Interesting…

A classroom where a digital teacher delivers a lesson from another city is being touted as the way forward for education in the 21st century.

The education and science select committee’s “Inquiry into 21st century learning environments and digital literacy” focuses on redesigning education and creating modern schools.

The committee has set out 48 recommendations from 90 submissions and if adopted in full, every student will learn from their own device, possibly in their own time and potentially in a different location to their digital teacher.

Associate Education Minister and committee chairwoman Nikki Kaye called for the inquiry last year after finding digital literacy varied across communities, and no other governments had acted on the issue.

“We heard [submissions] that said there will also be more opportunities for students to access content from around the world, or a teacher in another New Zealand location.

“We believe that the future of learning will be blended; students will combine learning from online and video technology with group work and individual study.

Read the rest of the article here: http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/education/8283607/Welcome-to-teacher-less-classrooms

 Tina Law

DON SCOTT/Fairfax NZ

NOT TAKEN INTO ACCOUNT: Adam Hodgson, 13, says national standards do not work for people like him with learning differences such as dyspraxia.

Adam Hodgson has dyspraxia, a condition that affects the planning of his movements and co-ordination.

He needs more time to sit exams, and if he was able to answer questions verbally he would get a much higher result, but he says the national standards testing system does not allow that to happen.

Adam, who attends Westburn School, said he was below the national standard, but that did not mean he was dumb. It just meant the method of testing was not suited to him.

In a speech he wrote for a school competition, Adam said the testing system did not give a fair reflection of what he was capable of doing.

Read more here: http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/education/7818865/National-standards-belittle-people-like-me

http://plainsfm.org.nz/on-demand/woa-barbarasmith-aug2012/

Programme  Women on Air

Episode title  Barbara Smith

Description Barbara Smith talks about home schooling

Duration 13 minute(s)

Download mp3 version

Are you working on a project you think people should know about? Got a great story you’ve written, artwork or science experiment you’ve just finished? Has someone excelled at something against the odds? What do you love about your school and class?

We want to hear these stories and share them with other Kiwis.

Click on this link to contribute to this assignment: http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff-nation/assignments/7587156/Remember-the-days-of-the-schoolyard

Update 5/10/12: Make a submission: Reject compulsory Early Education for 3 year olds

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Interesting comments by Toby Manhire in the NZ Herald September 14, 2012

Consider this view: “As we are pushed to increase women’s participation in the workforce, we need to ask who will be raising our next generation … I advocate for choice – for women to work part-time or full-time in paid work, or not at all, or to stay home and raise their children … A good government does not come into people’s homes and tell them how to raise their children.”

A powerful argument, and – you know where I’m going with this – an argument made by Paula Bennett, in her maiden speech to Parliament in 2005.

Toby goes on later to say:

If the measures put in place to enforce parents’ “social obligations” end up punishing children, the most vulnerable, powerless and voiceless of all, it will increasingly look as though the state is betraying its own social obligations – including, by the way, its obligations under the International Convention on the Rights of the Child.

link http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10833879