EEUU, Los Ángeles: 6º día de histórica huelga docente

Por: Alternativa Docente/23-01-2019

Luego de seis días de lucha, con altísimo apoyo social, el sindicato UTLA informa el resultado de las negociaciones reservadas, que mantuvieron por varios días con las Autoridades del LAUDS (Distrito Escolar de Los Ángeles). Desde UTLA llaman a votar sí y levantar la huelga.

A continuación, reproducimos una traducción del primero y el último párrafo del resumen del Acuerdo publicado por https://www.utla.net. Y a través del link puedes descargar el archivo adjunto en PDF con el texto en inglés de ese resumen del TA, Tentative Agreement.

Para información, esta es la valoración que realiza la dirigencia del sindicato sobre el acuerdo:

¡Victoria para la educación pública!
Resumen del Acuerdo Provisional / UTLA y LAUSD 22 de enero de 2019

Después de 6 días de huelga junto con los padres, estudiantes y miembros de la comunidad en Los Ángeles, tenemos alcanzó un acuerdo histórico que aborda los principales problemas que afectan a nuestras escuelas, estudiantes y profesiones.
A continuación se muestra un resumen de ese acuerdo, que la Junta de Directores de UTLA respalda para un voto de sí.

Vea el TA Tentative Agreement completo en UTLA.net para más información. Esta es una victoria histórica para educadores, estudiantes y padres.

La reducción del tamaño de la clase, los límites en las pruebas, el acceso a enfermeras, consejeros y bibliotecarios cambiarán la vida de nuestros estudiantes siempre. Ganamos esta victoria a través de nuestra unidad, nuestra acción y nuestro sacrificio compartido.

Vota sí!

 

Comparte este contenido:

The Jump Start: Transforming Lives, Creating Value for People

Por: igitallearning.eletsonline.com/09-01-2019

The Jump Start imparts quintessential knowledge and skills to the graduate talent making them employable and organisations future ready and competitive, says Mahesh Iyer, Co-Founder & Curator, The Jump Start, in conversation with Elets News Network (ENN).

The Jump Start is a skill formation and an employability enrichment venture curated by industry professionals who possess extensive experience in the field of human capital formation through talent identification and development, academia affiliations, training and consulting.Please describe briefly about the solutions developed by the organisation to help education institutes?

How does the solutions provided by your organization help in promoting effective learning among students?

The Jump Start team is committed to improve the employability quotient in the society by inducing a skill and value-based learning methodology which is industry-recognised and are aligned to the national occupational Standards prescribed by the MSDe. We believe that the inclusion of Tier 3 and 4 graduate talent and the unemployed workforce to the mainstream will address a larger socio-economic challenge of our country.

Industrial Revolution 4.0 is much talked about term nowadays, how important is the skill and training for students?

Researches revealed that the graduates lack the fundamental skills required by businesses. Further, formal training of employees in basic business frameworks and concepts is relatively missing. It is imperative that we demystify the gap. The missing threads are confidence building, application of concept into practice and the efforts from the institutes to fulfil the requisites for helping students to sustain in this dynamic and volatile job market.

*Fuente: https://digitallearning.eletsonline.com/2019/01/the-jump-start-transforming-lives-creating-value-for-people/

Comparte este contenido:

Education solutions for the growing transformation in technology

By: http://www.itnewsafrica.com/

society lead by technology is rapidly transforming the way the youth use and digest digital transformation, both socially and on an educational level. As part of Acer Africa’s commitment to bring e-learning into the classrooms, together with the University of Johannesburg (UJ) hosted a 12-week technology crash course which was held as part of the university’s Workplace 4.0 Project, enabling students to think digitally, create and develop from their lecture rooms.

The Project

Entitled the FridayClub, these classes encouraged and taught students to code and learn the basics of the 4th Industrial revolution. Every week lecturers, as well as Acer Africa, met to work through various aspects of digital technology, with a specific focus on the Acer CloudProfessor as a teaching device. The students used the Acer CloudProfessor and Gigo kit to build various mechanical robotic items and program them to perform basic functions.

For example: Building a lift, or rack and pinion motor and then using the CloudProfessor to program it to perform a task. Students majoring in the Public sector were given first-hand experience in understanding how sensors and IoT will impact and benefit administration. One student who is currently doing her masters in farming crickets for food security used the CloudProfessor as a prototyping tool and designed a model of a cricket farm that could be controlled through a mobile app to turn the heat on and off as needed.

Glenn du Toit, Acer Africa BYOC Digital Business Development explained, “The lessons focused on transformation and education around what is possible with the standard of technology we have available to us today. We conducted various practical lessons with students which demonstrated Blockly and Javascript as coding languages.” He adds, “The FridayClub at execution was as an experiment for the teachers and tech experts deploying this into the classrooms. Average classes run for 45 minutes up to an hour, so we had to monitor what we were able to achieve in this time and how much could be taught and learned, in order to adapt our execution on a more permanent basis.”

Technoculture – Where the need lies

‘Technoculture’ as described by Dr. Arno Louw, Centre for Academic Technologies Laboratory at the University of Johannesburg (CATLab), is based on a mix of visual, written, and social media data that could be used in innovative ways to find solutions to emerging global problems. The question asked by many educators is whether students are sufficiently equipped to find these solutions and apply a trajectory to the process.

Acer Africa believes that transformation is needed in higher education among staff and students, where technology becomes an equaliser for 21st-century survival in our Afro-technoculture.

Louw explains that “The student’s backpack has been replaced with a smart device − the electronic device which provides the tools for access, teaching, learning, assessment, discovery, communication, leisure, etc. The use of electronic devices also encompasses the ability (skill set) to master and manipulate these devices over and above the digital skills needed to merely access e-content. Consequently, the art of e-learning is here to stay, and has evolved from future aspiration to daily habit.”

Acer CloudProfessor

The reason why the CloudProfessor was deployed as the programming tool for this project is due to the fact that it ticked all the correct boxes needed for the experiment and class structure:

1. Easy to use for beginners

2. Lessons can be made more complicated for learners who have used technology before

3. It’s durable, functional and tough to be used by kids with hard grips

4. The lessons were available and skills appropriate (i.e. easy to understand)

5. A full lesson was accomplished in under 45minutes

“CloudProfessor is aimed at making technology accessible to everyone and moreover educating the current generation on how to code and use sensors and motors to build a digital solution for everyday problems,” explains du Toit.

He adds, “With CloudProfessor, we are able to give everyone the opportunity to see how easy it can be to design the next great innovation by combining actual sensors and motors and then choosing between a variety of programming languages, including JavaScript, as well as Blockly, to get their innovation programmed and working. This provides younger learners with the building and visual interface they need to start innovating in the new Internet of Things era.”

The Future of Education

Education solutions for real-world problems are the future. The education system is the grass root level where these solutions are born and bred in an open learning environment.

“Electronic device manipulation skills, currently required by the workforce industry, entail customised coding and adding accurate moving parts to devices. The combination of these two skills is generally known as robotics. The CAT Lab established in 2017, endeavours to assist students and educators to learn and experiment on basic computer coding. This programming includes basic robotics,” says Louw.

“The biggest takeaway for UJ from the FridayClub was the learning how technology fits into the various careers learners have chosen to pursue and not limiting the education of the 4th Industrial revolution to only the engineering IT faculty and science faculties. The understanding that IoT and digital technology plays a role in every faculty needs to understood fully in order to bring in a new area of learning,” says du Toit.

While the 12-week project has ended, the Acer CloudProfessor and the CAT Lab team aims to extend the FridayClub to the wider community and to enthusiastic school learners in Soweto. Future endeavours for 2018 will include 3D printing, virtual reality (VR), holograms, and augmented reality (AR) in teaching and learning. A CAT Lab training room and open working space are also available for lecturers with WiFi access.

Edited by Daniëlle Kruger

*Fuente: http://www.itnewsafrica.com/2018/08/education-solutions-for-the-growing-transformation-in-technology/

Comparte este contenido:

United Kingdom: Newcastle College principal on the future of education – and his collection of airplanes

United Kingdom/ September 12, 2017/ By Graeme Whitfield/ Source: http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk

Tony Lewin says that learning skills in real-life environments is the key for improving young people’s skills.

urther education is a fast-moving and ever-changing industry driven by experts, as Alastair Gilmour finds out

If there is one lesson that Tony Lewin has learned from his working life, it’s the importance of relating to other people.

The principal of Newcastle College is as comfortable with a digital arts fresher as he is with a maths tutor or the regional director of the CBI, each of whom he meets on a regular basis.

In a conscious effort to see and be seen, he insisted his office should be moved from a tucked-away corner of the huge campus to a more visible, central building.

“It’s about being present as an organisation and in somewhere the size of Newcastle College you have to work hard at being out and about,” says Mr Lewin, who has been principal for two years. “People need to know you relate to them, you get the vibe of the place, you can tell if students are happy, particularly around exam time.

Tony Lewin, Newcastle College
Tony Lewin, Newcastle College (Image: provided by Brian Aitken as publicity handouts for N’cle College)

“We put a lot of effort into understanding students and staff, relating to their environment and their experience.”

Mr Lewin should know; his first job was about as low on a career rung as it gets – a local authority leisure attendant setting up badminton courts and cleaning changing rooms, which he admits he actually enjoyed because it put him in the front line of colleague and customer relations.

He says: “Leisure centres have to be cost-effective and business-orientated as much as you can be in local government, so you have to listen.

“We had a community corporate responsibility and I used to work heavily with local groups and partnerships on projects, which is a cornerstone of what we do now in education.”

With 18,000 students, 1,200 staff and a turnover of £60m, Newcastle College is the biggest division of NCG, one of the largest education and training providers in the country, a grouping that also includes Kidderminster College, Carlisle College, West Lancashire College and its latest acquisition: Lewisham Southwark College in London. NCG has a turnover of £140-£150m, which in anybody’s books is a sizeable operation.

Mr Lewin deliberately chose to apply for a role as head of a division within a group because he realised that was the way education was moving.

Tony Lewin, Newcastle College
Tony Lewin, Newcastle College (Image: Copyright unknown)

He says: “I could see from a career point of view if you have Newcastle College on your CV it pretty much tells you something.”

The headline courses at Newcastle College might be in aeronautical engineering, performance arts, digital technologies and rail engineering, but it offers virtually a full learning alphabet from art and design to youth work. (Doubtless someone will develop a course starting with Z).

Typically, students learn in real working environments on live briefs set by a network of employers, such as the Parsons Building where some £18m has been invested in a hospital set-up with a reception area, three four-bed wards, intensive care unit, paediatric ward and scrub room to train people for working in the care field, nursing, health and palliative care.

“I was aware of what goes on at the Aviation Academy at Newcastle Airport,” says Mr Lewin. “But the first time I walked into this big hangar I couldn’t help being blown away by half-a-dozen small aircraft being taken apart then put back together and ‘by the way, that’s our Boeing 737 down there’.”

The 737, used for cabin crew training and as an avionics laboratory, flew into the airport but will never fly out – nor will a BAE Jetstream 31, Piper Aztec or BAC 1-11 Jet Provost. Students will change wheels and parts and learn all there is to know about jet engines.

“No other college could get into that scale of high-calibre provision,” says MR Lewin. “A lot of our students end up working around the country at Heathrow, Birmingham and Manchester airports. You can study it in an academic way or pick up the spanners and do it practically.

“Similarly with rail infrastructure – the network, the lines and overhead cables. You’ve got to go to Doncaster before you find anything like what we’re doing here. And, we’ve got some fabulous provision around art and music. Cultural development is so important to Newcastle and the North East.

“Digital expansion is a priority area as well as engineering and manufacturing. Where does it get its technicians from? What does the industry need? It’s the same with the pharmaceutical industry and all the more ‘normal’ sectors – hospitality, sport, construction, science – which all have to be taken care of.

“There’s a long established notion that the established route was get good A-Level results, a good degree, then you’ll get a good job. But not now. You can come to Newcastle College as an 18-year-old and do a degree. It’s not that our students are any less able, but they choose to be more vocationally focused.

“What I love about this set-up is that students who leave us are ready to go into work; that’s the difference. You’re not leaving us to then get trained on a job. You’ve had the hands-on experience over the course of the qualification and you now have the license to practice.

“I consider myself very privileged have the job I have. Education is not an industry without feeling or heart, there’s a great connection between you and people, making a difference. Despite it being challenging, it’s very rewarding to see students starting off then leaving later with a bounce in their stride, taking a huge step forward in their lives.

“We’ve given them that confidence which is wonderful to be part of and the magic of that doesn’t disappear.

“Our graphics and design students, for example, get a lot of contact with the world of work because we’ve got to make sure they hit the ground running. We’re constantly looking for employment for them, at what jobs are around, what employers are looking for, not for today and tomorrow but three, four and five years ahead.”

There is no typical working day for Mr Lewin (who equates his college principal role with that of a managing director in industry), it’s more like a typical week. The job is predominantly externally-facing with off-site activities that could be anything from business meetings with local authorities and the Chamber of Commerce to the national focus on education and commitments to the NCG parent group.

He says: “Working within education also brings lot of performance pressure. We’re subject to procedures, league tables and quality reviews by Ofsted. You’ve got professional standards bodies, external validators, and on top of that you’ve got to do your job. But you need all of that.

“I’ll pick up on the challenges and what’s happening and how we position ourselves and bring that back to share. There’s a lot of social engagement, attending dinners and events and getting involved with other industries. I’ve got to be part of Newcastle and the local business community as opposed to just being in education – that’s probably the biggest shift from colleges in the past to colleges now.”

Mr Lewin constantly returns to the theme of teamwork, praising the talents and commitment of lecturers and tutors who completely buy into the difference they are making. It’s an organisation with a multitude of ideas to draw from.

“Working in a world of creative people is so stimulating,” he says. “The problem I have at the moment is matching the salaries of people in the academies to those in industry.”

Newcastle College staff are experts in their own right, having strong relationships with industry, in particular engineering and creativity, and are now doing more work with employers on how they can get the best value out of apprenticeships. The director of engineering is an engineer, he talks to other engineers in engineering language – as do those running the performing and digital departments (to name but two) which builds a strong platform.

This is another area Mr Lewin is particularly keen to exploit. “You can’t just be what you’ve always been, you have to be more flexible,” he says.

“We respond and adapt. In the two years I’ve been here we’ve gone through a bit of a transformation process which was about changing from being an organisation that delivered qualifications to an organisation that prepares people ready for employment.

“The qualification is a means to an end, and it’s about: ‘Can I get a job with this or go on to some higher education?’ We’ve changed the whole college structure with technical and professional qualifications.

Source:

http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/business/business-news/newcastle-college-principal-future-education-13590442

Comparte este contenido: