Muara Teweh!

Mumbai: Remember feeling Scolionophobic in your younger days? While not many will remember the term, the feeling — the fear of going to school — is abundantly common.

But the term Scolionophobia — and the feeling — may soon be condemned to lexicographic tomes if a clutch of corporates have their way.

With content that is a welcome — even entertaining — break from the morose, rote-based spiel and teachers more willing to reach out to those slower on the uptake, companies are trying to bring intellectual joy to education.

As a result, content is going digital, quality of lessons are being overhauled, and hi-tech applications and plasma screens are making an entry.

The revolution is not restricted to private schools — in fact, it’s more focussed on the hundreds run by the government.
» Read more after the jump →

A new study of results from the Brazilian national assessment supports the notion that reform teaching improves all students’ mathematics performance regardless of socioeconomic status. The study examined the extent to which reform teaching narrowed the achievement gap between students in schools with low average socioeconomic status (SES) and students in schools with high average SES. The study also reported on whether reform teaching reduced the equity gap that divides students within the same school but who are of different socioeconomic status.

Creso Franco, Paola Sztajn, and Maria Isabel Ramalho Ortigão conducted the study and reported their findings in the “Journal for Research in Mathematics Education” 2007, volume 38, issue 4, published by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. A summary of the research is online at www.nctm.org/researchsummaryv38i4.aspx. This is the first in a series of research summaries that will be posted. » Read more after the jump →

The a new vocabulary of sign language that will revolutionise the way science is taught to deaf children in schools throughout Britain has been developed by teachers and language specialists in Edinburgh.

Over the past year a glossary of more than 250 signs for scientific terms has been created that can be accessed over the internet by teachers, interpreters and pupils. Terms of daunting complexity – such as “photosynthesis”, “density” or “bacteria” — are explained by on-screen tutors who employ simple but descriptive gestures that suddenly create understanding.

Many pupils with perfect hearing find scientific terminology hard to comprehend, but for a deaf child the difficulties multiply. Nuances in the meaning of words such as “virus” make signed explanations difficult, and spelling out words letter-by-letter often leads to confusion.

“The scientific vocabulary for deaf children has developed simply because we needed it,” said Rachel O’Neill, a lecturer in deaf education at the University of Edinburgh. “People realised that » Read more after the jump →

The KwaZulu-Natal Department of Education is to give bursaries to allow mathematics and science teachers to further their studies.

Priority has been given to maths and Science as these have been identified as gateway subjects by government.

The department says the need to build the capacity of teachers will be addressed by giving them bursaries and enabling them to enroll for the National Professional Diploma in Education (NPDE) qualification.

Education MEC, Ina Cronje said the department had enrolled 1 638 under-qualified educators through bursaries and learnerships. Over 100 of them had been enrolled for the NPDE.

Last year 55 teachers completed the Post-Graduate Certificate in Education, while Ms Cronje said these numbers would be pushed up to 404 this year. » Read more after the jump →

The National Academies published the seminal study on U.S. competitiveness entitled “Rising Above the Gathering Storm.” The study identified major shortcomings in U.S. investments in basic scientific research as well as in math and science education for our youngsters. The suggestions contained in this study were immediately picked up by the Democratic House Leadership as their competitiveness strategy and later by President Bush in his State of the Union message under his American Competitiveness Initiative. Legislation in the form of the America Competes Act was passed in the House and Senate in 2007, and it appeared the United States was finally going to move forward after years of neglect to increase investment in math, science and basic research. All parties agreed that our competitiveness in the 21st century was at stake and we needed to act.

So much for political will.

The recent budget deal between Republicans and Democrats effectively flat-funds or cuts funding for key science agencies. Excluding “earmarks,” the Department of Energy funding » Read more after the jump →

Internet opens elite colleges to all

Gilbert Strang is a quiet man with a rare talent: helping others understand linear algebra. He has written a half-dozen popular college textbooks, and for years a few hundred students at the elite Massachusetts Institute of Technology have been privileged to take his course.

Recently, with the growth of computer science, demand to understand linear algebra has surged. But so has the number of students Strang can teach.

An MIT initiative called “OpenCourseWare” makes virtually all the school’s courses available online for free — lecture notes, readings, tests and often video lectures. Strang’s Math 18.06 course is among the most popular, with visitors downloading his lectures more than 1.3 million times since June alone. » Read more after the jump →

Relaxed brave the publisher PlayFirst has announced the issuing totalling two brave rights that were new for Mac OS X and the Window, Kode Dinas Malam and the Rok Shop jumped.
Well the available game to download to carry out the test and ask for $19,95 to register.

In The Nigthshift Code, players join Mike, a security guard, as he catches Isabel breaking in to the museum he protects in search of a precious artifact. Isabel draws Mike into a mystery involving his own missing father as they embark on an adventure to solve a series of secret messages and challenging puzzles.

The game was developed by Black Hammer, the same company who worked with Scholastic to develop the I Spy series of computer games. System requirements call for Mac OS X v10.4 or later, G4/800MHz or faster. » Read more after the jump →