Usman Ali

Two Halifax, UK teenagers have been chosen to report on key global issues to their peers for the next six months, as part of a youth reporters project.

Calderdale Youth Parliament member Usman Ali, 16, and Denise Donnelly, who is a student at Calderdale College, have been selected alongside 25 other young people from all over the UK to bring a local perspective on key global issues for the next six months, thanks to funding from UKaid from the Department for International Development (DFID).

Youth Reporters: DFID

Usman said: “With the current global economic crisis, the spotlight can effortlessly be taken off international development. However, I believe as a young person I can raise awareness across the UK as to why international development is vital.”

Denise added: “It will give me an insight into a possible career in journalism and give me the chance to have my voice heard, as well as giving other young people a chance to air their views.”

Phones, netbooks and iPods are finding a place in the curriculum and expanding student access to technology.

Fifth-graders at Chormann Elementary School in the Southgate (Mich.) Community Schools are in their second year of using iPods. This year, they are discussing the novel Coraline with Peers in Australia, England and Singapore.

Technology has finally progressed to where mobile devices are cheap enough and powerful enough to use,” observes Elliot Soloway, a professor at the University of Michigan and at that school’s Center for Highly Interactive Computing in Education. Soloway, who believes that cell phones are the true one-to-one computer option for schools, is also co-developer of GoKnow, a mobile learning environment that runs educational software on handheld computers.

At West Elementary School in the St. Marys (Ohio) City Schools, District Technology Coordinator Kyle Menchhofer helps fifth-graders use cell phones to learn vocabulary terms and definitions in social studies.

In other schools they also take quizzes and tests and store their work in an “e-locker,” from which they can transfer files to other devices such as laptops or desktop computers at home. Teachers can use management tools to record and monitor student progress and time spent on task.

These people are quite interesting:

MobileYouth researches and consults on youth marketing and mobile culture. Graham Brown and Josh Dhaliwal formed mobileYouth in 2001. They publish regular youth marketing and mobile culture research as well as share insights through online presentations,research videos, radio show and public speaking.

Feb Week 2

• Bahrain (1 space left)
• Dubai (fully booked)
• Delhi/Mumbai (1 space left)
• Kuala Lumpur (1 space left)

Feb Week 3

• Jakarta
• Singapore (1 space left)
• Hong Kong
• Taipei
• Shanghai

Feb Week 4

• Tokyo (fully booked)

Mar Week 1

• Seattle (1 space left)
• San Francisco
• New York
• Toronto

mobileYouth website click here

by Joshua – Paris Apple Store. Ridunkulously Cool

For all of us who are Apple fans, this is another cool first. Stores open in different countries- iPhone goes live in China this week. Soon there will be an ibookstore, although I like to carry a book. This is cool.

New art – meets old:

Thousands flocked to Carrousel du Louvre on Saturday, the scene of France’s first Apple Store opening.

Beneath the Louvre Museum in Paris one can find a host of high-end shops and eateries and can now also find France’s first Apple store. Saturday saw the store’s opening, and thousands were on hand to peruse Apple’s current products – take advantage of the Genius Bar’s knowledgeable staff.

The store “shares several features of the more spectacular Apple stores in the chain – views for visitors.” Lower-level visitors have views of the spiral-glass staircase and can peer through the 30-foot tall window to the outside which is dominated by the inverted glass pyramid unique to the Carrousel du Louvre mall.

During a press briefing at the new location, Apple executives noted that France will see the fastest rate of new store openings of any other country to date. The Montpellier store will open Nov. 14 and in 2010 a store near the Opera Ganier.

rise of the technology class apple paris

I read this online a few days ago. Does the world think that we want technology everywhere? Students will have to pay for devices to save schools money. I have my mobile, I have my laptop.

When are we changing the name of this blog to ETHICAL CONTRIBUTORS?

Cushing Academy is the very model of a New England boarding school. Clock tower? Check. Maples and meandering footpaths? Check. Flags representing the 193 home countries of its alumni? Check.

But in the past few years, the old library was in danger of becoming a relic. Its 20,000-book collection was barely used, administrators say. Spot checks last year found that, on some days, fewer than 30 books, or about .15%, circulated. And it was becoming rather lonely down there.

So the venerable boarding school west of Boston — the first in the USA to admit both boys and girls — last summer undertook another first: It began getting rid of most of the library’s books. In their place: a fully digital collection.

One student had to say:

Asher Chase, 16, a junior, says anyone who thinks digital books are the future should read a digital book. He remembers his English class last year being assigned Charles Dickens‘ A Christmas Carol on their laptops.

Taking notes on the text? Forget it. “It was terrible: ‘Shade, file, edit, highlight.’ We were like, ‘Wow, reading books on computers is awful.’ “

Here is the full article in the US paper.

I hope we don’t have to use the Kindle.

Social networking upstart Twitter has made the jump to academia’s hallowed halls, with ‘tweets’ made compulsory writing for would-be journalists at Griffith University.

“Some students’ tweets are not as in depth as you might like. But I don’t know if getting them to write an essay is any more beneficial,” said Jacqui Ewart, senior lecturer at the university.

Twitter microblogs have become an online phenomenon with users sending ‘tweets’ of up to 140 characters, or just a few words, to increasing numbers of ‘followers’.

Twitter is used more frequently by politicians, including Australia’s bookish Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, who has asked followers to recommend movie choices and this week ‘tweeted’ about his visit to a rural bakery.

Students were using twitter as “an exercise in self-reflection,” Ewart said, citing increasing demand from employers for people to use social networking tools.

“Quite surprisingly, a lot of students didn’t know what Twitter was. There were a couple of really vocal students who were saying they couldn’t believe we were using it and thought it was a waste of time,” Ewart said.

Prepare for school in the US, this list search of  best websites for students

Site names are linked, just click.

FreeTranslation

Sprechen Sie Deutsch? Perfect for language studies, this handy Web site automatically converts text from one language into another, such as English to Simplified Chinese or French to English. Simply type and paste up to 10,000 characters (about 1,800 words) into the search window and then select the desired language. Alternatively, you can cut and paste a Web URL to convert the entire site.

HowStuffWorks

Ever wanted to know why earthquakes happen? How CD burners work? What the sun is made of? These questions, and a large amount of others related to computers/electronics, automobiles, science, entertainment, and people, are all answered at this award-winning Web site. Simply type a query into the search window or peruse the topics by category. Extras include free newsletters, surveys, and printable versions of all answers.

Fact Monster

This site features an almanac, atlas, dictionary and encyclopedia made especially for kids, as well as handy search engine and layout designed for easy fact-finding. Check out fun features such as Biographies of the Presidents, the Geography Hall of Fame, and the Tallest Buildings Slideshow.

Download.com

Consider Download.com the ultimate file repository that links to literally tens of thousands of downloadable free or shareware programs. This includes utilities for Windows, Macintosh, and Linux, Internet tools, desktop dictionaries and language translators, Pocket PC and Palm applications, and of course, computer games. Visitors can search by typing in a keyword or by perusing the many sections.

Refdesk

Since 1995, Refdesk.com, which stands for “reference desk,” has served as a one-click springboard to many of the Web’s top dictionaries, encyclopedias, calculators, atlases, news headlines, and search engines. The site also includes a handy “homework helper” section that provides help in all subjects to students in every grade.

MSN Encarta

The free MSN Encarta site features more than 4,500 articles pooled from Microsoft Encarta, the award-winning electronic reference library, and comes with dictionaries, maps, fast facts, interactive quizzes, handy homework tools, and more.

Shakespeare Online

This Web site can be filed in the “where was this when I was a kid?” category. On the aptly named Shakespeare Online site, visitors can read every play or poem from the world’s most celebrated writer and, more importantly, make some sense of his works with free analysis, Old English language translations, and famous quotes.

Novelguide.com

The Web’s answer to those black- and yellow-striped Cliff Notes is Novelguide.com, a reliable and free source for literary analysis of classic and contemporary books such as Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn and Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s Notes from the Underground. The site offers character profiles, metaphor and theme analysis, and author biographies.

Math.com

This site provides help in a number of mathematics-related subjects, including basic grade-school math, calculus, algebra, geometry, trigonometry, and statistics. Practice exercises are automatically graded, plus this free site also features a glossary, calculators, homework tips, math games, and lesson plans for teachers.

Science Made Simple

Science classes—including the ubiquitous science project—aren’t as easy for some to grasp as for others. At Science Made Simple, kids of all ages can get detailed answers to many of science’s questions, read current news articles related to science, get ideas on school projects, and take advantage of unit conversion tables. Users can also find out if their school’s textbooks pass the test.

ALL THE LINKS TO THESE SITES ARE IN THE SITE NAMES, JUST CLICK ONE TIME.

Article written by Marc Saltzman and adapted from an original piece from Microsoft Home Magazine.

For more reasons that I can tell you I AM A MAC.

What’s the big deal with apps on other phones? or Maps? I have GOOGLE on my iPhone. I can’t imagine having anything but my iphone. It’s become my everything. Everyone should just give it up for a few years. Oh, can’t wait for the Apple Book Store!

The number of would-be students who failed to get a university place was up 30% on last year in the UK.

Statistics from the UK university admissions service, showed that 141,118 applicants did not find a place this year — up from 109,103 in 2008 — after a cap was placed on admissions. Why?

A further 175,000 students started university without loans or grants after technical problems at the Student Loans Company. (in the UK)

Parents have demanded that the Government intervene.

“Ministers must now step in to ensure that the management of the loan situation are held to account for a fiasco that has left hundreds of thousands affected by late payments, lost documentation and a miserable start to their first term at university.” (sounds just like the US)

Carolyn Basham’s daughter is thousands of pounds in debt just weeks after starting university in London because of the delays to her loan payments. She applied before the deadline but has been unable to make contact with the loans company because of constantly busy phone lines.

apple facebook technology class

Found this useful. It’s the Facebook forum for students who need help with their mac products. Not withstanding, seems an intuitive place for us to learn. Cheers. Aruna

http://www.facebook.com/applestudents

apple facebook students technology

UIST 2009 | STUDENT INNOVATION CONTEST

This is cool students of the world! The tech and design geeks at SIGCHI and SIGGRAPH sponsor this contest.

UIST (User Interface Software and Technology) is cool forum and contest for innovations in the software and technology of human-computer interfaces. It’s about computer-human interaction and computer graphics, UIST brings together researchers and brainiacs from the world that include traditional graphical & web user interfaces, tangible & ubiquitous computing, virtual & augmented reality, multimedia, new input & output devices etc. It’s the cool place to be… and the winners this year from the student contest will be announced October 9th.

Winners announced here Oct 9: http://www.acm.org/uist/uist2009/call/contest.html

Here is an entry. This is cool. Instead of the keyboard working from digging your finger in a letter key, it has touch sensitive response. Fun my friends fun.

In Spain, education is compulsory until the age of 16. If the student doesn’t go to school, his parents can go to the jail.

All students between 3 and 16 years old go to school.

In Spain, 4 different languages are spoken (Català, Galego, Euskara and Castellano or Español (Spanish).with many dialects.

Spain is organized like the USA. There are 17 communities and two autonomic cities. Not all the communities recive the same money, and some communities are more rich than others. The state is giving 11 million euros to spend in education and health service.
In 2020 politicians say that all the schools will be fully modernized, with one computer for every student.

One thing more: The Obama reform will be very good for people in the USA, I think that people who say that reform will be bad are ignorant.

In Spain we only pay for medicines that doctors don’t give us in the hospital, but the prices of the medicines are inexpensive. (20 cent.€). Vaccines are free.

Almost everything is free. But there are lot of people in hospitals. Many people go to hospitals because they are bored and they invent a disease.

Educational progress in India?

INDIA : Some eight million children in India between the ages of 6 and 14 are not enrolled in schools.

According to the International Labour Organisation (ILO), there are nearly 165 million child labourers in India. They mostly work as rag pickers and earn about half a dollar a day. They come from large families who are too poor to send them to school.

Education is a distant dream that they share with nearly 40 per cent of India’s illiterate population. “Child labour issue is very serious in India. Even on the streets of Delhi or on the crossings of Delhi, you find children either selling books or magazines, or simply begging. The government’s response to this has been very poor.

While the government has now made education a right of all children till the age of 14, getting the kids to school is a tough task.

But there are some innovative ideas.

A scheme called “Adopt A Girl” is helping to boost the female literacy rate.

Under this plan girls living in slums are given free textbooks, stationery and a school bag. They also get mentors who personally ensure that the girls stay in school.

“If common people fund the education of a single child, it’s no more than US$6 a year. Since we started ‘Adopt A Girl,’ the education of 20,000 girls has been funded,” said Brijmohan Agarwal, Education Minister for Chhatisgarh state. Other organisations are hoping to attract children to attend school by changing the syllabus.

Many children in India have to walk miles to reach a school. Sometimes there are not enough teachers, and schools are just dilapidated shacks.

India spends less on education than countries such as China, Vietnam and Cuba.

Well, I am studying soon in the United States. Here is my observation of driving habits around the world. No technology can help these poor souls with their driving.

Is there no technology that CAN help them with their eyesight? I will be driving a Toyota Prius. I think I can do a better job.

I see most of these pictures are from outside the US, but I am told US drivers do their damage on the highways. I look forward to GPS in the States, driving from coast to coast and enjoying a violent free ride. See the pictures below.

You can also go to this link: See more cool pics.

"I beat you"

A student that will participate on this blog next semester sent this to us. A quick guide to respect followers, fans and friends as some convert to customers. Many of the students already have flourishing online businesses. Interesting…

10 commandments to pass on when deciding on social media strategy by Bill Boorman

1. Before you do anything determine that you have products or services you can sell on-line. Without something to sell, it will be nothing but a distraction.
2. Set up “destination points.” All your time invested in areas like twitter need to be leading somewhere as a point of reference. I recommend a linked in profile completed to 100% and a web site or community to draw customers in.
3. Blog every week somewhere. I favour a mix of your own blog and guest blogging in your market place. This way you not only reach your own followers but the followers of others, some of whom will choose to follow you also.
4. Comment often particularly on your clients blogs. Not just “I thought that was great!” add something to the discussion and include your contact details. The more often you comment, the more followers you will attract.
5. Followers doesn’t equal customers. There are 4 types of followers: 1)Your target market 2)Influencers who won’t or can’t buy from you but will spread your message 3)Your competitors that are keeping an eye 4)Collectors who are motivated by building giant lists of no relevance (more ego than value in my view.)  Identify the first two and concentrate your conversations with these groups.
6. Put a person on the end. People communicate (engage) not robots. In the instant society you need an instant answer or a question as well as original responses. Would you rather talk to a receptionist or an automated response when you call a supplier? The same applies in SM.
7. Be prepared to help others. Get to know what your followers do and introduce them when a need arises, as well as offering your own help where you can. This builds reputation, and in turn engagement.
8. Blend your message. You need to include video, audio and written word to communicate your message. Followers will have their own preference, give them their own choice.
9. Have a personal conversation as soon as possible. Look to have personal contact at every opportunity moving from e-mail to face mail. Conversation personalizes the relationship and enables you to connect.
10. Review your strategy, measure the time you’re spending against the return you want. Without review you will get lost. Don’t expect a quick return; it takes about 6 months before you will notice real wins. The investment is worth it as long as you followed step 1!

maoam

Moam candie: It’s just my opinion. Why is this a big deal? In the news today. Oh boy.

Seems there is fear in the world. A German company has these cute little characters having fun and playful on their package. So, some dad in the UK made a big stink about his kids being exposed to these pictures.

Why is this so important to us? I suppose social interaction on blogs give super voice for small amount of people who don’t otherwise, respectfully. We still read newspapers in India. I don’t think anyone would care about this story.

The package is sassy.

The big story click here

maoam

We are keeping these posts relevant to tweens as we witness the evolution of a highly intelligent young generation. There are no subject filters here. There are basic rules of engagement and the posts generally unedited, except for non-english speaking students who use Google to translate. Filtering basic educational information away from young people is widely debated.

How will this generation (12-17 roughly) move through the next decade? As committed to ethical behavior as the current generation is demonstrating? Are young voters currently passively speaking out or confident to speak up? The difference is between active or passive. Is access just a utility? I think not. It’s enabled empowered truth, a voice that didn’t have opportunity for audience just a decade or so ago? For the young people who question why their passion for truth is being discounted, this blog offers just another voice to them. They are fully aware (with school and parental oversight) that Rise of the Technology Class is also collecting their words as data.

time-young-voters

Academic leaders are committed to understanding how the interactive engagement changes the lives of families, young people and those who are educating students while away from home.

Henry Jenkins, formally of MIT, now USC, is the “Marshall Mcluhan” of modern communication. Marshall would be proud to see Henry’s work today. The debate continues.

http://www.henryjenkins.org/

An electronic book offers a multitude of possibilities. It doesn’t weigh very much, small and can store lots of digital books – representing a huge saving of space. But reading in front of a screen is not good for my eyes, I get very tired and my eyes really do hurt. I prefer paper books which are more comfortable when you are reading, and I feel the weight of the book in my hands.

An advert depicting Israeli soldiers playing football with Palestinians has been criticized for making light of the occupation:

So this was on YouTube. How many people under the age of 18 read the newspaper?

Huh? Am I wrong?

Short video clip is :30.

Professor Henry Jenkins of USC, on filtering not helping learning ecology.

Insight why schools often cut themselves off from the learning ecology. Students don’t have access.

The longer interview is at:

It is very apparent how much hype there is to view news about social networking in the western press, both online and in print/tele. I don’t get it. The world revolves around how much tweeting is done in the US? I respectfully say, Please!? I adored the story of the 15 year old boy in the UK who said twitter is for old people. How wonderful that the UK press picked up a comment not press-released by some old man in a leather chair.

Here is from the article. Read it. So funny.

“Today he is the talk of Tokyo, Wall Street and the City. Fund managers, CEOs and analysts are poring over his report, How Teenagers Consume Media, which he wrote last week while on work experience at Morgan Stanley.

In it he laid out the world according to the teenager: a confusing place where the PC is a radio, the games console is a telephone, the mobile telephone is a stereo and text-message machine, the DVDs are pirate copies and no one uses Twitter.”

It is becoming impressively easy to meet new people through the Internet. The advantages are many: to meet people without leaving home, without shame involves face to face, and if you don’t like the person simply delete it from your contact list.

Most of the world lies on the Internet, and it is difficult to know whether such a person really exists, or ‘an invention.’ To avoid the deception on the web, there are so-called official websites that charge for maintaining the account and assuming to know that people are real.

Today there are millions of people around the world, which is easier to link (meet somebody) on the ONLINE. I personally think it’s much better to FACE  TO FACE, more romantic and sincere.

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

Despite advances in technology that make recording and spreading music easier, the music industry continues to face hard times. So many people use peer-to-peer sharing software like Limewire to download music for free, while legal downloads on iTunes and Rhapsody fight for fees along with music labels. CD sales have almost gone the way of the cassette tape.

The artists are the ones who suffer getting less money from their recording as the record companies make less profit. Seems now that music labels are taking far less risk by not signing many new artists and cutting established artists not doing well. What irony since it’s so easy for artists to buy a computer and inexpensive recording equipment for their homes… but they can’t get distribution.

There are exceptions, but music sites won’t make money on unknown artists. I think less young people will choose music as a career and the selection of new music will be significantly less. There may even come a time when the only way to hear new music is to go see it live.

Ghost, is a new virtual operating system that works from servers on the Internet. Instead of having the applications stored in the computer, G.ho.st users access them from any network in the world.

System Global Hosted Operating offers a free Virtual Computer complete Internet-based, including a desktop, personal files and applications from any browser, anywhere. G.ho.st user set-up comes with 15GB of file storage free. In the future they will provide additional capacity.

This system is one of the many entrants into virtual software going up against Google’s “Chrome” virtual browser.

This clock doesn’t have hands or numbers, but is illuminated to indicate the exact time…but only every five minutes!

When I think about it, I am very surprised that we have not made greater advances yet in space travel. In the middle of the 20th century things were moving much more quickly, it seems. Kennedy said that we would have someone on the moon before the 1960’s were up, and we did! But since then, the excitement has seemed to fade away a little. I know we have sent robots to Mars, but where is the technology to send people? Has it not been discovered yet, or is there just not enough interest anymore to fund it? I think many people’s eyes have turned away from the skies in the past few decades, as domestic and international issues have continued to weigh us down.

Will life ever be like it is in 2001: A Space Odyssey. Or better yet, like this?

Where is all the futuristic technology we’ve been promised by the cartoon “The Jetsons” and movies like Gattaca (1997) and Metropolis (1927)? The closest things I’ve seen have been those segways that tourists ride around on in downtown Chicago. Where are all the hovercrafts on the streets instead of cars? The helpful robots (though not the ones that surpass their owner’s intelligence and turn on them)?

Segway

Three years ago when started my sophomore year of High School, I became completely obsessed with the BBC World news on public radio. As lame as it sounds, listening to another point of view other than the flashy-American news is very interesting.  So now, I stay awake ’till three o’clock in the morning waiting for London’s eight o’clock news.

When I finally got cable TV, I started watching the BBC America show called ‘Top Gear.’ Immediately, I was laughing my head off just looking at them doing very stupid things with cars, such as turning them into boats! Imagine three middle aged men trying to swim while their boats turned upside down in a lake, in the middle of winter.

Compare the television from Europe to the options we have on the US. When you have cable, you have too many channels that are only dedicated to news coverage, like CNN, Headline CNN, CNNFN (is that still around?) CNBC, MSNBC, FOX News, Court TV, nightly ABC, NBC, FOX, CBS…and all that jazz. And then, some networks like E! and Comedy Central that are really just for very special sensational tastes, if I may call it that. I like dramatic programing. Storytelling. In the US there are really rare series, like ‘Mad Men,’ with killer dialogue and story lines. The most surprising fact is that those killer series are being cancelled! Not enough people watch them, so they go out the back door.

What do you want to watch? I say variety and diversity… some call it a really old wooden ship. (old school) In order to see great programs in the US that actually tell stories you have to pay extra for the avant-garde programming on Showtime and HBO.

I found an article about a man who has been flying an American flag upside down, at his residence in Wisconsin. He has been doing this because he is likely to file bankruptcy because his village will not grant his restaurant a liquor licence after he has spent $200,000 renovating the place.

On the 4th of July, this year, police took the flag down because it was upsetting some of the townspeople. The village president said, “If he wants to protest, let him protest but find a different way to do it.”

To me that seems like a violation of the 1st amendment of the U.S. Constitution (freedom of speech). Someone once told me that when we stop hearing what we don’t want to hear then we have some serious problems. In a nation built on protest and revolution, I think flying an American flag upside down on America’s birthday is one of the most American things to do.

Here’s a link to the article

Nanometer. Remember that word! Integrated systems dramatically reduce energy consumption and size. At the end of the year Nano-chips will go on sale – The external graphics card will be included within the new processors. The computer on a chip with the processor, graphics and management of the integrated memory. All in one.

Won’t be a dream because it will have enough space to hold all the data you want. We enter the era of systems fully integrated with small size, low cost, minimal power consumption and maximum performance, which will in turn design products truly autonomous, small, powerful and cheap.