Skip to main content

Home/ Teachers Without Borders/ Group items tagged studies

Rss Feed Group items tagged

Filter: All | Bookmarks | Topics Simple Middle
Teachers Without Borders

Mosoko - NRCC Wiki - 0 views

wiki.nrcc.noklab.com/Mosoko

mosoko mobile phones Nairobi Africa development developing nations cell phone wiki audio wiki Nokia

shared by Teachers Without Borders on 09 Apr 09 - Cached
  • Two recent examples show how mobile phones can improve peoples' access to information in developing economies. Robert Jensen studied the effect of the growth in mobile phone use in fishing villages in the Indian state of Kerala. As cellular coverage grew from nothing to 100% from 1997 to 2000, the fish market became more efficient: fishermen knew where that days' catch would fetch a good price, price fluctuations between villages diminished, and fewer fish were discarded at the end of each day. A second example shows how markets for agricultural goods -- accessed via phone -- aided farmers in East Africa. The Kenyan Agricultural Commodity Exchange makes nationwide prices available through text messages. Prior to the Exchange, the main source of pricing information was the middleman to whom the farmers were selling -- people who were motivated to buy the commodity as cheaply as possible. Armed with better pricing information, farmers can now sell their goods for prices closer to market rates.
  • Billions of people have mobile phones but only a small fraction of those people have access to the Web. We are focusing on three main types of services that are widespread on the Web, but are absent in developing regions: classified advertising, social networks, and information sharing through Wikis. In all three service aspects, we seek to provide an intuitive and dynamic infrastructure for user-generated content. Craigslist, in the US, and similar free classified services in other developed countries have created marketplaces for exchanging goods and services where none existed before. Their web-based access cannot be brought to developing countries in the near future. Instead, what if we could assist people in forming similar types of connections using only their mobile phones?
  • Short-term goals: Focus on one domain: apartment listings. Build a prototype and deploy it for a month in Nairobi for free.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • Provide more powerful interfaces to users who do have Internet access. These interfaces will be both through standard computer web browsers and through customized applications that run on higher-end phones. Currently, the vast majority of phones in developing regions are not capable of running customized applications (e.g. Java). Use speech recognition to improve matching process.
  • This project seeks to develop an "audio wiki" -- an open platform (like Wikipedia) that people can freely access and contribute to, but rather than using a desktop computer, they use a cell phone. This means that all content will be spoken rather than written, and there are a host of interesting challenges in user interfaces, speech recognition, and audio processing that need to be tackled.
Teachers Without Borders

"Social networking helped me realize my right to education." | Education | United Natio... - 2 views

www.unesco.org/..._realize_my_right_to_education

peace education networking peace_education right to education

shared by Teachers Without Borders on 08 Apr 11 - No Cached
  • Having tried and failed to get support from official channels (embassies, NGOs such as Amnesty International, even the European Parliament), he turned to social networking. The week before he was due to start his studies, Ayman posted an article on his blog called “I have a dream” recounting his difficulties with the Israeli authorities in trying to leave Gaza. “It was non-accusatory,” he explains”. I was just asking for the basic right to pursue an education.” He ended the article with the sentence: “I am appealing and calling lawyers, politicians, journalists and all activists for human rights to join the fight for me and my right to the education that I have always dreamed of.” 
  • “Social networking helped me realize my right to education,” Ayman claims. Following the international mobilization Ayman finally received his permission to travel. He arrived in Spain one week late for class. At the Jaume I University, he is taking several courses on aspects of human rights education, peace education and conflict transformation.  “It is a very healthy environment where I am also being educated in mulitculturality,” he says. “Thanks to these courses I have became more aware about different conflicts taking place around the world.” Ayman also shared first-hand experience with people who have lived in conflict situations. “It assured me that conflicts are the same everywhere, and that humanity is humanity wherever we are.”  
Stephanie Lill

Internet's memory effects quantified in computer study - 0 views

www.bbc.co.uk/...science-environment-14145045

memory Internet psychology computers test

shared by Stephanie Lill on 18 Jul 11 - No Cached
  • Stephanie Lill on 18 Jul 11
     
    Computers and the internet are changing the nature of our memory, research in the journal Science suggests.
Teachers Without Borders

PAKISTAN: Schools Rise From the Rubble - IPS ipsnews.net - 0 views

ipsnews.net/news.asp

PAKISTAN schools Education Under Attack violence conflict

shared by Teachers Without Borders on 29 Jun 11 - No Cached
  • PESHAWAR, Jun 26, 2011 (IPS) - Violence in the tribal areas of northwest Pakistan has kept students away from school, in some areas for at least two years. Now, officials are trying to make up for lost time by holding classes even under tents or trees.
  • "We are overwhelmed to be back in school," said third grade student Jaweria over the phone from Orakzai. The Taliban bombed her school in August last year, she said, leaving students idle.
  • Orakzai Agency is one of seven "agencies" or tribal units that constitute Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). FATA is the war-torn region between Afghanistan and the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) in northwest Pakistan, which has become the base of the Taliban and Al- Qaeda.
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • In Orakzai alone, militants blew up nearly 80 educational institutions, including several schools from primary to high school for boys and girls, and one Degree College for men. Last February, militants destroyed the lone Girls’ Degree College, whose 235 students continue holding classes atop the debris.
  • The move will put some 4,500 students back on track with their schooling, and employ 192 teachers as well.
  • "The students study under the shade of trees, while they use the tents to store their bags. This is because there is no electricity inside the tents while outside the students enjoy a good atmosphere," said teacher Shahidullah Khan. At the moment, the students use mats in lieu of school desks, which will be provided in the future, he added.
  • Khan said the FATA has 5,478 schools and colleges, hundreds of which have been damaged, depriving some 255,000 students of education. The government was forced to shut down another 18 due to violence, leaving more than 300 teachers jobless.
  • In Mohmand Agency, the militants flattened 108 schools affecting almost 90,000 students. The authorities said they have reopened 44 boys’ and 12 girls’ schools in tents, while the rest are being reconstructed.
  • These government-run schools are the only source of modern education for students in the FATA. They offer classes from the first to the 10th grade, but students have to source their own books and other school materials. Gibran Khan is another beneficiary of the tent school that was established on May 30. "I was sad when our school was destroyed in January this year but now I am happy," said Khan, a 12-year-old fifth grade student.
  • Statistics for female literacy in the FATA are also disturbing. Neighbouring KP province has a female literacy rate of 30 percent, but the rate is FATA is a mere three percent. The national literacy rate for females is 54 percent.
  • "We have launched a programme in which we are going to reconstruct damaged schools. The government of Japan is assisting in rebuilding 80 schools in FATA," said Ghafoor Khan, education officer of the FATA Secretariat.
Teachers Without Borders

allAfrica.com: Namibia: Quality, Shortages, and Concerns of Teachers - 0 views

allafrica.com/...201107041292.html

teachers namibia teacher development education

shared by Teachers Without Borders on 08 Jul 11 - No Cached
  • What is lacking, however, is specialised training of teachers, which limit the implementation of inclusive training, he said.
  • Few teachers have specialised training, and none have formal training for multigrade teaching. This means that there is a lack of skills to pitch lessons at different grades, while many teachers generally struggle with classroom management.
  • A shortage of teachers in the fields of accounting, mathematics, languages, computer studies and geography has been identified.
  • Teachers Without Borders on 08 Jul 11
     
    AVAILABLE figures point out that the majority of teachers have Grade 12 with at least three years' tertiary education. "So, who is fooling who?" questioned Minister of Education Abraham Iyambo, in obvious reference to the less than satisfactory performance of most schools. What is lacking, however, is specialised training of teachers, which limit the implementation of inclusive training, he said. Few teachers have specialised training, and none have formal training for multigrade teaching. This means that there is a lack of skills to pitch lessons at different grades, while many teachers generally struggle with classroom management.
Teachers Without Borders

BBC News - African-Caribbean boys 'would rather hustle than learn' - 0 views

www.bbc.co.uk/...education-15387444

boys gender masculinity education learning Jamaica schools UK

shared by Teachers Without Borders on 21 Oct 11 - No Cached
  • Black schoolboys can choose to perform poorly to avoid undermining their masculinity, the head of the Jamaican Teachers' Association has said. Adolph Cameron said that in Jamaica, where homophobia was a big issue, school success was often seen as feminine or "gay". He was concerned the same cultural attitude was affecting African-Caribbean male students in the UK.
  • He noted that in Jamaica boys were at least 10 percentage points behind girls in national tests. Misplaced views about masculinity needed to be tackled in schools.
  • In an interview with the BBC News website, Mr Cameron said: "That notion of masculinity says that if as a male you aspire to perform highly it means you are feminine, even to the extent of saying you are gay. "But in the context of Jamaica, which is so homophobic, male students don't want to be categorised in that way so that they would deliberately underperform in order that they are not."
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • He said research had suggested that boys in Jamaica deliberately underperformed in literacy tests because the tests were carried out in standard English, and "to speak in standard English is considered a woman's activity". He went on to suggest the same cultural attitudes affected the learning of African-Caribbean boys in England.
  • "Boys are more interested in hustling, which is a quick way of making a living, rather than making the commitment to study. This is a supposed to be a street thing which is a male thing. "The influence of this attitude towards masculinity seems to be having a tremendous impact on how well African-Caribbean and Jamaican males do.
« First ‹ Previous 141 - 148 of 148
Showing 20▼ items per page