Group items tagged

Tamil Nadu e-Governance Agency is organising a 26-day long e-District training programme in Ariyalur district of Tamil Nadu. As part of the training, the revenue staff of the district, including tahsildars, revenue inspectors, and village administrative officers. The objective of the training is to train them on providing various revenue documents such as income certificate, community certificate and domicile certificates electronically.

M Moni Deputy Director General, National Informatics Centre (NIC), Government of India Main barriers, witnessed…

"Our Common Service Centres (CSCs) are a major achievement, as they allow farmers to register for wheat procurement under minimum support price," says Hari Ranjan Rao, Secretary to Chief Minister and Department of Information Technology, Government of Madhya Pradesh Tell us about your plans for bringing growth to the IT sector in Madhya Pradesh.

The final round of government funding is currently being distributed to schools all around Australia. So far over 967,000 computers have been bought, infrastructure built and (most) teachers up-skilled to benefit from the acquisition. But as the funds come to an end, many school principals are wondering if the process has been beneficial, and how can they continue to support and progress the Digital Education Revolution?

Whether you manufacture a product or are in the service sector - a private organization or a government agency - ISO is a fundamental business model. It is the foundation from which to build an enterprise. It focuses attention on organizational processes, your customers (internal and external), competency-based training, and continual improvement. That translates to improved business results.

An agreement for World Bank assistance of USD 70 million for the 'Additional Financing of Karnataka Health Systems Development and Reform Project' was signed by Shri Prabodh Saxena, Joint Secretary, Department of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance on behalf of the Government of India and Mr. Michael Haney, Operations Advisor, World Bank (India) on behalf of the World Bank and Dr. Vishal R., Project Administrator on behalf of the Government of Karnataka.

"Teenagers really get a bad time,' says Sarah-Jayne Blakemore. 'It is amazing how it seems to be totally acceptable - even institutionalised - to parody and demonise them. We laugh at things that mock teenagers, but if you applied those sorts of jokes to any other sector of society, it just wouldn't be acceptable.' Blakemore is a professor of cognitive neuroscience and deputy director of the University College London Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience. She is sitting in her office behind Russell Square, the heartland of London academia, mounting a strong defence for every teenager in Britain who has slammed a bedroom door, smoked a cigarette, driven a car too fast and even - though she certainly doesn't condone this - given in to the peer pressure that surrounds drugs such as Ecstasy. Society's response to the teenage conviction that 'nobody understands' is often lack of patience. Teenagers, we think, are moody, self-absorbed, reckless, defiant creatures who reject our wisdom in favour of a path of personal sabotage. But the rallying cry from Blakemore - an increasingly powerful voice in the world of international neuroscience, who has given policy advice to the British government - is that teenagers are right. Beyond the world of neuroscientific research, for the most part society does not understand them."

""ICE CREAM!" A group of six year olds are grinning as a small girl holds a laminated picture in her hands. Calmly, she puts it down and picks up the robot bee sitting in front of her. It has five buttons on top: forwards, left, right, back and go. The girl prods a few of them in turn, puts the bee down and presses go. It trundles across a colourful mat, turns left and stops on a picture of an ice cream cone. Everyone cheers. This short exercise has just taught her basic vocabulary, logic, sequencing and navigation. The robotic bee is one of four high-tech toys being trialled with pre-school children across Singapore. It is part of a new scheme - called Playmaker - using technology to give the next generation skills the they require. GI caught up with with the educators, technologists and government officials behind the scheme to find out more."

"Technology is critical for innovation, yet schools struggle to get students interested in this area. Could teaching robotics change this? The Queensland government has just announced plans to make teaching robotics compulsory in its new curriculum - aimed at students from prep through to year 10. Robotics matches the new digital technologies curriculum, strongly supported by the university sector and states, including Victoria. But while, worldwide, there are increasing initiatives such as the Robotics Academy in the US to teach robotics in schools, Australia isn't doing enough to get it taught in schools. To explain why we should teach children how to program robots in schools, we first need to understand what a robot is. "

"Computational thinking has been trending, but what is it, really? Simply put, computational thinking is a method of reasoning that teaches students how to solve real-world, complex problems with strategies that computers use. Computational thinking and the design thinking process are frameworks for problem-solving to help address the need for 21st-century skills across our nation's K-12 school system. While computation governs the world around us, computational thinking as a teaching and learning framework is a new concept for many. These skills are becoming progressively important due to the constant evolution of technology and its place in our economy. An increasingly automated workforce means students who have had exposure to tech-thinking will be more likely to succeed. To help get students future-ready, I've identified seven effective thinking strategies to equip young innovators with valuable problem-solving abilities. Using these tips, students will not only be learning important skills, but will be preparing for what lies ahead post-graduation."

An unavoidable element of the discourse around educational disadvantage or equality is how we define and assess equality. One definition will see this as being in equality of access to education, funding for education and/or resources. Such an approach has largely been seen in government funding models however subtle variations on this theme have resulted in significant differences in resulting policies.

"When seeing is no longer believing Inside the Pentagon's race against deepfake videos Advances in artificial intelligence could soon make creating convincing fake audio and video - known as "deepfakes" - relatively easy. Making a person appear to say or do something they did not has the potential to take the war of disinformation to a whole new level. Scroll down for more on deepfakes and what the US government is doing to combat them."

"The word "algorithm" may not seem relevant to kids, but the truth is that algorithms are all around them, governing everything from the technology they use to the mundane decisions they make every day. Algorithms are fascinating and, although some are quite complex, the concept itself is actually quite simple."

"Ask anyone which professional skill is most in demand right now, and they'll likely say coding. But ask LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner, and he'll give you a different answer. As head of the world's largest professional-networking site, Weiner presumably has access to more, and more detailed, employment information than any government. He knows what jobs people post, what jobs people have, and what jobs people want. And the biggest skills gap he says he sees in the United States is soft skills. What most employers want, Weiner says, are written communication, oral communication, team-building, and leadership skills. Never mind that salaries for coders (a median $103,560 in the US in 2017, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics) indicate that it's technical chops that are valued right now. Soft skills have staying power."

"Getting to teach economics lessons is one of my favorite things about being a social studies teacher. In economics lessons high school students start to see how many of the math concepts, logic concepts, and political theory they've learned can apply to them in the "real world" after high school. Econ Ed Link is a great resource for lesson plans, videos, and interactive activities for teaching economics concepts. They recently published an updated list of their Math In the Real World lesson plan library. Math In the Real World lesson plans include activities to teach students how to analyze business profit and loss, how the stock market works, and how distribution of income can influence government policies. The Math In the Real World lesson plans also include activities that have a more personal appeal to students. Those lesson plans include building credit, building a savings, and the dangers of payday loan schemes. The payday loan lesson plan is one that has previously been featured here on Free Technology for Teachers."

"A newly announced Ontario government program aims to do just that - soon making financial literacy education a reality for high-school students. The mandatory Grade 10 career studies course will be composed of four modules: financial literacy, entrepreneurship skills, digital literacy and career/life planning."

"he most important infrastructure we have is educated minds, says former Tunisian government minister Amel Karboul. Yet too often large investments go to more visible initiatives such as bridges and roads, when it's the minds of our children that will really create a brighter future. In this sharp talk, she shares actionable ideas to ensure that every child is in school -- and learning -- within just one generation."

"Music and dance teachers who are respected by female pupils should be trained to teach computer science to inspire more girls to pursue a career in the technology sector, educators have said. More than 150 teachers and schoolgirls recently attended an event at Microsoft's UK headquarters designed to show young women what life at a technology company was like. Speaking just weeks after the Government used its Budget to announce significant funding to support the training of Computer Science teachers, Cindy Rose, the chief executive of Microsoft UK, kicked off this year's DigiGirlz by highlighting the lack of women in the technology sector. Educators told Microsoft at the event that school leaders needed to create more positive role models in computer science and give them modern classrooms to work in if the UK was to encourage more women to pursue a career in science, engineering, technology or maths (STEM)."

"Last week, Mona Lisa smiled. A big, wide smile, followed by what appeared to be a laugh and the silent mouthing of words that could only be an answer to the mystery that had beguiled her viewers for centuries. A great many people were unnerved. Ars Technica Join Ars Technica and Get Our Best Tech Stories DELIVERED STRAIGHT TO YOUR INBOX. SIGN ME UP Will be used in accordance with our Privacy Policy Mona's "living portrait," along with likenesses of Marilyn Monroe, Salvador Dali, and others, demonstrated the latest technology in deepfakes-seemingly realistic video or audio generated using machine learning. Developed by researchers at Samsung's AI lab in Moscow, the portraits display a new method to create credible videos from a single image. With just a few photographs of real faces, the results improve dramatically, producing what the authors describe as "photorealistic talking heads." The researchers (creepily) call the result "puppeteering," a reference to how invisible strings seem to manipulate the targeted face. And yes, it could, in theory, be used to animate your Facebook profile photo. But don't freak out about having strings maliciously pulling your visage anytime soon. "Nothing suggests to me that you'll just turnkey use this for generating deepfakes at home. Not in the short-term, medium-term, or even the long-term," says Tim Hwang, director of the Harvard-MIT Ethics and Governance of AI Initiative. The reasons have to do with the high costs and technical know-how of creating quality fakes-barriers that aren't going away anytime soon."

Corporate leaders aren't the only ones who need to consider how to adjust to the new world the 4th Industrial Revolution is ushering in. Educators, schools, government officials, and parents must re-think education and how to prepare the next generation to take advantage of the plethora of opportunities and overcome the challenges enabled by ever-increasing technological change. Here are some of the changes happening because of the 4th Industrial Revolution and eight things every school must do to prepare for the 4th Industrial Revolution.