Group items tagged

RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) - Do Palestinian school textbooks "teach terrorism," as Newt Gingrich claimed in a recent debate among U.S. Republican presidential hopefuls? His example - that Palestinians "have text books that say, 'If there are 13 Jews and nine Jews are killed, how many Jews are left?'" - is not in any of the texts, researchers say. As for Gingrich's broader claim, the textbooks don't directly encourage anti-Israeli violence, but they also don't really teach peace, studies say.

But South Korea, among the world's most wired nations, has also seen its plan to digitize elementary, middle and high school classrooms by 2015 collide with a trend it didn't anticipate: Education leaders here worry that digital devices are too pervasive and that this young generation of tablet-carrying, smartphone-obsessed students might benefit from less exposure to gadgets, not more. Those concerns have caused South Korea to pin back the ambition of the project, which is in a trial stage at about 50 schools. Now, the full rollout won't be a revolution: Classes will use digital textbooks alongside paper textbooks, not instead of them. First- and second-graders, government officials say, probably won't use the gadgets at all.

"We have textbooks that exist within our system and other systems ... science books, for example, (that) are outdated. We still have science books that call Pluto a planet," says Coteau. "So, with digital technology and digitization of materials, we could really put together a course curriculum that is flexible and has the ability to be changed instantly." The school board spends $8 million per year on textbooks. Over a 10-year period, if half the books are digitized, it could save up to $50 million.

SHANGHAI - The city's first sex education textbook for primary school students will be used in 18 schools in Shanghai in the coming semester. The textbook, Boys and Girls, which the authors prefer to describe as gender education rather than sex education, was written by the Primary School Affiliated to the University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, and will be piloted in 18 primary schools in Yangpu district.

"The basic mission is to create OERs to replace textbooks in every school subject for every age or grade level for every country in every language needed. Children commonly take five subjects at a time, including Physical Education, divided into semesters, for 12 years of primary and secondary education. There is some variation in this plan, which does not change the fact that this comes to a requirement for more than 100 semester class OERs, without counting electives. The real count is doubtless greater than 300, including academic and vocational subjects, and numerous languages."

The survey found that texts such as Ramayana, Mahabharata and tales from Panchatantra, Jataka and Hitopadesha were omitted from textbooks but Aesop's Fables had been included. "It is shocking that the south and north-eastern parts of India are almost neglected in the textbooks which are overwhelmingly tilted toward central and north India," said the survey report, which rated books on different parameters such as tradition and culture, history, heritage, Indian thought and spirituality.

At least 1.2 million Libyan pupils are set to return to school tomorrow, almost a year after they evacuated their classrooms during the country's popular uprising against the regime of Muammar al-Qadhafi, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) reported today. The agency said about 27 million textbooks are being printed by Libya's education ministry and 10 million have already been distributed in anticipation of the return to school. But a shortage of both books and desks remain, and transport to and from school is also lacking for many children.

KABUL - In a country where the recent past has unfolded like a war epic, officials think they have found a way to teach Afghan history without widening the fractures between long-quarreling ethnic and political groups: leave out the past four decades.  A series of government-issued textbooks funded by the United States and several foreign aid organizations do just that, pausing history in 1973. There is no mention of the Soviet war, the mujaheddin, the Taliban or the U.S. military presence. In their efforts to promote a single national identity, Afghan leaders have deemed their own history too controversial. 

Word lists from textbook series

Wiki page housing an entire textbook on learning, teaching and technology. Focus placed on emerging perspectives. Covers traditional, socially oriented, direct instruction and learner-centered theories. Provides strategies for teaching from project based learning to the mind of the learner. Links to modeling, scaffolding, and other learning tools.

This open textbook covers the curriculum for an introductory course on educational psychology. Contents: 1) The Changing Teaching Profession and You. 2) The Learning Process. 3) Student Development. 4) Student Diversity. 5) Students with Special Educational Needs. 6) Student Motivation. 7) Classroom Management and the Learning Environment. 8) Instructional Strategies. 9) Planning Instruction. 10) Teacher-Made Assessment Strategies. 11) Standardized and Other Formal Assessments. 12) The Nature of Classroom Communication. 13) The Reflective Practitioner.

Online textbook providing introductory level explanation of ICT, how they work, data storage, manipulation and processing. Explains how ICT systems are used.

"A comprehensive educational psychology textbook, written by Kelvin Seifert and Rosemary Sutton, for the Global Text Project. Topics covered include student development and diversity, classroom communication and assessment, and much more."

It is evident that the sources of these problems must be sought in earlier grades, and even in the experiences of Ugandan pre-schoolers. Compare them with what I describe at http://replacingtextbooks.wordpress.com/2011/07/25/higher-mathematics-for-children/ for children in the US. There are excellent materials on fractions online. See http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Open_Education_Resources for links to some sites that have as many as 100,000 e-learning resources available. Even if students do not have computers, teachers who can access these lessons can adapt them for the classroom or for individual practice, and share them with teachers who do not have Web access. On the issue of fractions, see also http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/TurtleArt/Tutorials/Fractions for an approach that requires no computers, but will be enhanced with software activities fairly soon. If your students have trouble with these exercises, and you can tell us why, we will work with you and them to develop materials that meet their needs. You will also have to tell us if there are circular Ugandan foods that we can use in lessons for children who are not familiar with European/American cakes, pies, and pizza. ^_^ When you have a 4.1% success rate on a particular topic, and thus a 95.9% failure rate, it cannot be said that individual teachers have failed to recognize individual difficulties. This is evidence that the entire curriculum is misdesigned. I assume that this is some part of the holdover colonial education system from before independence, designed originally for European children, with no relation to the prior experi