Job Guide
http://jobguide.thegoodguides.com.au
Bill
Gates' advice
-
to secondary students in the USA
Rule 1
Life is not fair - get used to it.
Rule 2
The world won't care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something
before you feel good about yourself.
Rule 3
You will not make 40 thousand US dollars a year right out of high school. You won't be a vice president with a car phone, until you earn both.
Rule 4
If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss. He doesn't have tenure.
Rule 5
Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your grandparents had a different word for burger flipping
- they called it opportunity.
Rule 6
If you mess up, its not your parents' fault, so don't whine about your mistakes, learn from them.
Rule 7
Before you were born, your parents weren't as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you are. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parents generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.
Rule 8
Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life has not. In some schools they have abolished failing grades and they'll give you as many times as you want to get the right answer. This doesn't bear the slightest resemblance to
anything in real life.
Rule 9
Life is not divided into terms. You don't get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you find yourself. Do that on your own time.
Rule 10
Television is not real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.
Rule 11
Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one.
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Building design shapes learning
Building design shapes learning
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/-/hi/english/education/newsid_2064000/2064821.stm
The design of school buildings can affect children's behaviour and greater attention should be paid to how classrooms look and feel, says a study.
"Stimulating environments can ... act as a powerful motivator."
Helen Clark, study author
And the study's author says the benefits of features such as using more natural light, well-planned spaces and the use of calming colours are too often overlooked.
"Physical features such as light, space, furnishings and equipment can make people feel valued - or not," says Helen Clark, whose research has been published by London University's Institute of Education.
"This affects their behaviour and attitudes and can significantly enhance or impede the learning process.
"Creating stimulating environments can raise the expectations of parents and teachers and act as a powerful motivator in bringing about positive change."
And she says that for too long school buildings have not been constructed with enough attention to the needs of the users.
Modern schools should allow for "adaptability and flexibility", she says, getting away from the idea that all classrooms need to be the same size.
Light works
Natural light can help learning, but this also needs to be balanced with blinds that allow the use of computer screens and whiteboards.
There should be adequate circulation around a school - with corridors wide enough to prevent overcrowding and with good visibility lines for supervision.
Heating is also important, she says, and this needs to be flexible and not a single system that gets switched on in the autumn and turned off in the spring.
In terms of the use of colour, she says that neutral colours have a calming influence - and in primary schools it should not always be assumed that children want primary colours.
While television home improvement shows have made people more aware of the design of their own homes, she says that there is still much too little attention to the overall design of schools.
"Future research must adopt a more holistic approach to examining the factors responsible for student achievement, including the physical environment," she says.
Building Education by Helen Clark is published by the Institute of Education, priced Ł7.95.
Cherie's guide to beating exam stress
Cherie Booth has urged parents to reassure their sons and daughters in the run up to exams, telling them how much they are loved - no matter what the results.
"Tell your children that they can they can only try their best and even if they don't do as well as you hope, you still love them just as much," said mother-of-four Cherie Booth QC.
The advice of the prime minister's wife made it into the top 10 tips for students issued by the exam board, Edexcel.
Thousands of pupils will be sitting AS-level exams this month and many more will spend the coming months revising for summer exams and tests, from standard assessment tests (SATs) to GCSEs and A-levels.
Pupils are now put through their paces at seven, 11, 14, 16, 17 and 18 and England is said to put its children through more public exams than any other country in the developed world.
In an attempt to quell pupils' nerves, Edexcel has compiled a list of 10 exam tips:
1. Try to keep to the revision timetable you have created. Make sure your parents know that if you are "not working", it is your relaxing time on the plan.
2. Know where your exams are and when they start. Prepare items needed for the exam - calculators, rulers, etc - the evening before.
3. Make sure you have one day over the weekend when you do not do any revision or think about exams - you will come back to it refreshed.
4. Keep bullet points on crib cards highlighting main subject theories. Use these for quick revision and for reading during "dead" times such as waiting for a bus. Use mnemonics - using initials of a word to help memory.
5. If you revise well by listening, record your revision onto cassette tapes and then listen to these while lying in bed, travelling in a car or walking to the shops.
6. Ensure you eat and sleep properly. Now is not the time to diet or stay up all night. Have an early night before the exam.
7. Look after yourself during the exam period - keep a good routine and eat healthily. Be sure to cut down your hours on any weekend or evening job.
8. If you are ill before the exam, or if there is a family crisis or problems, tell your teacher because this could affect your exam performance and special consideration can be taken when the examiner is marking your paper.
9. On the morning of the exam, have a good breakfast, stay calm and allow plenty of time to get to the exam.
10. Remember, you can only do your best and even if you do not do as well as you hope, your parents will still love you just as much - as Ms Booth says.
Digital plan for individual learning
Pupils could be working at their own pace on computers, using lesson plans downloaded from the internet, under government plans for a "digital curriculum" in England.
"Curriculum Online will provide teachers with the best resources available and will free them up to do what they do best - teaching."
Education Secretary, Estelle Morris
Ministers think these model lessons and other content developed by the BBC and independent providers will allow pupils to work better at their own pace.
From next September, Ł50m is being made available to fund what the government calls "Curriculum Online".
The Department for Education said: "This ground-breaking service will bring exciting new learning materials to teachers and pupils' fingertips, enabling learning to become more flexible than ever."
It is not yet able to say how the Ł50m will be divided among England's 23,000 schools.
The BBC is proposing separately to spend Ł150m over the next five years, developing core curriculum material for all ages, across the UK's four education systems - subject to the approval of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.
It plans to commission half the content from outside the BBC.
'Helping teachers'
The government has scrapped a more limited scheme, in which the BBC and Granada were each developing material for three GCSE subjects.
This had annoyed independent educational providers who were not broadcasters and were therefore excluded from the original competition to do this.
Curriculum Online has five elements:
a "shop window" on the web, with online curriculum resources including a library of e-learning materials
access to commercial products for schools to buy, including a guide to the best written by teachers for teachers
"e-Learning credits" - money for schools to buy digital curriculum resources
software for to help teachers find the resources they want
a "watchdog" advisory panel to ensure resources are available for all curriculum subjects.
The Education Secretary, Estelle Morris, said the new service would help teachers to spend more time teaching and motivating pupils, by providing quick, safe access to lesson materials through the internet.
It would also raise standards by offering one-to-one support through the internet and individualised learning that allowed more able pupils to progress at a quicker pace and motivated and supported the less able.
She gave, as an example, pilot projects for 11 to 14 year olds in maths, Latin and Japanese, and Channel 4's Bafta award-winning Gridclub, which helps 7 to 11 year olds with homework.
Interactivity
"It will be an incredibly important tool for teachers in helping them to plan lessons," she said.
"Curriculum Online will provide teachers with the best resources available and will free them up to do what they do best - teaching."
Ms Morris accompanied the prime minister, Tony Blair, to launch the scheme at Greensward College in Essex.
The college's vice-principal, Simon London, stressed that it was not about putting text books online.
"An online curriculum has got to be interactive - with video clips and sound files and responses that can be given to students," he said.
Industry commitment
The BBC's director-general, Greg Dyke, said: "The digital curriculum is key to the BBC's promise to make learning a top priority for the BBC in the 21st century."
"Interactive digital technology has the power to make a huge difference to the way we learn."
The British Educational Suppliers Association, representing many of the commercial players, said the announcement signalled the government's commitment to making a reality of the potential for online learning.
Its director general, Dominic Savage, said: "For the educational supplies industry and for schools this a welcome confirmation that the government sees online learning as a priority and is committed to funding the necessary content in schools."
Mixed signals
Research published by the government agency Becta, based on an analysis of test results and Ofsted inspection data, indicated that schools that made good use of information and communication technology (ICT) generally outperformed those that did not.
The New Opportunities Fund - lottery money - gives schools money for training to give their teachers confidence in using ICT in their teaching. This ends next year.
Feedback on the quality of the training, which is done by commercial companies, has been mixed. And, for primary school teachers, there is no subject-specific training.
Earlier this year Ofsted reported that one of the problems was teachers' having to do the training in their own time.
It criticised the fragmentary nature of the funding and services available.
It said there had been recent improvements in pupils' abilities in the information technology part of the curriculum - but that standards were still lower than in most subjects and varied widely.
Union concern
Nigel de Gruchy of the National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers accepted there could be a growing use and effectiveness of computers in the classroom, to the benefit of all.
"However, progress will be painfully slow unless the government frees up resources and creates time in which teachers can be trained and become confident in the use of ICT to develop more effective ways of teaching," he said.
"But computers are a long way from replacing teachers and textbooks entirely. A good dose of reality would be welcome to avoid ministers being carried away on flights of fancy.
"ICT can be a godsend when it is of the right quality, with the finance required to keep up to date in a fast-changing market and the support staff needed to restore systems when they crash and other hitches develop."
Classrooms of the future
A vision of a school of the future making extensive use of computer technology and classroom assistants has been unveiled by the Education Secretary, Estelle Morris.
Her speech at the BETT 2002 educational technology conference in London was accompanied by a promotional video showing a computer-generated model of the school of tomorrow.
Beyond the office-style reception desk, students enter the school using a swipe card to take part in "self-directed learning" using the latest technology.
As a step along the road, Ms Morris announced a Ł100m scheme to provide teachers in England with laptop computers.
This will provide laptops for about 100,000 teachers over the next two years - although that will still leave almost twice as many without.
Use of assistants
In the video, vast, open-plan spaces contain hi-tech study areas equipped with palmtops, laptops, plasma screens and electronic whiteboards.
"The classroom of the future is fast becoming a reality."
Department for Education video
Teachers provide "leadership" with the help of classroom assistants and on-call technical support.
The stress on the use of assistants reiterates the education secretary's recent speeches promoting their greater use in schools.
The video's commentary says "a fusion of teaching, learning and technology" is fast becoming a reality.
Support
The school becomes a place where technology allows "children of all abilities to learn at their own pace alongside one another, studying individually or in groups" - where "teachers can offer leadership to pupils with the support of a classroom assistant".
Learning support assistants provide one-to-one help for those with special needs.
"All of this is backed by the availability of technical support, so that there is no disruption to the free flow of learning and development," it says.
The lack of affordable technical support has been one of the big complaints from schools benefiting from Ł1.8bn worth of equipment under the National Grid for Learning initiative.
Teachers' unions have welcomed the promise of laptops, but say it will take much more than that to transform most schools in line with the vision.
Free laptops
The Association of Teachers and Lecturers said: "If there is a cautionary note to be sounded it is that ICT [information and communication technology] is a valuable educational adjunct but it is no panacea.
"Deep-seated problems need more than a shiny new laptop."
The Department for Education sees it as crucial to the more effective use of ICT that teachers have regular personal access to computers to build up their knowledge and confidence.
Previous schemes have provided some 50,000 teachers with support towards purchasing their own machines.
This time, they will not have to make any financial contribution.
Instead, from this summer, education authorities will be able to buy laptops which will then be owned - and maintained - by their schools.
'Not enough'
Priority is to be given to head teachers who do not yet have a laptop.
The National Association of Head Teachers said the Ł100m was about half the figure recommended by the PricewaterhouseCoopers' study on reducing teachers' workloads, but was "a real step in the right direction".
The general secretary, David Hart, said he was happy to talk to the government about its vision of the school of the future, providing this was not just an attempt to avoid dealing with the problems of the present.
Word of caution
"Today's recruitment and retention problems cannot be solved by talking about tomorrow's schools," he said.
The NASUWT teachers' union said research on the relationship between pupil performance and ICT resources was inconclusive.
It was happy to encourage development of ICT, recognising that it had a very useful role in education "but is most unlikely ever to be able to compensate for the active presence and motivating force of a teacher."
Digital change at the chalkface
By BBC News Online's Jane Wakefield
A digital whiteboard that costs a fraction of many on the market could be the answer to interactivity in British schools.
So-called smart boards are often way out of the range of most school budgets, with a hefty price tag of around Ł2,000.
The alternative could be a product called Mimio. At a cost of several hundred pounds, the Mimio creates a digital whiteboard that can project the internet and allow teacher and pupils to write on the screen.
At Queniborough School in Leicestershire, the teachers are big fans of the Mimio.
Head teacher Chris Davis was able to buy one for every classroom because of its low cost.
"We use the system to project the internet in real-time and we can also use it with DVD and VHS video.
"There are an awful lot of things you can do with it and it enables real interactivity in the classroom," he said.
It does not require a great deal of technical know-how either.
"After a two-hour training session, the staff felt very confident about using it," said Mr Davis.
Take notes
For many teachers, the most exciting aspect of the Mimio is its ability to capture information.
Without needing to be connected to a computer, the device can record up to 12 hours of information written in the teacher's own handwriting.
"It makes learning so much fun."
Sharon Deackes, teacher
The handwriting can later be converted into print for use as class notes, for students who were absent for the lesson, or for teacher's own assessment or records.
Sharon Deackes is one of Queniborough's teachers and often uses a Mimio for her class of 10 to eleven-year-olds.
"I have used it for all elements of the curriculum, from numeracy to literacy.
"For example, we brainstormed ideas for story-writing. I wrote it on the whiteboard and saved it as text to use as self-assessment some weeks later," she said.
"It is wonderful for children to look at a large piece of text and for that text to become interactive is amazing. The children say it has helped them remember things and they are very focused. It makes learning so much fun."
A new model of the Mimio goes on sale next month for Ł599.
It is the brainchild of US start-up firm Virtual Ink. So far around 100,000 Mimios have been sold.
It works by using infrared and ultrasonic receivers, which track the movement of a stylus on the whiteboard.