Monday, March 30, 2009

For Students in India, the American Dream Is Losing Its Appeal

For Students in India, the American Dream Is Losing Its Appeal

Excerpted from Chronicle of Higher Education News Blog (click on above link to read full story)

In 2007-8 the number of Indian students going to American universities rose 12.8 percent, to 94,563, making India the largest source of foreign students in the United States.
But because of tightening credit markets and a global slowdown in economic growth, Indian students are also finding it harder to secure loans to study abroad, and many are less willing to take on huge amounts of debt.

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Ada Lovelace Day Honoree: Patricia Early



I want to honor Patricia Early, Trish, on Ada Lovelace Day because she's a tireless visionary for organic technology integration.

Trish wants to be a farmer when she grows up. But, actually, she already is. She works, almost full time in certain parts of the year, on a farm south of Atlanta with her grandfather. While she's farming, Trish is often envisioning organic ways to integrate technology into language learning.

In her role as coordinator of a language lab, she manages and implements all the typical approaches to language learning through technology... but the real impact of her approach is seen by the students voluntarily watching foreign films and hosting language clubs in the comfortable learning space she designed. This design reflects her feeling about technology integration as both an aesthetic and an adventure in identifying the right technology for the appropriate objective, but a propulsion that is always uniquely human. Her philosophy on technology (particularly in education) is that it is simply a tool and at it's best serves to support strong pedagogical planning and meaningful learning objectives. That being said, it is the Swiss Army Knife of educational tools, being both informative, analytical, creative, multimodal, motivational, and extra-textual, appealing in it's unique affordances to all learning styles and intelligences.

Learn more about Trish on her blogs & say hi:

Personal

Professional

Class

Thursday, March 19, 2009

Building a Professional Network in China

Did you know that most Chinese mobile phone users don't use voicemail?

Members of the Graduates in Instructional Technology Student Association (GrITS) at Georgia State University learned that recently while collaborating with Zoo Atlanta's Academy for Conservation Training (ACT). ACT invited GrITS members to brainstorm technology solutions to help foster the professional network for zoo educators in China and maintain momentum between training programs. Similar to not using voicemail, Chinese online communication habits also seem to favor immediacy through the use of instant messaging, the most popular program is QQ.

Learn more about Chinese Social Networking Habits:

Where's China in Social Networking?

Linked In in China?

Online Social Networks in China

More information about ACT provided by Laurel Askue:

Funded by The UPS Foundation, Zoo Atlanta’s award-winning Academy for Conservation Training (ACT) is the preeminent conservation education training for Chinese zoo educators. The goal of ACT is to work with the Chinese Association of Zoologcial Gardens (the organization that oversees accredited zoos in China) to develop and support a network of professional zoo educators who have the skills, knowledge and tools to support their conservation missions through education. Prior to the launch of ACT in 2006, no professional development training existed for Chinese zoo educators and the majority of zoos in China did not have functioning education departments or trained educators on staff. Since the launch of the program, ACT has conducted five traveling trainings (in Chengdu, Kunming, Beijing, Guanzghou and Shanghai) that graduated a total of 201 educators from the top 45 zoos in China. Evaluation findings indicate that ACT has the potential to make a significant impact towards facilitating the establishment of the zoo education profession in China. Based on this, Zoo Atlanta is currently focusing its efforts on training a core group of ACT graduates who have demonstrated passion and commitment towards furthering the zoo education profession with the long-term goal that they will take ownership of future ACT content and be prepared to lead the ongoing development of the zoo educator profession in China. The next session of ACT is scheduled for June 2009 in Harbin, China. To learn more about ACT, visit www.zooatlanta.org or email laskue@zooatlanta.org.

Thursday, March 12, 2009

Enrollment Ratio in Karnataka

The Times of India
March 2, 2009

Enrollment Ratio in Karnataka

BANGALORE: The enrolment ratio in higher education in Karnataka is 13% close to all India ratio, but the state needs to catch up with Kerala,

Tamil Nadu and Punjab, which have ratios higher than Karnataka, according toUniversity Grants Commission (UGC) chairman Sukhadeo Thorat.


At the release of `Heritage in higher education' on Wednesday, he said all India enrolment ratio in higher education is 14%. "This was based on the 2004 national sample survey. It includes degree, certificate course, diploma and PhDs," he said.

"It remains to be seen how Karnataka catches up with other states. The government and citizens should work towards improving the ratio. Also, there should be expansion of institutes and more allocation to higher education."

According to him, the government and philanthropists play a major role in expanding the scope of higher education in Karnataka.

Disparity in many levels

There is a disparity between urban and rural areas, between the genders and among people from various castes in enrolment for higher education. Thorat said enrolment in rural areas is 7% while in urban areas it is 21%. For women, the ratio is 10% while it is 14% for men. The ratio is less than 1% under the poor category.

"However, under the income slab, the ratio is 57% in the highest income group in Karnataka," he said.

Fee structure is another problem

Apart from poverty and gender issues, the other factor that affects enrolment ratio relates to fee structure. Karnataka has scope for self-financing and private institutes, but enrolment ratio may remain less due to faults in the fee structure. Many are denied access to higher education due to this. "The government is taking corrective measures on this issue," Thorat added.

Governor Rameshwar Thakur said education gives knowledge, skills and attitude to shoulder one's responsibilities in life with confidence. "Education brings you respect. It should be imparted with a view to suit the type of society that we wish to build," he explained.

"People are attracted towards technological education. But it can't go alone without support from humanities. If it did, it tends to become imperfect."