education 3.0 as a product necessary to support what he labels “Society 3.0″ — a near future paradigm of social co-constructivism, ambient technology, and propelled by continuous innovation at all levels of society.

Education 3.0 has also been a concept articulated on GETideas.org an online resource and community for education leaders around the world to engage in a dialogue on next generation education and learning systems. This site is a public service of the Cisco Global Education corporate social responsibility group[5]. The Education 3.0 concepts articulated on GETideas.org refer to a holistic, systemic approach to education transformation as applied primarily to K-12 education, and identifies the transformational qualities and strategies necessary across pedagogy and curriculum, leadership and governance, culture and infrastructure.  Source : Wikipedia

Four key components of Education 3.0

Education 3.0–which focuses on the individual learner, makes learning available at all times, and uses technology as a key driver and enabler–is built upon four pillars:

1. Curriculum, Pedagogy, and Assessment

This involves…

• • A student-centered, personalized approach to instruction;

• • Interdisciplinary and project-based work;

• • A 21st-century curriculum that integrates skills such as problem solving, critical thinking, communication, and collaboration into the core curriculum areas; and

• • Authentic assessments that measure these key 21st-century skills.

2. Infrastructure and Technology

This requires…

• • A forward-thinking technology vision, led from the top;

• • The creation of flexible learning spaces for students;

• • A robust IP network that can support several interconnected learning and administrative systems simultaneously;

• • Ubiquitous access to technology for all staff and students; and

• • Sustained, targeted, and integrated staff development in both technology and pedagogy.

3. Policies, Procedures, and Management

This includes…

• • A well-governed and managed system, with clear policies and procedures for using technology to transform education;

• • A “change management” plan to guide this educational transformation and ease the transition;

• • Data-driven accountability and decision-making; and

• • An integrated ecosystem of partners.

4. Leadership, People, and Culture

This requires…

• • Visionary leadership;

• • Excellent teachers, principals, and system leaders; and

• • An ambitious, collaborative, and innovative school culture.

Read more ……

President Obama has challenged the nation to turn around low-performing schools, put highly qualified teachers into classrooms, and ensure that student achievement improves. At the core of these reforms is an emphasis on 21st-century teaching and learning in which technology is not merely present, but is used in the most effective ways possible.

San Diego’s efforts are part of a five-year plan to reinvent the way students are taught in the city’s schools–and they could serve as a model for others to follow as district leaders look to put new federal priorities into action.

Thanks to support from Intel, this special report is available now to all educators at eSchool News Online.

I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised by this, but I have seen more and more elementary kids carrying and talking on cell phones each year.  I see more and more of these kids wearing a full sized iPod.  Kids have computers and TV’s in their rooms.  Am I being an old fashioned fuddy duddy by dragging my feet with this trend, or could there be good reason for caution here?

Don’t get me wrong, I love my little iPod shuffle.  Obviously, I enjoy having my computer with internet.  And I greatly appreciate the convenience my cell phone usage has provided me for the last several years.  But does my nine year old need all of this at her complete disposal too?  And her own version of each one of those?  Hmmm….it just really makes me think about what fits for our family and our situation. Read more ……