Category: Education
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My mega grab-bag of astronomy resources for teachers, students, telescope beginners and space fans
Whether you are a parent, teacher, student or simply an interested enthusiast, here are a number of interesting sites, podcasts, and social media people for you to draw on as you get going in amateur astronomy. Podcasts provide an amazing resource – all free. Most are available via iTunes, the original publishers’ websites, or a raft…
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Growth of Scholarly Open Access Agricultural Repositories in India
After the successful organisation of workshop and seminar on Open Access Indian Academy of Sciences (IAS), Bangalore and Indian National Science Academy (INSA), New Delhi at Bangalore and Pune in 2002 and 2003 respectively, the M S Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF) had organised two workshops on Open Access at Chennai in 2004. In these workshops,…
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Got Science? Australian Science on Display at Mitchelton State School
In my last post, I talked about the role of imagination in science and early childhood education and the U.S. efforts on encouraging students to pursue careers focused on STEM (Science, Technology, Education and Mathematics). I also mentioned that I would be featuring a primary school in Brisbane, Australia to gain an understanding of their…
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Weekly Science Picks
Sigh, my photo caption sums it all up… But here are the news stories that caught my eye and I hope you find them interesting as well. Maybe reading them will inspire your own work or to dig deeper for answers. In any case, enjoy! This is one of my favorite topics because it…
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Weekly Science Picks
“La rentrée!” Paris — first week of September. It’s when the city reignites again, everyone comes back from holiday and gets back to work, and — more importantly — kids go back to school. In celebration of “le bon retour” my first pick comes from right here on Australian Science. Kelly Burnes’ musings on the…
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Media & Learning Brussels 2012 – Conference Programme Available
[Press release] The Media & Learning Conference taking place in Brussels on 14 and 15 November 2012 is aimed at anyone who wants to find new and effective ways to use media to enhance the learning process. It has three main themes; mapping future trends and developments in media-enhanced learning in all sectors, boosting skills and competences in…
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Lighting the Imagination in Science
Imagination in Science In my policy work in early childhood education, I get to travel and observe a few child care centers in the NYC area every year as part of our Excellence in Teaching Awards. Well, I should say I did, until the funding for this awards program was cut. Minor point. In those…
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Libraries Now! Inspiring, Surprising, Empowering #IFLA2012
”The victory of book has been proved. Books should be treated as people” – Peter von Bagh The World Library and Information Congress 2012, 78th IFLA General Conference and Assembly, will take place at the Helsinki Exhibition & Convention Centre in Helsinki, Finland. The IFLA meet- ing in 2012 is one of the most significant global gatherings highlighting…
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Plastics Make it… Problematic
The American Chemistry Council sponsors an initiative “Plastics Make it Possible.” While there is no debating the fact that plastics have completely transformed modern life, from lifesaving medical devices to cellular phones to food storage to sports equipment, to well, you name it; we owe a lot to this accidental creation of Hans von Pechmann:…
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EduWiki 2012: Wikipedia as an educational resource, now and in the future
What do Dictator novel, Implicit self-esteem and Nuclear energy policy in the United States have in common? Each of these Wikipedia articles has been improved by university students in exchange for course credit. Wikipedia educational assignments – where improving the free online encyclopaedia is integral to the course – already happen in many universities in the USA, Canada and other countries.…
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Sensitizing National Agricultural Research System on Free Open Source Software
The food grain production in India is reaching an all-time record of 252.56 million tonnes for the year 2011-12. However, as per the report of Sainath (2012) the daily per capita availability of food grains has fallen from 474.9 grams during 1992-96 to 440.4 grams during 2007-2010. This needs a great attention as the population…
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Harvard and MIT offer free online education materials
Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) announced last week the launch of edX, a transformational partnership and initiative in online education. EdX presents a not-for-profit joint venture between these two institutions that will collaborate to “enhance campus-based teaching and learning and build a global community of online learners”, offering online versions of their classes and those…
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Open Access India: Movement for Making Public Funded Research Open
The ‘Open Access‘ movement which is built on the principle that the publicly funded research should be freely accessible online is gaining momentum around the world. In India, according to the Registry of Open Access Repositories and Directory of Open Access Repositories nearly 80 repositories have been registered since 2004 and three of them are…
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“Smarter, more competitive, more productive”, the Chief Scientist, Professor Ian Chubb on Australia’s Future in Science & Technology
There is no doubt in the mind of Australia’s Chief Scientist, Professor Ian Chubb, the future will be shaped by science technology, engineering and mathematics. Unfortunately, he finds that at present the standing of science, as an expert authority, is being challenged. Furthermore, Ian Chubb finds that the science message is getting lost in the…