Showing posts with label Educational. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Educational. Show all posts

Friday, August 3, 2012

Education and its Role in Cambodia

Education and its role in Cambodia.

Education in Cambodia before the Khmer Rouge Regime mirrored the French system. Today, it is six years of primary school (grades 1-6), three years of lower secondary school (grades 7-9), and three years of upper secondary school (grades 10-12), following more of a westernised educational model.

In 1979, after the Pol Pot regime, the Ministry of Education was created, and later restructured in 1998. Today, there is no legislation in place to regulate the new system, and also, only a small budget is allocated to education by the Ministry of Economy and Finance. Do we have a problem here?

According to UNESCO, only 1.6 per cent of Cambodia’s Gross Domestic Product (GNP) is spent on education. The GDP on education in most western countries is anywhere between 5.5 to 6.4 per cent.

In Phnom Penh, I see more Lexus cars than anywhere else in the world, and I hope the money allocated isn’t going to purchasing Lexus cars, the luxury car made by Toyota.

The government still denies the education sector the funding it needs, even though they are aware of the important role that education plays in the development of the country.

The main focus of the education system is on basic literacy.

Having worked in the education sector, and having former colleagues and friends who work in education, we have witnessed unethical acts

by teachers and the corruption in the education system.

The dilemma which many teachers are faced with is whether to cross the line between the ethical code of teaching and trying to survive on a teacher’s low salary.

Their decision is based on survival, and many have resorted to charging their students tuition fees and taking bribes for “passing grades” in examinations.

Also, many spend less time in the classroom as they have additional employment elsewhere to supplement their low teaching salaries.

In addition, the classrooms are under-equipped and lack proper teaching materials due to the shortage of funding. In several cases, much of the equipment and supplies have been stolen by staff members at their institutions.

With these problems facing the education sector, and the school-age population continuing to grow, the government still denies the funding it needs to realise its important role in the development of the country.

Why not pay the teachers a higher salary so they can focus on just one occupation, as a teacher, a much needed role in our society. Implement programs to provide free education to all the children, not just selected individuals or groups.

Countries like Brazil, Greece, Denmark, Argentina, Sri Lanka and Barbados provide free education which is funded through charitable organisations or taxation.

Finally, it is evident that there is a wide gap between the economic classes, with more than half of the population living in poverty in Cambodia.

The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer, and there is a small percentage of the middle class, but it is growing.

Education is the only answer to getting people out of poverty and giving a brighter future for the young generations in Cambodia.

Read more at http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012062256956/National-news/education-and-its-role-in-cambodia.html

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Wednesday, August 1, 2012

Educational Detente Across Taiwan Strait

Educational Détente Across Taiwan Strait.

TAIPEI — Last January, Chao Ying, a student from northeastern China, stepped out of the train station into the rain at Jiufen, a picturesque former gold mining town in northern Taiwan, and saw something that puzzled her.

A politician from the governing Kuomintang party, who had won a legislative seat in Taiwan’s elections the day before, was standing in the back of an open van that was driving up and down the road outside the station, shouting his thanks through a loudspeaker to passers-by.

“At first I didn’t know who this might be, or what exactly he was doing,” said Ms. Chao, 25, who is studying veterinary sciences at National Chung Hsing University in Taichung, in central Taiwan. “I had to ask someone on the street.”

“I thought it was very good to see a politician thanking the people,” she said. “The Taiwanese must be very touched when they see such a thing.”

It was one more eye-opening experience for a mainland Chinese student in Taiwan. Ms. Chao is among more than 1,000 mainlanders who, for the first time, have been permitted to study for academic degrees in Taiwan and have just completed their inaugural academic year.

The government of Taiwan, the self-ruling island over which Beijing claims sovereignty, has been inching toward more amicable relations with the mainland in recent years. The full opening of the island’s universities to students from across the strait last year followed more limited academic exchange programs and the expansion of tourism and direct flights from the Chinese mainland.

The new admissions policy has been hailed as a success by universities and officials in Taiwan. Allowing young people who could eventually rise to influential positions in Communist-ruled China to immerse themselves in Taiwan society, they say, should enhance sympathy for the mainland’s democratic neighbor.

“Many Taiwanese students go to the U.S. and return very pro-American. We want to generate that same kind of effect,” said Ho Jow-fei, director general of higher education in the Ministry of Education. He added, “It is possible that some of the mainland students who come to study here may one day become political leaders.”

Taiwan also sees a partial solution to the problem of maintaining enrollments and standards as a falling birth rate shrinks the pool of applicants at home.

As for the motives of the students from mainland China, several cited an education system modeled on that of the United States that could position them well for a career abroad, but at a more reasonable cost and offered in Mandarin.

Xu Jincheng, 22, of Shanghai, who is studying engineering at Feng Chia University, said that in Taiwan he was learning to think on his feet. At his mainland university, which he did not want to identify for fear of embarrassing his former teachers, the approach was “too narrow and theoretical.”

His tutors in Taiwan, he said, push him to come up with creative solutions to real-life challenges. This was useful, he added, because “in many companies the boss expects employees to solve practical problems.”

The mainland students have grown up hearing their government’s oft-stated position that Taiwan, separately ruled since the end of the Chinese civil war in 1949, rightfully belongs to China and that no means, including military force, can be excluded to achieve eventual reunification.

Still, Joseph Wong, a University of Toronto political science professor, said the students were likely to return home with the message that “these two societies are unlikely to become one.”

“These mainland Chinese students tend to experience Taiwan as a fundamentally different place,” said Mr. Wong, who also teaches at Fudan University in Shanghai and says he visits Taiwan at least twice a year.

One student who has noted sharp contrasts is Zhu Haoqing, a 24-year-old from Hebei Province who is studying for a master’s degree in land management at Feng Chia University in Taichung. 

Read more at https://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/26/world/asia/educational-detente-across-taiwan-strait.html?ref=educationandschools

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Friday, July 20, 2012

Educational Problem Solving

Educational Problem Solving

This article introduces the educational solutions module of the world's most recent personal and professional problem solving site, describing competitive offerings, the customer profile, problem-oriented solutions, target markets, product offerings, and usability features. It concludes that the module is a major contribution to the information superhighway.

Introduction

The aim of this article is to introduce to the world the educational solutions module of the world's most recent personal and professional problem solving site. The article is addressed to those readers who may have an educational problem bogging them and who may therefore be looking for a way out of their predicament. The reader may be a parent, child, or student.

It is a common fact of life that we all have problems and that we are often frustrated or we tend to lash out because of our inability to find accessible and reliable information about our problems. This specialist site fills this need - as our pragmatic friend for solving our educational problems.

To be of the greatest use to people a problem solving site must combine pragmatic discussions of their personal or professional problem with merchant products that provide more detailed information. Typically, the web site will provide free information in the form of news, articles, and advice, which direct the visitor on what to do to solve her problems. Complementing this, the web site will also provide merchant products which discuss in detail how the visitor can go about resolving her problem. This means that the most effective, visitor-oriented problem-solving site will be an information-packed commercial site - and so is the world's most recent personal and professional problem solving site and its specialist sites.

The approach that we have adopted below is to describe competitive offerings, the customer profile, problem-oriented solutions, target markets, product offerings, and usability features.

Competitive Offerings

The following are the top educational sites on the Internet, along with their offerings.

US Department of Education. It defines the US education policy and provides information on financial aid, educational research and statistics, grants and contracts, and teaching and learning resources.

Educational Testing Service. It provides a range of test resources.

FunBrain.com. It provides educational games for K-8 kids.

PrimaryGames.com. It provides fun learning tools and games for kids.

GEM. It provides educational resources such as lesson plans and other teaching and learning resources.

Education World. It provides advice on lesson plans, professional development, and technology integration.

NASA Education Enterprise. It provides educational materials and information relating to space exploration.

Spartacus Educational. It is a British online encyclopedia that focuses on historical topics.

Department for Education and Skills. It is a UK government department site that offers information and advice on various educational and skills topics.

Times Educational Supplement. It offers teaching news, teaching & educational resources, and active forums to help UK teachers.
All these sites are useful in the domains that they cover. Their main limitations are as follows:

1. They tend to cover only a very narrow segment of the educational market.
2. They do not take as their starting point the daily educational needs of the typical family.
3. They lack a problem focus; i.e., they do not formulate the typical learning and educational problems that pupils, students, and parents face on a daily basis.
4. As a result of the preceding point, the solutions offered are not as incisive (i.e. as problem-centred) as they could be.
5. They do not offer merchant products that deepen the visitor's understanding of her problem and of the consequent solutions.

The educational solutions module of the world's most recent personal and professional problem solving site addresses these problems by targeting a multiplicity of market segments, adopting a customer profile that fits the typical education-pursuing family, considering the specific needs or problems that this family may face, offering incisive (problem-centred) solutions to the various problems, and offering a range of merchant products that deepen the visitor's appreciation of her problems and of the solutions that are applicable to them.

Customer Profile

The customer profile or target visitor characteristics of the educational solutions module is the same as for all specialist sites of the world's most recent personal and professional problem solving site. The site has been designed to meet the needs of visitors who have an educational problem bogging them. It is designed for both males and females, even though it is often convenient to refer to just one sex when writing.

This visitor uses search engines to research information about her personal or professional problem, with the intention of finding solutions to it. The visitor is serious about solving her problem and is therefore willing to buy products that help her to achieve her mission, provided that she can find reliable and honest information about relevant products so that she can make an informed decision about which ones to acquire. This information will help her to apply her finances economically, and hence avoid wasting money.

The visitor will want a money-back guarantee so that if a product does not live up to expectations or if she were misled into buying a product she can get a refund. Such a guarantee absolves her of purchase risks.

The visitor is intelligent (without necessarily being a genius), educated (without necessarily being a PhD), computer literate (without necessarily being a computer guru), and money-minded (without necessarily being a freebie hunter or an unemployed person). This of course does not mean that freebie hunters or unemployed persons cannot gain a thing from the site. To the contrary, there is a great deal of free information on the site. Just that it is hard to see how anyone can gain the full benefits of the site without buying products.

The visitor wants high quality information products (usually in digital form) and wants to pay the cheapest price for these (without paying so much emphasis on price that she compromises quality). The visitor also wants free bonus offers that are attached to the purchased goods.

The visitor is self-reliant and can cope on her own by reading, digesting, and applying advice about her problem until she solves it or discovers that she needs help from a professional, at which point her acquired knowledge will help her to reduce her consulting fees. As a result of the knowledge gained, the visitor will be able to assess consultants in order to avoid incompetent or fraudulent ones.

Problem-Centred Solutions

Our free solutions are organised in the form of pragmatic articles that are written by top experts. Each article addresses a specific daily problem, but does not go into detail. It explains the problem and tells the visitor what she must do to solve her problem. However, it does not tell the visitor how she must solve it - this is too much for an article. To find out about the how, the visitor must buy a product (usually an e-book or e-book set) that goes into greater depth.

The set of educational articles that we have chosen, to provide initial solution to a visitor's problem are as follows:

Signs of a Gifted Child - Informs parents on how to identify whether or not their children are gifted.

Essential Parenting Lessons for Enriching Your Child's Education - Teaches parents how to enhance their child's education.

Using Positive Affirmations to Be a Better Student - Teaches students how to use positive affirmations to improve their performance.

They Are Just Afraid of Writing - Teaches writing skills to students

How Can Parents Encourage Their Children to Read? - Shows parents how they can improve their children's reading skills.

Test Preparation Tutoring - Discusses the topic of tutoring students to prepare for tests or exams.

Test Taking Strategies - Discusses various strategies for taking and passing tests or exams

Playing and Winning the Scholarship Game - Describes how to win scholarships.

How to Get a Scholarship to a UK University - Describes how to win scholarships to a UK university.

Saving Money for College - Instructs students on how they can save money in preparation for college.

Student Loans: When Your Educational Dreams Can't Compete with the Cost - Explains to students the benefits of a student loan.

Education Loans Can Fund a Higher Degree to Boost Your Career - Also explains to students the benefits of a student loan.

The Secret to US Department of Education Loans - Teaches students how to get a US DoE loan to finance their higher education.

Student Loan Consolidation - Save Money, Pay Less, Spend More - Explains to graduates how to make use of loan consolidation to reduce their student loan repayments.

Higher Education: Finding the Right College for You - Explains to students how to find the right college or university for their higher education studies.

Mobile Learning - An Alternative Worth Considering - Explains the concept of mobile learning and its place in education.

Online Degrees - Is Online Education Right for You? - Analyses the merits of online learning as compared to traditional learning.

An Online College Education Overview - Reviews the whole concept of online learning.

Finding the Right Quotation for Your Paper or Speech Online - Shows writers and speakers how to find the right quotation to use in their writings or speeches.

Collaboration: An Important Leadership Development Skill - Explores the useful concept of collaboration and its role in leadership development.

At the end of each article is a list of merchant products that supplement the article's content. A link is also included for accessing the educational product catalogue.

Target Markets and Product Offerings

Now let us turn to the target markets and their associated product offerings. We have positioned the segments to address the various needs of a visitor over a period of time, and at any given time a customer may belong to one or more of the market segments. There are three general classes of products offered: ClickBank products, Google products, and eBay products. Google and eBay products are presented on each page of the site. ClickBank products are grouped into product categories that match the target markets. These categories and their markets are as follows.

Children and Parenting. This consists of visitors who want parenting solutions for improving their children's upbringing. Their needs are met through the Children and Parenting section of the educational product catalogue.

Difficult Admissions. This consists of visitors who want to learn how to get admission into top universities. Their needs are met through the Difficult Admissions section of the educational product catalogue.

Esoteric Needs. This consists of visitors with unusual needs. Their needs are met through the Esoteric Needs section of the educational product catalogue.

Financial Aid. This consists of visitors looking for scholarships, grants, or loans. Their needs are met through the Financial Aid section of the educational product catalogue.

Leadership Skills. This consists of visitors looking to develop their leadership skills. Their needs are met through the Leadership Skills section of the educational product catalogue.

Learning. This consists of visitors who want to improve their learning ability. Their needs are met through the Learning section of the educational product catalogue.

Mental Speed. This consists of visitors who want to explode their mental speed. Their needs are met through the Mental Speed section of the educational product catalogue.

Positive Affirmations. This consists of visitors who want to transform their negative dispositions into a positive mindset in order to improve their performance. Their needs are met through the Positive Affirmations section of the educational product catalogue.

Speaking. This consists of visitors looking to improve their speaking skills. Their needs are met through the Speaking section of the educational product catalogue.

Tests and Exams. This consists of visitors looking to master exam technique. Their needs are met through the Tests and Exams section of the educational product catalogue.

Writing. This consists of visitors looking to improve their writing skills. Their needs are met through the Writing section of the educational product catalogue.

Usability Considerations

Usability has been enhanced to make it easy for the visitor to find solutions to her problem, by following these steps:

1. The first thing the visitor sees are a set of articles whose titles represent the specific problem area they address. The articles are accessed from the Educational Problem Solving menu of the navigation bar to the left of the screen or from the Educational Problem Solving main page. By scanning these articles the visitor can identify whether or not her problem is covered. If not the visitor can check the educational product catalogue through the Product Catalogues menu of the same navigation bar, to see whether a product exists that answers her query. If she finds nothing she knows that her problem is not addressed. She can proceed to the Related Sites pages, which are accessible from the left navigation bar.

2. If the visitor finds an article that addresses her problem then she can begin to explore that; at the end of the article she will find products that discuss her problem more deeply. She can also access the educational product catalogue through an article page.

Conclusion

This article has introduced the educational solutions module of the world's most recent personal and professional problem solving site. The article has examined competitive offerings, the target customer profile, problem-oriented solutions, target markets, product offerings, and usability considerations. It concludes that the module is a major contribution to the information superhighway.

A A Agbormbai is the editor and webmaster of Personal and Professional Problem Solving - a web site that fills a vacuum on the Web. He has a PhD from Imperial College London and enjoys an interdisciplinary upbringing having worked or studied in aerospace engineering, information systems development, and management. The educational solutions module is one of many specialist sites of Personal and Professional Problem Solving.

Read more at http://ezinearticles.com/?Educational-Problem-Solving&id=490041

http://www.languagecorpsasia.com

Sunday, March 18, 2012

Educational Tablet To Be Made in Thailand

Educational Tablet To Be Made in Thailand.

Getting closer to becoming a reality, 800,000 tablets at 3,000 baht each could jumpstart Thai-language content such as ebooks and learning games.

Forth Corporation has introduced the first Thai-made educational tablet computer priced at 3,000 baht in a bid to join the government's 4-billion-baht One Tablet per Child programme.

Mr Sawat says controls on the tablet help ensure only appropriate content can be used.

The SET-listed electronic equipment manufacturer spent three months redesigning its controller board to integrate it with a base to reduce size and bring the cost down from 5,000 baht earlier, said R&D director Sawat Erbchokchai.

As well, he said, the fact that the government wants as many as 800,000 tablets means the company can achieve economies of scale to keep costs low.

"We're confident our current tablet price could easily compete with those of Chinese manufacturers, while our production capacity could serve the government's demand," he said.

The tablet programme was one of the high-profile election promises of the Pheu Thai Party. Responding to critics who said the cost would be too high, party strategists said they believed they could source cheap equipment from China.

Forth is in talks with advisers to the Education Minister and local software companies about cooperation on educational content development.

Featuring a 7-inch display and both a pen- and touch-based interface, Forth's tablets enable students to automatically receive educational content after they register their personal data and log in - without the need for downloads.

The management software enables screening of content and applications supplied to students to make sure it is appropriate. "This will facilitate primary school pupils, considered too young to download applications by themselves.

Mr Sawat said it was not easy in the past for Thai companies to make tablets, given small local demand. However, the school tablet project opens the doors to local IT and technology firms.

"If the government promotes greater use of local content and opens more opportunity for local IT and telecom firms to participate in state bidding projects, the ultimate result will be a new ecosystem and a new momentum for the industry," he said.

Mr Sawat said that if Forth's tablets proved successful, it would attract other industries to commercially adopt the first Thai-made products. As a result, he said, both hardware makers and local application developers would benefit.

Read more at http://www.bangkokpost.com/learning/learning-from-news/256904/educational-tablet-made-in-thailand

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Friday, January 27, 2012

Theories and Models of Learning for Educational Research and Practice

Theories and Models of Learning for Educational Research and Practice.
This knowledge base features learning theories that address how people learn. A resource useful for scholars of various fields such as educational psychology, instructional design, and human-computer interaction. Below is the index of learning theories, grouped in somewhat arbitrary categories. Note that this website is an iterative project and these entries are a work in progress; please leave comments with suggestions, corrections, and additional references.

We need writers!  Please contribute new entries or revisions to this knowledge base.  Email your contribution to: info [at] learning-theories.com.
Paradigms:
    Behaviorism
    Cognitivism
    Constructivism
    Design-Based
    Humanism

Behaviorist Theories:
    Behaviorism Overview
    Classical Conditioning (Pavlov)
    GOMS Model (Card, Moran, and Newell)
    Operant Conditioning (Skinner)
    Social Learning Theory (Bandura)

Cognitivist Theories:
    Cognitivism Overview
    Assimilation Theory (Ausubel)
    Attribution Theory (Weiner)
    Cognitive Load Theory (Sweller)
    Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning (Mayer)
    Component Display Theory
    Elaboration Theory (Reigeluth)
    Gestalt Psychology (Tolman)
    Mental Models (Johnson-Laird)
    Schema Theory
    Stage Theory of Cognitive Development (Piaget)

Constructivist, Social, and Situational Theories:
    Constructivism Overview
    Case-Based Learning
    Cognitive Apprenticeship (Collins et al.)
    Communities of Practice (Lave and Wenger)
    Discovery Learning (Bruner)
    Goal Based Scenarios
    Social Development Theory (Vygtosky)
    Problem-Based Learning (PBL)
    Situated Learning (Lave)

Motivational and Humanist Theories:
    Humanism Overview
    ARCS Model of Motivational Design (Keller)
    Experiential Learning (Kolb)
    Facilitative Teaching (Rogers)
    Invitational Learning (Purkey)
    Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs (Maslow)

Design Theories and Models (Prescriptive):
    Design-Based Research Overview
    ADDIE Model of Instructional Design
    ARCS Model of Motivational Design (Keller)
    Elaboration Theory (Reigeluth)

Descriptive and Meta Theories:
    Activity Theory (Vygotsky, Leont’ev, Luria, Engstrom, etc.)
    Actor-Network Theory (Latour, Callon)
    Distributed Cognition (Hutchins)

Identity Theories:
    Erikson’s Stages of Development (Erikson)
    Identity Status Theory (Marcia)
    Self-Theories: Entity and Incremental Theory (Dweck)

Miscellaneous Learning Theories and Models:
    Affordance Theory (Gibson)
    Multiple Intelligences Theory (Gardner)

Read more at http://www.learning-theories.com

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Tuesday, November 29, 2011

China TEFL TESOL Education Alliance

China Education Alliance, Inc. Introduces Newly Developed Online Educational Game 'Fortune Island'.
 
HARBIN, China, Jan. 7 /Xinhua-PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- China Education Alliance, Inc. (OTC Bulletin Board: CEUA) ("China Education Alliance" or "the Company"), a leading distributor of educational resources, offering high - quality programs and training both through online networks and an on-site training center in China, today announced the introduction of a newly developed online educational game "Fortune Island," which was a game platform first recommended by the "National Educational Game Research Base" by the Ministry of Education of China.

The "National Educational Game Research Base" is the most authoritative educational strategic collaboration entity developed by the Ministry of Education of China, while "Fortune Island"..

Read more at http://www.reuters.com/article/2008/01/07/idUS107284+07Jan-2008+PRN20080107

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