September 18, 2015:
Computers 'do not improve' pupil results, says OECD
By Sean Coughlan Education correspondent
15 September 2015
| COMMENT: Quite a sobering result. Perhaps a serious look should be taken? |
Investing heavily in school computers and classroom technology does not improve pupils' performance, says a global study from the OECD.
The think tank says frequent use of computers in schools is more likely to be associated with lower results.
The OECD's education director Andreas Schleicher says school technology had raised "too many false hopes".
Tom Bennett, the government's expert on pupil behaviour, said teachers had been "dazzled" by school computers.
The report from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development examines the impact of school technology on international test results, such as the Pisa tests taken in more than 70 countries and tests measuring digital skills.
It says education systems which have invested heavily in information and communications technology have seen "no noticeable improvement" in Pisa test results for reading, mathematics or science.
But Mr Schleicher says the findings of the report should not be used as an "excuse" not to use technology, but as a spur to finding a more effective approach.
He gave the example of digital textbooks which can be updated as an example of how online technology could be better than traditional methods.
Mark Chambers, chief executive of Naace, the body supporting the use of computers in schools, said it was unrealistic to think schools should reduce their use of technology.
"It is endemic in society now, at home young people will be using technology, there's no way that we should take technology out of schools, schools should be leading not following."
Computers in UK schools
- 1.3m desktop computers
- 840,000 laptops
- 730,000 tablets (expected to rise to 939,000 next year)
- 22% are "ineffective"
Source: BESA
Microsoft spokesman Hugh Milward said: "The internet gives any student access to the sum of human knowledge, 3D printing brings advanced manufacturing capabilities to your desktop, and the next FTSE 100 business might just as well be built in a bedroom in Coventry as in the City."
Head teacher John Morris also strongly rejected the idea.
"We're preparing our children for jobs that don't yet exist," said Mr Morris, head of Ardleigh Green junior school in the London Borough of Havering.
"We're training them to use technology which hasn't yet been invented. So how can you possibly divorce technology from industry or from teaching and learning?
"When people say too much money is being spent on technology in school, my response is 'Nonsense'. What we need is more money, more investment."
The government's behaviour expert Tom Bennett said there might have been unrealistic expectations, but the "adoption of technology in the classroom can't be turned back".
England's schools minister Nick Gibb said: "We want all schools to consider the needs of their pupils to determine how technology can complement the foundations of good teaching and a rigorous curriculum, so that every pupil is able to achieve their potential."
Click on Link:
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-34174796
Turns Out Heavy Reliance on Computers Doesn’t Improve Education, Distressing Millennials Everywhere
Tuesday, September 15th 2015 at 11:23 am
Computers are necessary tools to help students learn … about computers, that is. For other subjects, a study shows that heavy reliance on computers as educational tools doesn’t necessarily help students learn—or teachers teach—more effectively.
The report, from the UK’s Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, found that the effect of technology on students’ international standards tests (PISA tests) performance—and even “digital skills”—was “mixed at best.” They also found “no noticeable improvement” in reading, math, and science scores in school systems that relied heavily on technology for teaching compared to those that didn’t.
BBC reports that the study’s general findings were as follows:
- Students who use computers very frequently at school get worse results
- Students who use computers moderately at school, such as once or twice a week, have “somewhat better learning outcomes” than students who use computers rarely
- The results show “no appreciable improvements” in reading, mathematics or science in the countries that had invested heavily in information technology
- High achieving school systems such as South Korea and Shanghai in China have lower levels of computer use in school
- Singapore, with only a moderate use of technology in school, is top for digital skills
Click on Link:
http://www.themarysue.com/computers-dont-improve-student-performance/
U.S. Rejected Offers by Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria to Surrender … and Proceeded to Wage War
Posted on September 15, 2015
| COMMENT: Sometimes it takes a while for the facts to be revealed. |
A self-selected group of former top military officers, CIA insiders and think-tankers, declared Tuesday in Washington that a seven-month review of the deadly 2012 terrorist attack has determined that [Gaddafi offered to abdicate as leader of Libya.]
‘Gaddafi wasn’t a good guy, but he was being marginalized,’ [Retired Rear Admiral Chuck ] Kubic recalled. ‘Gaddafi actually offered to abdicate’ shortly after the beginning of a 2011 rebellion.
‘But the U.S. ignored his calls for a truce,’ the commission wrote, ultimately backing the horse that would later help kill a U.S. ambassador.
Mrs. Clinton ordered a general within the Pentagon to refuse to take a call with Gadhafi’s son Seif and other high-level members within the regime, to help negotiate a resolution, the secret recordings reveal.
A day later, on March 18, Gadhafi called for a cease-fire, another action the administration dismissed.
Click on Link:
DHS/FEMA have created a national patient tracking system
Monday, September 14, 2015
| COMMENT: Tracking systems have existed for a while, this now it brings them all together. |
Don't try and use anything other than a government approved ID at a hospital or clinic or you'll be arrested:
Blanca Borrego and her two daughters had been sitting in the waiting room of the Northeast Women's Healthcare clinic in Atascocita, Texas for nearly two hours.
When Borrego arrived at the clinic the staff told her they needed to update her file and, after she filled out some paperwork, they asked for an ID.
Borrego, an undocumented immigrant handed the staff a fake driver's license. The staff contacted the police who were waiting for her in the examination room!
Click on Link:
http://massprivatei.blogspot.com/2015/09/dhsfema-has-created-national-patient.html
ISIS is US: The Empire and the Evil Genie It Released
By Paul Street / September 14, 2015
| COMMENT: Pretty long article. Check about the middle for the meat of the title. Here is described the blowback of actions taken by the United States in that part of the world. |
That ISIS a grisly and terrible threat cannot be seriously doubted. With its horrifying snuff films, its genocidal practices towards Shiite Muslims, Christians, and “polytheists,” and its arch-reactionary social codes imposed through whippings, limb-chopping, beheadings, stoning, eye-gouging, the shooting of children for minor infractions, and its sexual enslavement of women, ISIS is most definitely extremist and perversely evil. The danger has reached critical mass.
Whence this stark and borderless evil, driving a massive refugee crisis that has Western media up in moral arms? ISIS is, among other things, a predictable “blowback” consequence of United States wars on Iraq and Syria. Had the United States and its partners in imperial crime not illegally attacked and invaded Iraq in 2003, more than a million people would be alive today and ISIS and other al Qaeda offshoots would not be terrifying millions into fleeing the Middle East and North Africa.
Patrick Cockburn notes, “the movement’s toxic but potent mix of extreme religious beliefs and military skill is the outcome of the war in Iraq since the U.S. invasion of 2003 and the war in Syria since 2011.” The first war collapsed Iraq state authority and took the lid off the nation’s fierce ethno-religious and sectarian divisions. The U.S. fueled those divisions and Sunni uprisings against the corrupt and sectarian Shia government it set up in Baghdad. It produced droves of martyrs killed by US “Crusaders” in places like Fallujah, a Sunni city the US Marines targeted for near destruction (replete with the bombing of hospitals and the use of radioactive ordnance that created an epidemic of child cancer and leukemia) in 2004 – a town ISIS took over last year. Funny how Western media never seemed terribly upset about the millions of refugees created by U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.
Click on Link:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article42860.htm
Chile earthquake: 8.3-magnitude quake strikes off coast
Updated 12:21 AM ET, Thu September 17, 2015 | Video Source:CNN
COMMENT: One more catastrophic event. Chile has had: (M1.5 or greater)
|
At least five people were killed and 1 million evacuated from affected areas, when a powerful 8.3-magnitude earthquake struck Chile Wednesday, the director of the National Office of Emergency for the Chilean Ministry of Interior, Ricardo Toro, announced at a Santiago news conference early Thursday morning.
At least three people were killed when a powerful earthquake struck Chile on Wednesday, President Michelle Bachelet said. The victims included a 35-year-old woman who was killed by a falling roof, a 20-year-old woman who was killed by falling rocks and a man in his 80s who had a heart attack, Bachelet said.
According to a preliminary assessment from the U.S. Geological Survey, the quake's epicenter was about 54 kilometers (34 miles) west of Illapel. It occurred around 7:54 p.m. (6:54 p.m. ET) and had a depth of 33 kilometers (20.5 miles), USGS said.
Click on Link:
