(CoE) European governments are being urged to expand the use of so-called "e-learning" tools and technologies in schools and universities to target new groups of students, for instance through distance learning, as well as to enhance classroom teaching by new interactive, collaborative and audiovisual/textual learning content.
see Report and Recommendation 1836 (2008) (Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe).
(CNET News.com) by Stefanie Olsen. PBS Kids unveiled a test version of an educational game site for kids age 3 to 6, in one of the first advertising-free efforts aimed at small children and their parents online. The Web site, called PBS Kids Play, is a subscription-based service that lets children play animated games with characters like Curious George and learn basic skills in reading, listening comprehension, and problem solving. Parents can log onto the site separately to view their child's progress on various educational games based on national standards
(NetFamilyNews) There was a debate going on recently over at The Economist - the house believes that social networking technologies will bring large [positive] changes to educational methods, in and out of the classroom., and the pro-social-networking side won.
(BBC) More than half of teachers believe internet plagiarism is a serious problem among sixth-form students, a teaching union survey suggests. The 58% of 278 teachers who identified it as a problem said they thought 25% of work returned by pupils included material copied from internet sites.
(BBC) The BBC Trust has announced it is to suspend the online education service, BBC Jam, pending a review. It follows complaints from commercial online companies to the European Commission about the £150m project. They say the service, designed as a learning resource for children aged five to 16 in support of the national curriculums, damages their businesses.
(BBC)
Internet law professor Michael Geist says a patent row between educators and the maker of educational software tools holds lessons for all net users. This is because Blackboard, an American maker of these systems, took the academic community by surprise late last month when it announced it had been granted a broad patent in the US covering 44 claims related to learning management systems.
U.K. Libraries Jump Into the Net (Wired) An ambitious U.K. project, the People's Network, will see all of the United Kingdom's more than 4,000 libraries linked to the Internet to become access-and-learning centers by the end of this year. The project will see 30,000 terminals installed, stuffed with digital delights like e-mail, browsing, office applications, digital imaging and video conferencing. The vast majority will be connected to the Internet by 2-MB lines. Over 100 million pounds will be spent on the project, with the money coming from the United Kingdom's lottery cash through the New Opportunities Fund.
Group Urges Halt To Computers In School (NewsFactor Network) Traditional educational values have been eclipsed by an obsession with technology in recent years, creating an unhealthy learning environment for children. So says the Alliance for Childhood, a coalition of doctors, educators and child development specialists who have spent two years studying the role that computers play in the education of children. These specialists in a report, Fool's Gold: A Critical Look at Computers and Childhood, are calling for a temporary moratorium on computers in the lives of children.