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"Does the thought of doing long division, or solving a bit of algebra give you the shivers? You're likely to have maths anxiety. In our recent research, my colleagues and I found that in 80% of countries, girls have more negative feelings towards maths than boys. But this higher level of maths anxiety in girls is not justified by their actual level of performance and may put them off continuing a career in maths-related subjects, such as physics and computer science."

This is an educational presentation exploring humanity's water use and the emerging worldwide water shortage. It is designed to act as a stand-alone presentation.

"Convincing more students to pursue STEM studies is a goal widely shared by educators, policymakers, and industry representatives concerned about the leaky pipeline of students preparing to become the next generation of innovators. Fortunately, there's no shortage of solutions. When more than 200 of the nation's top math and science educators gathered at the White House this fall to receive the 2016 Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching, they exchanged practical ideas for igniting student interest in STEM. ADVERTISEMENT Among the honorees was Dr. Jaunine Fouché, science curriculum supervisor at the Milton Hershey School in Pennsylvania. This unique residential school, founded as a philanthropic effort more than a century ago, serves more than 2,000 students in preK-12 from across the U.S. Every student comes from a background of poverty. Education and wraparound services are provided at no cost. In a recent conversation, Dr. Fouché shared strategies for making science education more engaging to diverse learners. Here are the highlights."

"From September 2014, a change to the curriculum means the study of computing - and specifically coding - will be mandatory across all state primary and secondary schools in England. The government has announced that 2014 will be its 'Year of Code', as it attempts to tackle a skills shortage in an increasingly digital world. But are teachers ready for the move and how will they engage pupils with the subject?"

"The main arguments behind the push for students to learn to code, usually center around preparing students for future jobs. There is a skill shortage in the computer science industry which determines skilled job seekers can walk into lucrative contracts. This trend is predicted to rise. The other aspect to the usual argument is that even students who do not work in the technology industry will also benefit throughout their life and careers by learning computer science, as all industries now involve some component of programming. While these arguments are perfectly valid, there are many more reasons why kids should learn to code. They include:"

"Unfortunately, the strength in the talent pipeline that we see in female soccer today is not the reality for technology. The U.S. is facing a shortage of Computer Science (CS) graduates. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, every year there are close to 140,000 jobs requiring a CS degree, but only 40,000 U.S. college graduates major in CS, which means that 100,000 positions go unfilled by domestic talent. Even more dramatic is that women in U.S. colleges and universities earn only 18 percent of CS degrees. In middle school, 74 percent of girls express interest in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM), but when choosing a college major, only 0.4 percent of high school girls select computer science. The true potential of future innovation will only become a reality if more women are part of it. A rich, diverse community of innovators is key for new technologies to address the needs of modern society. That is why Microsoft YouthSpark - a global initiative to create opportunities for all youth to learn computing - supports Girls Who Code, a national nonprofit organization that aims to close the gender gap in technology in the U.S."

"There is a shortage of people who know how to program. These are high quality, high paying jobs. How do we encourage students to learn how to code? Learning to programming not only is a skill that is in high demand, it is also incredibly useful. We have all wished we had an app or a program that would do a particular thing that is specific to ourselves. I know some HTML and some JavaScript and Google Apps Script and it is amazing what you can do with just a little knowledge"

"Coding is having it's 15 minutes of fame. Journalists regularly quote facts about the shortage of computer programmers in the US, entrepreneurs fund coding camps for low opportunity kids and even the President has given learning to code a thumbs up. For many parents and teachers this new focus on learning to code feels like an overhyped fad that will be replaced any day now by "learning particle physics" or "learning solar energy storage." And does anyone really believe that turning a whole generation of kids into programmers would be a good outcome for society? What about artists, doctors, musicians and mechanics? What about chefs, writers, electricians and plumbers? Why exactly do kids need to learn to code?"

"There's no shortage of nit-picking gamers who feel they could easily make better video games than what's being released every week. And thanks to a new iPad app called Toy Engine, they can put their money where their mouths are and design their own side-scrolling video game, even if they've never written a single line of code."

"The dance of printing a document, taking a pen and signing it, then scanning and emailing it to a banker or client is one I think we've all done. It's also extremely inefficient, not to mention annoying. The Mac's handy-dandy Preview app makes it possible to fill out and digitally sign a document, but it's just as easy to sign from an iOS device, and of course there is no shortage of apps for that. I've whittled that selection down to these five that cover all the bases, letting you sign, fill out forms, connect to your cloud storage accounts, and use's iOS 8's share extension, among other features. The differences between them boil down to aesthetics, workflow, and pricing-which means one of them is probably just right for you."

Being the oldest varsity in the state, the University of Mysore's move is expected to make it a paperless system. Sources revealed that the move has been planned in order to deal with the staff shortage facing the varsity. According to plans, Crawford Hall, the administrative headquarters of the university and other departments including academic sections would be included under the e-governance. Pursuing the plan, a blue print has been prepared to turn e-governance into reality.

"There's no shortage of research around the benefits of sleep and its critical relationship to learning. So how much sleep is enough? Researchers have looked at the differences in cognitive function of people who have slept four or six or eight hours and how their brains function. This AsapSCIENCE video demonstrates what your capabilities are after those various amounts of sleep."

"We are strong proponents of children learning to code, but we have concerns about the motivations and methods underlying many of these new learn-to-code initiatives. Many of them, motivated by a shortage of programmers and software developers in industry, focus especially on preparing students for computer science degrees and careers, and they typically introduce coding as a series of logic puzzles for students to solve. We co-founded the Scratch Foundation in 2013 to support and promote a very different approach to coding. For us, coding is not a set of technical skills but a new type of literacy and personal expression, valuable for everyone, much like learning to write. We see coding as a new way for people to organize, express, and share their ideas. This approach to coding is embodied in our Scratch programming software developed at the MIT Media Lab and available for free online. With Scratch, children ages eight and up snap together graphical programming blocks to create interactive stories and games with animated characters. They can share their projects in the Scratch online community, where others can try them out, give feedback and suggestions, and even revise and extend the projects with their own ideas."

"Michelle Joyce doesn't shy away from politicized science topics such as climate change. In fact, she works to equip seniors at Palmetto Ridge High School in Naples, Florida with the skills to accurately evaluate those topics on their own. Along with teaching chemistry and physics, she offers a class called "thinking skills" where students solve logic and math puzzles while also enhancing their media literacy. Students go beyond just learning about legitimate sources of information on the internet and delve into just how the information is put together in the first place. But teaching students those critical thinking skills only as they're about to depart for college can be too little too late. "It's a really hard thing to teach within the space of everything else that you need to teach in a classroom," Joyce said. "It's crucial that we teach it as early as we can." The internet has no shortage of dubious information; and the ability to evaluate health and science claims is a subset of media literacy. With the abundance of health/science content students may only see via social media, kids are ill-equipped to discern hype from real science."

"If you follow my blog, you know I curate a lot of resources for teachers. This post brings together a suggested list, a curated list if you will, of 16 curation tools for teachers and students from the Shake Up Learning community. Choosing how to curate and what tools to use can be a very personal decision depending on your own needs and preferences. That's what's so great about the world wide web of tools! There is no shortage of tools. Curation is absolutely necessary in the information age! As Gayle Allen says in her book, The New Pillars of Modern Teaching, "We're assembling resources in a way that represents the ongoing story of our learning. We are the curators." Curation takes time. It can take a lot of time, and that's why I share so many curated resources on my website. Your time is valuable. Curating on your own is great. Collaboratively curating is even better. Following bloggers and feeds that deliver resources to your (virtual) door-the best!"

"There's no shortage of news reader apps and services. For some of us, Twitter and Facebook do a good enough job. Then there are intelligent services like Nuzzel that show us stories that multiple people in our network are sharing, but you have no control over the actual feed."

"There's no shortage of great websites, apps and programs available on the Internet. Some, however, rise above the rest. Your 2014 list of our 11 most useful tools of 2014 covers everything from creating charts to making your computer screen a little easier on the eyes. Of course there's plenty we missed, but these are some of the tools that came to our attention this year."

"Audacity is a free, open-source program for recording and editing audio. It's available for Windows, Mac, and Linux computers. For classroom podcasting projects or other classroom audio recording projects, it is hard to beat Audacity. The only trouble is that it can feel a bit overwhelming the first time that you open it up on your desktop. Fortunately, there is no shortage of YouTube videos that will show you everything you need to know and then some."

It is tempting to make predictions of the skills that our students will need beyond their time at school. Such wondering can be a useful guide as we contemplate what we shall focus on with our curriculum. Unsurprisingly, there is no shortage of predictions for future skillsets published by educators, economists and analysts. What might we learn from such lists, and how should education systems respond?