Education

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Students at one Australian school will take home more than just their homework. They’re carrying out their trash, too

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Oceania/ Australia/ 09.09.2019/ Source: edition.cnn.com.

Students at one Australian school will soon be bringing home more than just their homework at the end of each day. They’ll be taking their trash, too.

Melbourne Girls’ College is set to launch a new initiative this school year that aims to create what they hope will be a zero-waste environment by having students carry out their garbage.
The principal of the school says the plan is aimed at raising the consciousness of its 1,400 student body with the hope the ideas of reusing, recycling, and repurposing, will stick with them.
«If we can get that message through to our students and to their wider family, community, then it’s going to have a ripple effect,» Karen Money told CNN affiliate ABC Radio Melbourne.
One thing they’ll notice for sure — the classrooms will have no trash cans.
There will be three «exception bins,» the principal said, where students can dispose of things that might be too difficult to take home. She added that there will also be recycling stations that students will be able to utilize.
Money told ABC Radio Melbourne that part of the aim if to have students bring their lunch in containers made from recycled plastic. She also hopes they will minimize the use of disposable wrapping and packaging.
«We’re just trying to make it about education,» she said. «Not everyone is convinced yet, but I think we at least need to give it a go.»
Source of the notice: https://edition.cnn.com/2019/08/29/world/australia-school-take-home-trash-trnd/index.html
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China to curb facial recognition and apps in schools

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Asia/ China/ 09.09.2019/ Source: www.bbc.com.

The Chinese government says it plans to «curb and regulate» the use of facial recognition technology and other apps in schools.

The pledge came from Lei Chaozi, director of science and technology at China’s Ministry of Education.

It follows reports a university in China was trialling the technology to monitor the attendance and behaviour of students in class.

The pilot project was met with criticism online over privacy concerns.

Images appeared to show China Pharmaceutical University (CPU) in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, using the technology at school gates and dormitories.

Last year a similar network of monitoring devices, able to give teachers real-time feedback on student concentration levels, was reportedly installed at a high school in Hangzhou.

Mr Lei told website thepaper.cn that the use of facial recognition technology on campus raises privacy concerns.

«We need to be very careful when it comes to students’ personal information,» Lei said (in Chinese). «Don’t collect it if it’s not necessary. And try to collect as little as possible if we have to.»

The Ministry of Education issued new guidance on Thursday on the use of all sorts of apps used by education providers, China Daily reports.

Media captionIn your face: China’s all-seeing surveillance system

It recommends education authorities and schools seek the opinions of parents, students and teachers before introducing technology.

Any apps in use have to be registered by the end of this year to build a database for better supervision, reports say.

Controversial technology already in use includes «intelligent uniforms» to monitor student locations in a number of schools, The Global Times reports.

China has become a pioneer in the use of facial recognition and other surveillance technology.

Earlier this week a popular Chinese facial-swap app, allowing you to transform yourself into TV and film roles, sparked fresh concern.

Source of the notice: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-49608459

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What India needs at higher education institutions

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Asia/ India/ 09.09.2019/ Source: www.financialexpress.com.

There is a need for expert management, and innovative and professional human resource development systems at higher education institutions.

Higher education is now a priority area for the government, as is obvious from the recommended standards and budgetary provisions for the same in the recent Union Budget. While higher education is booming in many countries, including in India, managing the massive expansion of higher education has become challenging for governments and regulatory bodies alike. In many countries, higher education is suffering from problems such as falling standards and quality, poor infrastructure and maintenance services, inadequate support systems, capacity overload, and inadequate manpower and good faculty.

In the context of growing global competition in the higher education space, a university or a higher education institution (HEI), as an organisation, may have to cope with changes in demographic structures, descriptive technologies, regulatory reforms, new learning products and frontier research. The paradigm of a university being a static instrumental entity appears to be obsolete in terms of scope and scale. While a modern university seeks to explore new frontiers of knowledge through learning and research, it also faces issues relating to scale and scope. By scale what is implied is the capacity of a university to absorb the growing number of learners and their unmet needs in pursuit of learning and research. For a dynamic university, enrolment tends to grow over time rather than remain

Higher education is now a priority area for the government, as is obvious from the recommended standards and budgetary provisions for the same in the recent Union Budget. While higher education is booming in many countries, including in India, managing the massive expansion of higher education has become challenging for governments and regulatory bodies alike. In many countries, higher education is suffering from problems such as falling standards and quality, poor infrastructure and maintenance services, inadequate support systems, capacity overload, and inadequate manpower and good faculty.

In the context of growing global competition in the higher education space, a university or a higher education institution (HEI), as an organisation, may have to cope with changes in demographic structures, descriptive technologies, regulatory reforms, new learning products and frontier research. The paradigm of a university being a static instrumental entity appears to be obsolete in terms of scope and scale. While a modern university seeks to explore new frontiers of knowledge through learning and research, it also faces issues relating to scale and scope. By scale what is implied is the capacity of a university to absorb the growing number of learners and their unmet needs in pursuit of learning and research. For a dynamic university, enrolment tends to grow over time rather than remain constant over the years. Scaling up may generate quality concerns with regard to learning and research outcomes. What transforms a scaling-up university to an innovative one is its ability to invent progressive processes that coordinate between scaling up and quality concerns. In the context of scaling up that induces more quality in terms of scope for new research and learning streams, the pivotal aspect in transforming the organisation to an innovative and resilient one depends on how a university is evolving as an organisation through systems, processes and praxis (practice). In this milieu, along with other organisation processes, human resource management is an indispensable component in organising a dynamic and innovative university into a globalised higher education system.

The term ‘human resource development (HRD)’ has been widely used by management experts in the corporate sector. Given the recent development of HEIs metamorphosing from an institute to an organisation, HRD has to play a key role. Initially, the governance of a university or an HEI was fully taken care of by academic staff members. However, given the various challenges, objectives, accountability, governance structure, challenges of fund management in absence of full support from the government, dependence on student fees, brand-building, etc, the responsibility has at least partially shifted to trained HRD professionals for taking care of such challenges. This responsibility includes manpower management, recruitment, training and development, designing good HR policies for attracting and retaining talent, performance evaluation systems, staff welfare measures, etc. Currently, the role and importance of HRD is ignored at most Indian academic institutions. Given that human resources of an HEI is extremely important, whether it is academic or non-academic, both need to be taken care of professionally to achieve the ultimate goals—bright graduates and research output—in a consistent manner.

India’s HEIs have grown enormously since 1947, but the condition of higher education is still not up to global standards, and very few Indian HEIs make it to the list of the top universities in the world.

Most HEIs in India still follow traditional management systems such as the old personnel management style; instead, we need expert management systems and innovative development systems.

The primary objective of an academic institute is to develop the knowledge, skills and all-round personality of its students, and provide them high-quality and comprehensive educational training, development and opportunities. The realisation of these goals is only possible if the development and motivation of academic and non-academic staff is also taken care of.

In this context, HEIs in India should develop dynamic professional human resource management systems that should focus on (1) recruitment and selection, (2) training and development, (3) strategic human resource management, (4) higher education and development, (5) performance management, (6) human resource planning, (7) labour relations, (8) social welfare development, and (9) compensation and benefits.

Source of the notice: https://www.financialexpress.com/opinion/what-india-needs-at-higher-education-institutions/1699982/

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Neuroscience and education come together in the classroom to stop Australia’s science decline

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Oceania/ Australia/ 03.09.2019/ Source: www.abc.net.au.

For students prone to daydreaming during lessons — you’d better start paying attention.

In this science class, the kids are the experiment and every eyeball roll and side comment can now be detected on a graph.

Key points:

  • Surveys show Australian students are increasingly falling behind in maths and science
  • EEG headsets will allow researchers to measure students’ attention and engagement
  • Teachers hope the research project will help improve their lesson planning

Researchers from the University of New South Wales (UNSW) are trying to understand Australia’s declining performance in science and are using technology to measure students’ engagement in the classroom.

As part of a study involving more than 500 students from years 7 to 10, from up to eight schools in NSW, biometric watches and headsets are being connected to students to measure brain signals, heart rate and skin temperature while they perform science tasks and exams in a classroom setting.

Psychology Professor Joel Pearson from UNSW said more advanced and cheaper technology meant for the first time neuroscience and education could be brought together for research.

«This EEG [electroencephalogram] technology now is being made mobile so for the first time in history really, we can come out to locations like this and measure brain activity,» he said.

«Before we’d have to bring students one-by-one into the lab. It’s a very different setting, it’s not naturalistic.

«Now we can do it here in a real classroom with real students interacting with each other.»

Two men look at a computer in a classroom.PHOTO: The King’s School’s Roger Kennett (L) and Professor Joel Pearson check the results. (ABC News: Antonette Collins)

Professor Pearson said new technologies allowed researchers to objectively measure engagement or boredom «much like a blood test» provides an accurate, objective result.

Tony George, headmaster of The King’s School, which is a partner in the ARC-funded project, said the research would also help teachers to plan their lessons.

«Teachers know when they look upon a classroom those kids that suddenly come alive,» he said.

Meet the maths teacher you wish you’d had at school

Eddie Woo, the maths teacher you wish you had teaser
Teacher Eddie Woo is changing the face of mathematics in Australia, reaching students far beyond his Sydney classroom by posting his lessons online.

«Now if we can better understand what it is that we’re doing within that environment that brings that mind alive we can probably do it more often and more consistently.»

Year 9 student Robert Napoli said he wanted to find new ways to improve his learning.

«To be able to learn to the best of our ability is something we all strive for, whether that be studying more effectively to help students preparing for an exam,» he said.

Professor of Educational Psychology, Andrew Martin said students would also fill in questionnaires with the goal to match up the science with how they felt about their studies.

Several surveys showed Australian students were increasingly falling behind those in other countries when it came to achievement in maths and science.

It’s hoped the data collected from this study will also provide students with more information about how best to cope under the intense pressure which comes with exams.

Source of the notice: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-08-31/scientists-use-tech-to-measure-students-engagement-in-science/11452514

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This is how digital education is fixing education system in India?

Reseñas

By: Kamesh Jang Bahadur.

Technology keeps on advancing and it is becoming very essential in our lives. People make use of it every day to improve on the way they accomplish specific tasks, and this is making them look smarter. It is being used in various sectors for example, the way we use technology in classrooms to improve the learning methods of students and to make the teachers job easier.

Today’s learners now enjoy easier, more efficient access to information; opportunities for extended and mobile learning; the ability to give and receive immediate feedback; and greater motivation to learn and engage.

Digital education making way into education sysytem

Gone are the days when classroom training was restricted to textbook learning, teachers using the blackboard to students writing notes in copies. Its more chalk and talk in most schools. Digital education is making its way into the education system of India and is taking the place of the traditional classroom training.

Here are few of the points that will clearly depict the picture of how digital education is fixing education system in India.

Distance education beyond boundaries

Technology has made it possible for students who fall off the traditional path to jump back on and finish what they spent most of their childhood working towards. This may be in the form of taking remote classes from home, remedial classes in on-campus computer labs or even by enrolling in full-time online schools, public or private.

Flexible learning

education sysytem

A student who needs extra help on a particular topic need not hold up the entire class, or feel embarrassed asking for that help, when there are computer modules and tablet apps available for individual learning experiences

Teachers who spot a trouble area with a particular student can gear that teen towards more exercises to master the topic. Of course, technology is not the magic wand to fix all problems, but it does allow for more flexibility of the learning process.

Many schools now come with a TV or a projector attached to their whiteboard where it is easy to shift from a normal classroom session to an interactive digital session. This can make students pay more attention as we are now in the digital era where Google is our go-to place.

Field trips turned to Online Webinars

If a school does not have the resources to send students on field trips, they can opt for web seminars related to their course work. Conducting online seminars and webinars, enabling all students to engage in commenting and participating in questionnaires can help them stay alert. It is very vital that students engage in seminars and the lectures involve two-way communication.

NASA is known to offer a program for students wherein they can talk to astronauts in space using such web seminars. This hybrid, collaborative online learning experience is broadly changing the aspects of education in India.

Usage of VR and AR for learning

Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality are already buzzwords in the technology space. Their advent in e-learning has massively impacted the efficiency with which it is offered to students and the way it assesses their performance.VR allows students using e-learning platforms on mobile devices to directly interact with study material. This keeps their engagement levels high and motivates them.

Globalized learning, maximized exposure

With the internet, it has become possible for students to communicate with students from other parts of the world. This makes it really easy to learn foreign languages and expand the exposure of young minds. Video conferencing is a boon to students who want to communicate or meet with their global counterparts.

Today, India is one of the world’s top destinations for education. Where the pedagogy is all about the smartboards where teachers can drag and drop shapes, bring in online calculators on the board, measure with AR tools and voice out the text they want to see on the board.It is time to collaborate teaching methodology with technology and make education and classroom sessions livelier and more interesting!

Source of the review: https://www.indiatoday.in/education-today/featurephilia/story/digital-education-education-system-in-india-divd-1594399-2019-09-02

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WC Education investigating alleged xenophobic attack at Salt River school

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Africa/ 03.09.2019/ Fuente: www.capetalk.co.za.

A Grade 10 pupil at Salt River High School was attacked in an alleged bullying incident at the school following months of threats from her peers.

Speaking to Refilwe Moloto, Western Cape Education Department director of communications Bronagh Hammond says both pupils involved have been asked to stay at home.

Hammond says the ongoing investigations show that the girl who was attacked had classroom responsibilities.

Both learners have been asked to stay at home because of fact that when the learners were both there it sparked a protest action at the school.

— Bronagh Hammond, Director of Communications – Western Cape Education Department

The learner was a class monitor for quite a while and she was correctly putting down attendance levels of the learners involved and a few of the girls were getting agitated about this and that is where the tension arose.

— Bronagh Hammond, Director of Communications – Western Cape Education Department

Hammond says they will be investigating the xenophobia reports.

The learner that was attacked is from another African country and the other learners involved are from South Africa but that does not generally mean it could be xenophobia.

— Bronagh Hammond, Director of Communications – Western Cape Education Department

The school has been supportive of the girl who was attacked.

But I do think we need to provide her with trauma and social counselling support because she has gone through quite an ordeal.

— Bronagh Hammond, Director of Communications – Western Cape Education Department

Source of the notice: http://www.capetalk.co.za/articles/359664/wc-education-investigating-alleged-xenophobic-attack-at-salt-river-school

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Australian state ends Chinese education program over foreign interference fears

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Oceania/ Australia/ 02.09.2019/ Source: www.reuters.com.

Australia’s most populous state said it will ax a Chinese-funded education program that teaches Mandarin in schools amid fears over potential foreign influence.

The Confucius Institute program – administered by the Chinese government agency Hanban – teaches China’s official language in 13 public schools across New South Wales (NSW).

However, the NSW government said in a review issued late on Thursday that, while it found no specific evidence of interference, it was improper for the program to continue.

“The review found, however, a number of specific factors that could give rise to the perception that the Confucius Institute is or could be facilitating inappropriate foreign influence in the department,” the review said.

The government report said NSW was the only state government worldwide to have such a program and that the arrangement also placed Chinese government appointees inside the NSW education department.

The Chinese embassy in Canberra did not respond immediately to a request for comment.

NSW Education Minister Sarah Mitchell said the program would be replaced by Mandarin classes run by the state government.

Australia has in recent years sought to increase the teaching of Mandarin in schools in a bid to strengthen ties with its largest trading partner.

The removal of the program comes amid heightened concerns about Chinese activities in Australia and the neighboring Pacific region and a souring of relations in recent years.

In 2017, then prime minister Malcolm Turnbull accused China of meddling in Australia’s domestic affairs, a charge that Beijing denies.

Australia then further alienated China last year when it essentially banned the technology giant Huawei Technologies Co Ltd [HWT.UL] from supplying equipment for a 5G mobile network, citing national security risks.

China criticized that move as being politically motivated and urged Australia to abandon what it described as a Cold War mentality.

Australia has also moved in recent months to push back against China’s quest for greater influence in the Pacific.

Canberra fears Chinese lending in the region could undermine the sovereignty of small Pacific countries and has moved to increase economic aid and its diplomatic presence in the region.

At the same time, Australia has experienced disruption to its coal exports to China, including customs delays. China denies that Australian trade is being hampered because of bilateral tensions.

 

Source of the notice: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-australia-china-education/australian-state-ends-chinese-education-program-over-foreign-interference-fears-idUSKCN1VD009

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