VLN Partners Says It’s Time to Rethink Cyber Learning

John McDonalds

As an innovator in cyber education, VLN Partners knows how important technology is in education enhancement. However, some administrators, educators, and parents fear that cyber learning is too focused on devices, rather than the curriculum itself.

VLN explains that a good cyber program connects offline and online learning and leads to a complete education experience for students. It also suggests that a worthwhile program offers more than just virtual work, and allows for real interaction between students and educators.

What are virtual schools?

Virtual academies and many cyber schools are for public districts. While schools may partner with private companies to devise programs, school boards, education agencies, or public school districts oftentimes govern these lessons.

This approach allows children to learn in various ways, study remotely, and meet rigorous state standards. These schools are like their brick-and-mortar counterparts in a variety of ways. This includes accountability requirements, as well as educational services.

-Teachers oversee and assist students in their learning. They ensure that children meet academic progress requirements and are held accountable for the work they complete.

-Students are required to take state exams.

-Attendance is taken, and children must meet predetermined standards.

-Schools must abide by goals and mandates set by federal and state regulation.

In addition, lessons must follow a certain curriculum to ensure that children are kept up to date. However, VLN Partners believes that these providers should work hand in hand with districts to create a curriculum that matches the home district’s plans. This helps to keep virtual students on the same page as their brick-and-mortar peers.

What do virtual school teachers do?

Some parents or educators may overlook the opportunities in virtual learning because they believe programs are more focused on technology than on students. The combination of online and offline learning actually works to create a holistic learning experience for students. In truth, this approach is built upon interaction, education, and a well-rounded educational experience.

While virtual students may not see their teachers in person on a regular basis, they remain in contact with them each school day. In a quality school, teachers are certified and highly qualified. From a remote location, they are responsible for managing student education, addressing individual needs, and tracking student progress. They also:

-Offer guidance, support, and instruction to students.

-Track attendance, as well as progress.

-Assess student work, such as tests, homework, and projects.

-Communicate daily with students.

What do virtual school parents need to know?

VLN Partners believes that parents or guardians should play a key role in a child’s education. In virtual schools, parents should remain actively involved and work closely with their child’s teachers. VLN explains that parents should also:

-Keep track of their child’s academic progress.

-Participate in a student’s daily education.

-Work alongside children and help them through lessons.

-Stay in contact with educators to discuss their child’s achievements, challenges, or progress.

For students to succeed, VLN Partners explains that collaboration is absolutely crucial. A high-quality virtual school will offer a variety of opportunities for parents, teachers, and children to work together to enhance a student’s learning experience.

Ericsson unveils 2014 app award

on November 06, 2013   /   

By Emma Elebeke

Leading provider of telecommunications equipment and services, Ericsson has announced entry for an application award tagged The Ericsson Application Awards.

The award, which is in the fifth consecutive year since inception allows students and small- and medium-sized enterprises from anywhere in the world to submit Android and iOS apps for screening.

This competition is expected to give developers, start-ups and anyone who has an idea for a great app, the opportunity to gain a foothold in the app industry, while also earning recognition and making contacts within the telecom industry.

According to the company, there will be two categories for this contest – one for students, and one for small- and medium-sized enterprises with fewer than 100 employees.

The theme of the 2014 competition is Apps for Working Life, in support of Ericsson’s vision of a Networked Society in which – through a combination of mobility, broadband, the cloud, applications and services – anything and everything is connected.

The company said it is tinkering on how can apps help people in their daily working life both now and in the future and how do people can  contribute to making the next generation of working life a context where people can better innovate, collaborate and balance life outside work.

The winner of the student category in 2013 was Portugal’s GreenSpark, which offered a solution based on energy efficiency with a truly global reach.

The UK’s TboxApps was the winner in the company category. Their solution was based on usage patterns in order to get access to instant messages and quickly get help.

For this year, the first prize is EUR 25,000, while second prize is EUR 10,000, and special recognition for innovation supporting Technology for Good. The third to 10th prize will get diplomas and honorary mentions.

In all, 192 teams took part in the 2013 competition, compared with 143 in 2012 from 52 countries.

100 yrs after: ‘Titanic’ ship will sail again in new movie

on October 21, 2013   /

SYDNEY (AFP) – Australian mining tycoon, dinosaur park enthusiast and political force Clive Palmer Monday pegged out a new role for himself — a deckchair cameo in a movie he plans about the Titanic.

Palmer has made waves with his bid to build Titanic II — a replica of the doomed luxury liner which sank more than a century ago — which is scheduled to make its first Atlantic crossing in 2016.

“Due to worldwide interest in @titanic_ii I’ve registered ‘Palmer Pictures’. Will look at making a movie about its maiden voyage #titanic,” he tweeted.

“@titanic_ii The ship where dreams come true,” he added later.

Palmer, who has won a seat in the Australian parliament pending an ongoing recount after the success of his Palmer United Party in September elections, told the AAP news agency that the movie would be filmed aboard his liner.

“It will be a love story,” he said.

“We have a lot of actors from Hollywood, China and Europe who want to star in roles.”

Palmer said his version of the Titanic would be “a lot better” than James Cameron’s 1997 global hit starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet.

“I could be in a deckchair having a drink,” he added of his dream to make a cameo appearance.

Global interest in Titanic II has prompted Palmer’s latest film move, he said.

“My father George had Palmer Pictures originally back in the 1920s and he made two silent films in Australia,” he said in a statement, adding that there were also plans for a documentary on the ship’s maiden voyage.

“The script is still being worked on and of course we would be seeking major Hollywood stars and production people to be involved in the movie project,” he said.

Palmer’s Titanic II will feature modern modifications but try to remain as true as possible to the original, which went down after hitting an iceberg in 1912. He has said construction will begin next March in China.

The original Titanic, which was built in Belfast, sank on its first trip from Southampton in England to New York, killing more than 1,500 passengers and crew.

Palmer, a larger-than-life character who made a fortune in mining, is also a real estate developer and tourism resort operator who is planning to build “the world’s biggest” park of giant robotic dinosaurs at his Coolum Resort on Australia’s Sunshine Coast.

Astronomers Discover Asteroid Heading to the Earth

Science and Technology

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An asteroid that could hit Earth with the power of 2,500 nuclear bombs flew close to the planet on September 16.

Last night, Ukrainian astronomers said there is a chance it could come even closer and strike our planet on August 26, 2032.

Nasa has attempted to calm nerves by issuing a 'a reality check', which highlights that the probability of an Earth impact is only one in 63,000.

That means astronomers are 99.9984 per cent certain that it will miss Earth's orbit. Crimean Astrophysical Observatory found the massive asteroid, called 2013 TV135, last weekend and the international scientific community has already rated it as one of the two most dangerous asteroids ever recorded.

The asteroid is initially estimated to be about 1,300 feet (400 meters) in size and its orbit carries it as far out as about three quarters of the distance to Jupiter's orbit and as close to the sun as Earth's orbit.

Massive: The asteroid would strike with 2,500megatons of explosive force, enough to create damage within a 100,000 square-mile radius. (Blast location for illustrative purposes only)

As of October 14, asteroid 2013 TV135 is one of 10,332 near-Earth objects that have been discovered. Scientists have given it a danger rating of 1 out of 10 on the Torino Scale. Only one other asteroid has been given a rating of 1.

The risk for all others has been judged 0, negligible. The effects of an impact would be catastrophic, especially if it struck a populated area. If 2013 TV135 were to collide with Earth, it is estimated to impact with 2,500 megatons of explosive power.

The standard U.S. Minute Man II missiles carries a nuclear warhead with an explosive power of a little over 1 megaton. But Nasa said that with only a week of observations for an orbital period that spans almost four years, its future orbital path is 'still quite uncertain.'

The space agency expects the object to be easily observable in the coming months, and will be using the Minor Planet Centre in Cambridge, Massachusetts to improve calculations.

The asteroid was discovered by astronomers at the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory and later confirmed by scientists as observatories in Spain, Italy and Siberia, Russia

It said the most likely result will be a dramatic reduction, or complete elimination, of any risk of Earth impact.

"To put it another way, that puts the current probability of no impact in 2032 at about 99.998 per cent," said Don Yeomans, manager of Nasa’s Near-Earth Object Programme Office at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

"This is a relatively new discovery. With more observations, I fully expect we will be able to significantly reduce, or rule out entirely, any impact probability for the foreseeable future."

The asteroid is much smaller than the interplanetary object that hit Earth and killed off the dinosaurs 65million years ago. Currently, 2007 VK184 is believed to have the best chance of striking Earth.

The 420-foot-wide object is said to have a 1 in 2700 chance of making contact with the planet in 2048. It is the only other asteroid to have a 1 rating on the Torino Scale.

Lonely, Young Planet Floating Alone Without Purpose

12 October, 2013
Science and Technology

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We all need a sense of purpose in our lives, a sense of direction -- a north star. That's why it's with a heavy heart that we report that scientists have found a lonely, directionless planet that has no star.

Astronomers using the Pan-STARRS 1 wide-field survey telescope on Haleakala, Maui, have discovered a very young free-floating planet named PSO J318.5-22.

Located approximately 80 light-years away in the constellation Capricornus, PSO J318.5-22 has a mass only six times that of Jupiter. It belongs to a collection of young stars called the Beta Pictoris moving group that formed about 12 million years ago.

In fact, the eponymous star of the group, Beta Pictoris, has a young gas-giant planet in orbit around it. PSO J318.5-22 is even lower in mass than the Beta Pictoris planet and probably formed in a different fashion.

The exoplanet is one of the lowest-mass free-floating objects known, perhaps the very lowest. But its most unique aspect is its similar mass, color, and energy output to directly imaged planets.

PSO J318.5-22 is extremely cold and faint, about 100 billion times fainter in optical light than Venus. Most of its energy is emitted at infrared wavelengths.

"Planets found by direct imaging are incredibly hard to study, since they are right next to their much brighter host stars. PSO J318.5-22 is not orbiting a star so it will be much easier for us to study. It is going to provide a wonderful view into the inner workings of gas-giant planets like Jupiter shortly after their birth," said Dr Niall Deacon of the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Germany, co-author of the paper accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.

PSO J318.5-22 was discovered during a search for the failed stars known as brown dwarfs. Due to their relatively cool temperatures, brown dwarfs are very faint and have very red colors.

To circumvent these difficulties, the astronomers have been mining the data from the Pan-STARRS 1 (PS1) telescope. PS1 is scanning the sky every night with a camera sensitive enough to detect the faint heat signatures of brown dwarfs.

"We often describe looking for rare celestial objects as akin to searching for a needle in a haystack. So we decided to search the biggest haystack that exists in astronomy, the dataset from PS1," said co-author Dr Eugene Magnier of the Institute for Astronomy at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.

The scientists followed up the PS1 discovery with multiple telescopes on the summit of Mauna Kea on the island of Hawaii. Infrared spectra taken with the NASA Infrared Telescope Facility and the Gemini North Telescope showed that PSO J318.5-22 was not a brown dwarf, based on signatures in its infrared light that are best explained by it being young and low-mass.

'We have never before seen an object free-floating in space that that looks like this. It has all the characteristics of young planets found around other stars, but it is drifting out there all alone. I had often wondered if such solitary objects exist, and now we know they do," said lead author Dr Michael Liu, also from the Institute for Astronomy at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.

CRITIQUE ON NIGERIA'S ANTI CORRUPTION STRATEGY (2013- 2017)

Although Nigeria has sufficient anti-corruption and bribery laws, implementation of such laws has over the years been the major problem in the avowed fight against graft. There is a renewed demand for compliance of anti-corruption laws already in place in Nigeria, given that there are adequate legal frameworks spelling out offences and sanctions with regards to corruption. There are existing gaps in the legal framework in relation to the role of anti-corruption agencies and public/private sector in perpetrating and/or curbing corruption.

The array of structures, institutions and laws (EFCC, ICPC, PCC, CCB) already in place in Nigeria seems to be grossly in-effective, with most of them suffering from serious corruption deficit. The setting up of these structures and institutions seems to be highly faulty and as such cannot fight the very scourge which they are built on (Corruption)

Any Anti corruption strategy must look at the doctrine of separation of powers, which looks at oppressive and arbitrary rule when all   functions of government are exercised by a single person or institution, Corruption does not involve just people in government, but also to people in both private and public positions.

In the Nigerian context though corruption is prevalent in the public sector, there is the renewed need for the private sector and other sector’s of the economy to be beamed with the corruption search light. This will give a better appraisal of the endemic system of corruption. And in tackling the corruption in the Private sector, Nigeria planned strategy against corruption must conform to the provisions of articles 12, 21, 22 and 39 of UNCAC which deals directly with the private sector.

There is also the need to add to the cause of corruption, Sociological factors, which underlines Multi-ethnic societies which may be more likely to fall prey to corruption as a result of failure to manage ethnic conflict in a way that is fair to everyone.

Broadly, in order to nip corruption in the bud, there must be renewed emphasis on transparency, integrity, and accountability in all private and public transaction. The Achanism Model named after Achan in the Bible can be a good standard for checking the excesses of corrupt persons. Achan in the scripture was avaricious (Joshua 7). He was caught and his entire family was severely dealt with. His children, who might have expected to inherit the proceeds of his illegal act, were not allowed to do so. Simply, the law should be enforced to its fullest without fear or favour.

Transformation in form of education of the public is a necessary factor in social transformation. There is need for formation and reformation, orientation and re-orientation of the minds and heart of Nigerians, for them to see that corruption is the enemy of development.

Another addition to the checks of corruption should also be the Improvement of Socio-political and Economic Life. This is another weapon against corruption in Nigeria. The multiplying effects of this improvement will reduce the tendency of public servants to demand and take bribes and get involved in other corrupt practices.

In reducing institutional vulnerabilities based on organisation assessments/corruption risk assessments, agencies like the Technical Unit on Governance and Anti-Corruption Reforms (TUGAR) and other non-state actors must take principal roles in the fight against corruption looking at their roles in the anti-corruption fight over the years in Nigeria

Risk management can help poor people overcome crises and get ahead

Aid workers and policymakers should shift from being crisis fighters to proactive risk managers, says World Banki

Residents watch from their homes as floodwaters run down a street in Santo Domingo, capital of the Dominican Republic. Photograph: AP

Drought, pandemic, tsunami, violent crime, financial meltdown – the world is full of risks, and the poor are often most vulnerable to their effects. Instead of simply responding to crises, aid workers and policymakers should anticipate and help to guard against such rare and potentially devastating events, according to the World Bank's world development report 2014, published this week.

"We're advocating a sea change in the way risk is managed," the World Bank president, Jim Yong Kim, says. "Our new approach calls for individuals and institutions to shift from being 'crisis fighters' to proactive and systematic risk managers."

After the world suffered major crises in 2008, including shocks to the global financial system and spikes in the prices of food and fuel, the concept of risk management has gained prominence in international development. The links between risk, livelihoods and poverty are all too clear, the World Bank report says.

"Mounting evidence shows that adverse shocks – above all, health and weather shocks and economic crises – play a major role in pushing households below the poverty line and keeping them there," the report says.

But forward-thinking interventions can help offset the costs of future shocks. Bangladesh offers a good example, says Norman Loayza, the report's director.

"In 1970, a large typhoon caused 300,000 deaths [in Bangladesh]. In 2007, a typhoon of the same characteristics and strength caused only 4,000 deaths," Loayza says in a video statement. "The reason for the change was that the country [had] built a number of shelters. It went from having only 12 shelters in 1970 to having 2,500 in 2007 … It also had a system of warning the population and a system of forecasting these events."

But risk management isn't just about mitigating the effects of crises; it can also help people get ahead. Farmers in Ghana and India who had access to rainfall insurance were more likely to invest in fertiliser, seeds, and other farming inputs, the report said, instead of sitting on their money to guard against potential future shocks.

The concept of risk management isn't new, says Tom Mitchell, head of the climate and environment programme at the Overseas Development Institute, but given the extreme events of the recent past, "it's probably more important than ever".

Several recent studies have predicted that extreme events will become more common, Mitchell says. If we fail to anticipate and plan for those events, then we could risk giving up many of the development gains made over the past few decades.

In a time of government austerity, thinking about risk management can also help limited aid money have a greater impact. In most cases, as the World Bank report shows, the price of preventive interventions is much smaller than the long-term costs of handling a full-blown crisis. Moreover, the effects of risk-management interventions may pay off for years to come.

"We've not really done a lot to think about the long-term durability of some our development investments," says Mitchell. "If risk management helps us to do that, then all the better."

But risk management is only as effective as our ability to anticipate the extreme events that may strike in the years ahead. To some extent, uncertainty is inherent to the process.

"The risks that we'll face in 10 years' time will probably look very different to the risks we faced 10 years ago," says Mitchell. "Development progress is really dependent on our understanding those differences."