No matter how academic you are, or how much you enjoy studying, the fact of the matter is that learning can be boring at times.

With lots of facts to be memorised and arguments to be absorbed, not all of which you will find interesting, there are times when studying can seem a chore and motivation can wane. It’s times like these that you need to have a few tried and tested study methods and motivational techniques to make the process of studying a little more enjoyable. This article gives you a few ideas to help you bring back the joy of learning and succeed even in your least favourite subjects.

1. Listen to music

Everyone’s different, and some people can’t concentrate with music on in the background. But if you’re trying to get to grip with a topic you just can’t seem to get interested in, having some music on in the background can really help. For me, Mozart is particularly good for making my study enjoyable, and so do to raise the brain cells; I recommend his clarinet concerto if you aren’t sure where to start!

2. Set your notes to music

Music can be used in lots of different ways to help you study.

You could go a step further with the music and actually use it to help you learn. You’re probably good at remembering lyrics to songs, because the melody and rhymes help cement the words in your mind; you can use the same principle in your studies. If you’re struggling to remember dates, facts or figures, try setting them to music. It may feel a little cheesy, but picking a tune and substituting the lyrics is a great way to remember those facts that just won’t stick. Then when you’re in the exam room, you only have to recall the tune and the facts should come flooding back.

3. Try using interactive learning materials

In this day and age, you have an advantage over previous generations in that you have a wealth of study materials available to you on the internet. With plenty of online courses and other web resources, you’re sure to be able to find some fun interactive learning software for the subject you’re trying to tackle. Such software makes use of multimedia information to help you absorb information more easily, and may include audio, videos and quizzes in addition to straightforward text for you to read. Mixing up the format of your learning materials in this way is a sure-fire way to help you learn more easily, but it also makes the process more enjoyable by breaking up the monotony of studying from books.

4. Use flashcards

Flashcards are a classic revision technique.

Flashcards are a really useful revision resource, but you can use them all year round to make your studying more enjoyable – not just when it comes to exam time. Try condensing the topic into as few words as you can; it’s quite a challenge. Also, design them in such a way that they are visually memorable. Adding colourful drawings to each card to illustrate each topic means that when you’re struggling to remember something, perhaps in class, you can recall what you drew on the card. The chances are that the rest will come back to you when you remember the visual cue.
This is one of my note of Linguistics that I made it by adding some colors just to make me feel interesting on reading it.

My Linguistics note

5. Create posters

Summarising concepts on posters gives you something different to do, and also allows you to be a bit creative with your designs, injecting some fun into your studying in the process. Let’s say you’re learning about photosynthesis. You could design a poster that illustrates how the process works, complete with colourful diagrams and drawings, text outlining the step-by-step process and labels highlighting what each part of the plant is called. When you’re finished, you could hang the poster in your room so that you’re exposed to it in your spare time as well, and you’ll gradually absorb the information without even realising it. It’s a much more fun way of learning difficult concepts, and it will help you get the facts clear in your head.

6. Make up some mnemonics

A helpful mnemonic for the planets: My Very Eager Mother Just Served Us Noodles.

It may be hard to remember how to spell and say the word mnemonic, but the thing itself is in fact a memory aid. It refers to when you translate information into a form in which you can more easily remember it. For example, many people use the mnemonic “Never Eat Shredded Wheat” to remember the compass directions (“North, East, South, West”). You can use these to help you memorise troublesome facts that just won’t seem to stick in your head. For example, if you’re trying to remember the names of the kings and queens of England, make up a phrase with their initials. Taking monarchs of the last century as an example, we have Victoria, Edward VII, George V, Edward VIII, George VI, Elizabeth II – giving us the letters V, E, G, E, G, E. You can then use these on their own, recalling “Vegege”, or you can make up a phrase with the words starting with these initials – for instance “VEGetables Eventually Get Eaten”.

7. Use diagrams to illustrate what you’re learning

We touched on this point earlier with posters and flashcards, but it’s an idea you can apply to every aspect of your learning, including note-taking and essay-writing. Creating drawings and diagrams to illustrate the concepts you’re learning or writing about is a fun way of learning, but it also helps convey points more easily, and in such a way that they will stick in your mind more readily. What’s more, using diagrams in essays helps make your work more interesting for teachers to read, scoring you more points by supporting the clarity of your communication.

8. Invest in some stationery you love using

Delicious new stationery can be a great motivating tool.

An easy way to make studying more fun is to invest in some stationery and general desk equipment that you love using. High-quality paper and pens that are a pleasure to write with, a set of colouring pencils, highlighters, a notepad with an attractive cover – all these will make you want to use them! Another trick on the stationery front is to purchase a nice ‘To Do’ list notepad so you can tick things off; nothing beats the satisfaction of ticking things off a list, and it will also allow you to stay on top of what you need to do and when.

9. Treat yourself

Rewarding yourself for your efforts is an important part of making studying more enjoyable, as well as motivating yourself. Keep some healthy snacks with you while you’re working, such as sliced fresh fruit, dried fruit or nuts. If you’re reading something particularly difficult, buy a packet of Skittles, Maltesers or similar, and place one at intervals down the page – you get to eat it when you’ve read up to that point. Thinking slightly longer term, book things to look forward to for your time off. That could be meeting up with a friend, a trip to the cinema to see a film you’re looking forward to, or anything else that will give you a way to relax once you’ve got a hard study session out of the way.

10. Read Harry Potter in another language

If you’re learning another language, you can make learning more fun by attempting to read your favourite book in the language you’re learning. We’re giving Harry Potter as an example here because it’s even available in Latin and Ancient Greek! Because you’re already familiar with the plot and characters, you’ll find it easier to get to grips with the language itself.

11. A change of scene

Studying doesn’t have to be about shutting yourself away in a dark library.

Changing your environment can be a great way of regaining your enthusiasm for studying, and provided your change of scene doesn’t bring with it too many distractions, this is a simple means of making studying more enjoyable. This could mean studying in the library rather than at home, moving your desk to by the window so that you can enjoy the view each time you look up from your books, or even heading down to a local coffee shop and burying yourself in your studies with a steaming mug of coffee to keep you alert. On a summer’s day you could try studying in the garden or park, so that you get to enjoy the outdoors without neglecting your studies.

12. Study in small bursts on each topic

Don’t try to spend an entire day studying a single topic; you’ll soon get bored of it! Instead, map out a timetable allocating no more than an hour per topic, breaking bigger ones down if necessary. This means that you’ll have a varied day and be better able to retain interest and enthusiasm for individual subjects. Anything becomes dull if you spend too much time on it, so keep the fun element by stopping before you reach that point.

13. Study with a friend

Working with friends is a great way to boost creativity by exchanging ideas.

Studying with a friend is an almost guaranteed way to make studying more fun, and it’s enormously beneficial to those given to procrastination. It can be difficult to motivate oneself when studying alone, but with someone else there to spur you on (or for you to spur on!), everything seems much easier – particularly when you can help each other understand concepts you’re struggling with. Here are a few ideas for how you can make the most out of studying with a friend:

• Compare notes on ideas you have and on what you thought of essay questions, set texts or other assignments.
• Allocate different areas of a topic for each of you to study, and then each of you teaches the other about what you’ve been learning. Having to explain a concept to someone else forces you to learn it properly and think clearly.
• Engage in some academic discussions and debates, with one of you playing the role of Devil’s Advocate while the other tries to argue a point.
• Give each other little mini lectures, complete with presentations – this helps you learn the subjects as well as giving you valuable practice at presenting.
• Set each other quizzes to test what you’ve learned.
• You could even introduce an element of competition – see who can come up with the most ideas for an essay, who can get to the end of a chapter quickest, and so on.

15. Start a study group

Finally, you could go a step further with the ‘study buddy’ concept and start up a study group with a number of friends. This gives you the benefit of more ideas and opinions, and makes it easier to get an academic discussion going. To make it work, you could allocate a set time each week when you all meet – perhaps at a weekend – and you could arrange your meetings in a coffee shop so that it doesn’t feel quite so much like working (provided you can be disciplined enough to stick to conversations about what you’re meant to be studying!).
Following these tips should help avoid boredom when you’re studying and keep your productivity levels high. Even the subjects you think are dull can be made interesting and enjoyable if you take the right approach, and maintaining this positive attitude is sure to do wonders for your grades!

Good luck for all of us! Hopefully we'll easily pass the exams after learning with the enjoyable ways. And so do for me, wish I can pass for my 2nd semester exam next month...Aamiin
Keep learning and fighting.....

11:59:00 PM

There are many reasons why teachers need to master ICT in this 21st century. So, here are :

The next generation is the more clever than before

     - In the 21st Century, teachers are trying to teach higher level skills, critical thinking, synthesis, analysis, and the teachers are trying to raise a generation that are clever than before. So, to cover it all, can be done so easily by the help from ICT as well.

     - In this 21st Century almost everythings are handled by the technologies, so do with the learning process. Every teacher should be proficient in the use of productivity tools. Teachers have to process many different types of data. Productivity tools (word processor, spreadsheet, database, and presentation software) are available on all computers and are obvious tools to use for most teaching and learning tasks.

     - For teachers today, one great way to the learning process is to use social media, how to produce and publish valuable content, and how to create sharable resources. This is can be done by doing go blogging.

     - They should be able to troubleshout technology-related problems that commonly crop up in the classroom. They also should be familiar with what's available on the web in his or her subject area, and so on.

These reasons showed a very close connection between teaching learning and ICT. So that's why in the same way teachers have to learn the technologies more than the students do.

5:59:00 PM

What is the 21st century education? 

 Barnett Berry

       The Founder and CEO, Center for Teaching Quality, Barnet Berry said  "Twenty-first-century learning means that students master content while producing, synthesizing, and evaluating information from a wide variety of subjects and sources with an understanding of and respect for diverse cultures. Students demonstrate the three Rs, but also the three Cs: creativity, communication, and collaboration. They demonstrate digital literacy as well as civic responsibility. Virtual tools and open-source software create borderless learning territories for students of all ages, anytime and anywhere. Every teacher should be proficient in the use of productivity tools. Teachers have to process many different types of data. Productivity tools (word processor, spreadsheet, database, and presentation software) are available on all computers and are the obvious tools to use for most teaching and learning tasks. Every teacher should be proficient in the use of productivity tools. Powerful learning of this nature demands well-prepared teachers who draw on advances in cognitive science and are strategically organized in teams, in and out of cyberspace. Many will emerge as teacherpreneurs who work closely with students in their local communities while also serving as learning concierges, virtual network guides, gaming experts, community organizers, and policy researchers."
Obviously, teaching in the 21-century is an altogether different phenomenon; never before could learning be happening the way it is now -- everywhere, all the time, on any possible topic, supporting any possible learning style or preference. We live in a world where remembering information is no longer as important as it used to be because information is at our fingertips all the time, and  many children now start school technologically literate. They can use a keyboard and are familiar with tablet technology and smartphones. They can access limitless information than what we'll teach, so what we’re trying to do, I guess, is to think about, "What does being a 21st-century teacher really mean?" and "What is it we’re trying to teach?"

Here are some characteristics of a 21st-century teacher :

1.    Learner-Centered Classroom and Personalized Instructions
   In learner-centered teaching, the focus is on the student as learner, on improving student learning and success, rather than on the transmission of information. As students have access to any information possible, there certainly is no need to "spoon-feed" the knowledge or teach "one-size fits all" content. As students have different personalities, goals, and needs, offering personalized instructions is not just possible but also desirable. When students are allowed to make their own choices, they own their learning, increase intrinsic motivation, and put in more effort -- an ideal recipe for better learning outcomes.
2.    Students as Producers    In this modern era, by the time goes by everything changes so fast, as the changing question of “what do computers can do?” and now is “what the users can do with the computer?” As today’s students, they already have the latest and greatest tools, so how they utilize them is the greatest thing, with their own expensive devices can produce beautiful and creative blogs, movies, or digital stories that they feel proud of and share with others. And so do with the learning proccess in the class, students should not only consume contents, but they also create their own content and collaborate in the production of knowledge.
3.    Learn The Technologies 
    Every teacher should be proficient in the use of productivity tools so they have to process many different types of data. Then, they should be able to troubleshoot technology-related problems that commonly crop up in the classroom. They also should be familiar with what's available on the web in his or her subject area, and so on. So that's why in the same way teachers have to learn the technologies more than the students do.
4.    Go Global
    Today's tools make it possible to learn about other countries. Of course, textbooks are still sufficient, yet, there is nothing like learning languages, cultures, and communication skills from actually talking to people from other parts of the world. It's a shame that with all the tools available, we still learn about other cultures, people, and events from media, Teaching students how to use the tools in their hands to "visit" any corner of this planet will hopefully make us more knowledgable and sympathetic.
5.    Be Smart and Use Smart Phones   
   When students are encouraged to view their devices as valuable tools that support knowledge (rather than disctraction) as they start using them. So what for to waste time and teach something that only one or two students would take the benefits. Instead, teaching students to be independent and make sure we are as the teachers know how to find answers they need makes the class a different environment! So, be smart by using smart phone!
6.    Build Your Positive Digital Footprint
      For teacher today, one great way to the learning process is to use social media, how to produce and publish valuable content, and how to create sharable resources. Even though it's true that teachers are people, and they want to use social media and post their pictures and thoughts, we cannot ask our students not to do inappropriate things online if we ourselves do it. Maintaining professional behavior both in class and online will help build positive digital footprint and model appropriate actions for students.
7.    Innovate
     How about to expand the teaching toolbox and try a new learning way that never we haven't tried before. Such as using social media like facebook, to interact, sharing information or giving the announcement, then changing the textbook to the web resources. Im sure they'd love to have a class discussion on social media.
8.    Go Blog
    Educators need to teach important materials in several ways because each one of our students learns differently. What’s more, we also need to provide students with multiple ways to engage with assignments, based on their individual talents. Blogging is one technique for doing so, as it can allow a quieter student, for example, to feel heard online. Those shy and quiet students feel less pressure when they need to “speak” in their blog or when giving peer feedback, as they are discussing the text on their own terms. Additionally, this journaling format works great with read-and-write learners as well as visual learners.
9.    Keep Learning
    If educators want to drive change in their schools, they need to stay on top of what's going on in education of her/his core subejct and absolutely, they have to continue to learn. As someone said "Who dares to teach, must never cease to learn."

Teaching for 21st Century Learners 

So now, after knowing what should the teacher be for the 21st century education, we're coming up to the next question "What is the teacher going to teach?" If we’re not just trying to teach factual recall like we often did in the past, what are we trying to do? Well I guess we’re trying to teach higher level skills. We’re trying to teach critical thinking. We’re trying to teach synthesis, analysis. We’re trying to raise a generation that are cleverer than we are. We’re a generation who kind of screwed the world up and don’t know how to fix it and we have to hope that future generations can do a better job.
So, the future-focused learning are :
1.    To  equip them with the thinking skills,
2.    Their ability to work in teams.
3.    Bring up their ability to understand different points of view.
4.    To use every tool that they have available effectively.
5.    To increase their power, by motivating them.
6.    To affect change in the world, hopefully for the better.
With strategic use of 21st century learning tools, educational institution can provide the supportive productive environment educators need to reach, teach and support each student's learning needs and potential.

4:51:00 PM

Traditional Classroom

Modern Classroom

  The life changes so fast and develops from time to time, as well as in education and learning. Learning had been evolving until today and will continue to grow in the future. According to reasercher S.Nasution, until now there are three models of learning that often confused by the means of  "teaching". First, teaching is imparting knowledge to the students with the aim to be mastered by the learners. This first type considered to be succesful is when the students mastered all the pieces of knowledge as much as possible that had been transferred by the teachers. Second, teaching is to convey the culture to the learners. This type is almost the same with the first that emphasize to the teacher as a more active part, and the student isn't more than a baby with the spoonfeed education. Third, teaching is an activity to organize or manage the environment as well as possible and connect with the student, so there will be an effective learning process.
       The first and second definitions are commonly used in most traditional societies. The result is they master all the knowledge but they don't know how to use and develop them. They seem like a baby who is given foods and drinks by the parents but they don't know where the food came from, how to make it, and how to get it. Meanwhile, in contrast with the first and second definition, the definition of teaching in the third model, is widely used now, especially in educational institutions in modern societies. The result is the students do not only master the learning material but also know their origins, how to obtain, and develop them. This global era really requires the graduates who are creative, innovative, dynamic and independent. By applying the third theory, then what happens not just teaching that results in the acquisition of knowledge, but also learning that produces mastery of method of science, skills, personality, and so on. In this way, self-learning activities will occur.

So let's have a look with this comparison....

 Traditional Classroom

1. The curriculum is presented part to whole, with emphasis on basic skills.
2. Strict adherence to the fixed curriculum is highly valued.
3. Every lesson relies heavily on textbooks.
4. Using cassette tape and recorder.
5. The teachers use the chalks or board marker and the board to write.
6. Students get the information with the spoonfeed by the teachers.
7. Teachers seek the correct answer to validate student learning.
8. Assessment of student learning is viewed as separate from teaching and occurs almost entirely through testing.
9. Students primarily work alone.

Constructivist Classroom 

1. The curriculum is presented whole to part with emphasis on big concepts.
2. Pursuit of student questions is highly valued.
3. Materials include primary sources and manipulatives.
4. Having some music and videos of education.
5. The teachers use the screen to show the materials.
6. The students do not always rely on the teachers, they have to learn to stand alone.
7. Teachers seek the students' points of view in order to understand students' present conceptions for use in subsequent lessons.
8. Assessment of student learning is interwoven with teaching and occurs through teacher observations of students at work and through students exhibitions.
9. Students primarily work in teams or groups.

Now we live in the modern era which we exquisitely depend on science and technology. But, it doesn't necessarily mean that we leave all the old things. The educational media is one of the factors that greatly affects the interaction between students and teacher. Teachers must be aware, appreciative and equipped using these tools. It must range from traditional to modern educational media that can support the learning of the students. Those all to help to maintain the good relationship between the teachers and thestudents in the new modern age.

7:05:00 PM

Mei 01, 2016, at 8:00 a.m
By Lisette Partelow 
Source : www.usnews.com/

A student prepares the food she is offered under the National School Lunch Program in March 2011, at McAuliffe Elementary School in Chicago. Schools can no longer count on using the program to determine the number of poor students they enroll, new research shows. (Jose M. Osorio/Chicago Tribune/MCT via Getty Images)

It's becoming more difficult for schools to accurately gauge the number of poor students they enroll – an important metric that's used for everything from doling out federal aid to tracking academic performance and measuring achievement gaps.

For decades, schools have defined low-income students as those who enroll in the National School Lunch Program, which provides free- and reduced-priced lunch to eligible kids – those whose families below 185 percent of the federal poverty line, or about $45,000 for a family of four.

Title I: Rich School Districts Get Millions in Federal Money Meant for Poor Kids

---

But that method "is quickly unravelling" and if left unchanged could have dire consequences for education policymakers and researchers warns a new report published Thursday by the Brookings Institution and written by Matthew Chingos, senior fellow at the Urban Institute.

"[Free- and reduced-priced lunch] participation data have long been put to research and policy uses for which they are ill-suited," Chingos says. "But FRL status is now headed toward its demise as a useful tool for research and policy."

Policymakers have long acknowledged that the proxy isn't perfect. But in more recent years, as the eligibility for the school lunch program has shifted in an effort to serve more students, the metric has become unreliable.

For starters, Chingos notes, the measurement only captures those who enroll in the school lunch program, and not those who are eligible for it. That means, for example, that two schools with similar student demographics could report dramatically different rates of poor students because one school might be more dogged in enrolling those who qualify. This has been a particular problem in high schools, where some students shirk their low-income status due to embarrassment or other factors.

Moreover, students who qualify for other public support programs, like food stamps, automatically qualify for the school lunch program regardless of where they fall on the federal poverty line.

Further complicating the accuracy of the metric, if 40 percent or more of students in a school qualify for other public support programs, the school is allowed under federal law to provide free lunch to all students in the entire school, negating the need for individual applications that identify accurate numbers.

The changes to the school lunch program have led to the number of students recorded as low-income consistently increasing, despite actual poverty measures falling and rising with the state of the economy, Chingos points out.

Recent data show substantially more kids are eligible for free- and reduced-priced lunch -- which is being used as a proxy for students living at 185 percent of the poverty line -- than there are kids who live in families below 200 percent of the poverty threshold.

---

While increasing the number of students that have access to free lunch is a positive development, policymakers say, the thinned accuracy of the metric presents a big problem for education researchers – a large part of whose jobs include tracking the academic achievement of poor students to ensure they aren't falling further behind their wealthier peers.

Chingos estimates that because of the free- and reduced-priced lunch metric, up to two-thirds of schools are unable to accurately report student achievement for poor students.

"A failure to quickly identify and implement new measures of family background will render policymakers and researchers unable answer important questions and comply with federal education law," he says.

Notably, the new federal education law, the Every Student Succeeds Act, maintains the federal requirement that states report student achievement data broken out by subgroups of students, including those who are low-income. Schools have traditionally used the number of students who qualify for free- and reduced-priced lunch as a way to measure this.

But with that metric becoming more and more diluted, Chingos says the Department of Education must release guidance for states and districts regarding new, more accurate measurements they could use. Those could potentially include, he offers, those who qualify for welfare, food stamps or Medicaid, or those enrolled in programs for homeless and foster youth.

"The core mission of the ESSA education law, like the No Child Left Behind Act before it, is at a minimum to shine a light on the academic performance of economically disadvantaged students," Chingos says. "These changes [to the school lunch program], they strike at the heart of that."

10:55:00 PM

April 29, 2016, at 8:00 a.m.
By Lisette Partelow | director of teacher policy at the Center for American Progress.
Source : www.usnews.com/ 

  

Here are some of the more outlandish predictions for the jobs people might hold in the future: mind-uploading specialist, personalized microbiome steward or de-extinction zoologist.

No one can really say for certain what the jobs of the future will be. A former educator argued that uncertainty about the future job market means that giving students opportunities to learn computer science, while trendy, is essentially pointless. Whatever students learn now will be as out of date as MS-DOS and car phones by the time they can put it to use, he reasoned.

He's not alone. It seems to have become fashionable nowadays to write naysayer articles about how popular efforts to expand computer science education are a waste of time.

Of course, many people disagree, and the popularity of code.org, Code Academy and other similar programs and websites attests to the widespread demand for computer science education. Last week, the Center for American Progress hosted an event in support of expanding computer science education in K-12 schools. The presenters discussed polling data showing the vast majority of American parents – 9 in 10 – want their kids to study computer science in school.

---

---

Currently, only about a quarter of schools teach programming. Yet there will be three jobs available for every 2016 college graduate with a computer science degree, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates jobs in software development and other computer occupations are expected to increase at a much faster rate than that of other occupations over the next several years.

So what's with all of the skepticism? First to the former educator's point about technology becoming obsolete so quickly. Yes, the technology sector changes rapidly – when I was a teacher a few years ago, my first-grade students' eyes all went wide when I told them there were no internet, cell phones or iPads when I was growing up.

And it's true, the programming languages my classmates learned in high school and college are probably defunct by now. Yet those who pursued computer science back in those dark ages still managed to get jobs at Google and other prestigious tech firms and kept these jobs as technology changed. Like the rest of us, they learned to adapt on the job as their field shifted. Someone roughly my age managed to use these crude tools to design a little website you might have heard of called Facebook.

Once you have some foundational skills, you can evolve with the technology or figure out something new and exciting to use it for – but half the battle is getting that initial exposure. Data back this up: If a student takes AP computer science in high school, that student is eight times more likely to major in computer science in college. In the book "Outliers," Malcolm Gladwell attributes Bill Gates' success in part to getting very early exposure to computer programming, well before most people had access to computers at all.

---

 The exposure element is especially important for female students and students of color, both of whom are woefully underrepresented in tech jobs. (Exposure, however, is not a complete solution; hiring discrimination also plays a role.)

Notably, as with many courses taken during one's educational career, computer science also teaches many generalizable skills. Computer science is much more than learning to code, and its benefits go beyond knowing a particular programming language. Computer science teaches students about logic, understanding systems and engineering and design basics, all of which are applicable to other academic and career fields. Perhaps this is why correlational data show that learning computer science is associated with higher math achievement. Computer science coursework also naturally lends itself to 21st century skills like collaboration, problem-solving and creativity, which are valuable and highly sought-after skills in the modern workplace.

Maybe the naysayers are right that the jobs of the future will be super-strange and that many of them won't require coding skills that look anything like what we are teaching students now. However, computers and computing are taking over nearly every aspect of our lives – Americans look at their smartphones an average of 46 times per day.

11:08:00 PM

What is the meaning of ICT in education?

But, before it let's clarify the meaning of ICT...

     ICT stands for information and communications technologies. ICT is an umbrella term that includes any communication device or application, encompassing: radio, television, cellular phones, computer and network hardware and software, satellite systems and so on, as well as the various services and applications associated with them, such as videoconferencing and distance learning. ICTs are often spoken of in a particular context, such as ICTs in education, health care, or libraries. The term is somewhat more common outside of the United States. 
So now, we're going to talk about the use ICT in education...

ICT in education 

In recent years there has been a groundswell of interest in how computers and the Internet can best be harnessed to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of education at all levels and in both formal and non-formal settings.
A small percentage of schools in some countries achieved high levels of effective use of ICT to support and change the teaching and learning process in many subject areas.

Advantages of using ICT in education :
 A study by Blanskat, Blamire and Kefala (2006) shows that :

1.  ICT has positive impact on students' performances in primary schools particularly in English language and less in science.
2. Schools with higher level of e-maturity show a rapid increase in performances in scores compared to those with lower level. 
3. Schools with sufficient ICT resources achieved better results than those that are not well-equipped. 
4. Pupils are more motivated when computers and Internet are being used in class. 

Syed Noor-UI-Amin from University of Kahmir wrote a paper on effective use of ICT for education and learning, to put it simply, he stated in his paper that :

1.  ICT encahnces teaching & learning process.
2. ICT enhances the quality & accessibility of education.
3. ICT enhances learning environment.
4. ICT enhances learning motivation.
5. ICT enhances scholastic performance.

How can ICT help expand access to education?

ICT has a huge potential to facilitate the learning opportunities, both formal and non-formal education, and nowadays it is also scattered to the rural population, indeed some of traditional group prohibiting for the education due to cultural or social reasons such as ethnic minorities, girls, the disabled, as well as those who can't enroll in college caused of cost or time.  

• Anytime and anywhere, one characteristic of ICTs is their ability to transcend space and time. ICT enables asynchronous learning, or learning characterized by a time lag between the delivery instructions and acceptance by learners. For example, online course materials are accessible 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and it means every time. ICT based on education ( for example, education programs on radio or television ) also dispenses with the need for all learners even without face-to-face can be done by using teleconference that allows instruction to be received simultaneously by all of learners who are scattered throughout any state.
• Teachers and students do not rely any longer to the printed books and any other physical media in the library which available on a limited amount for their educational needs. With Internet, the wealth learning materials in almost every subjects and in every medium, can be accessed from anytime of the day and with unlimited number of people.
• An accessible product or service is one that can be used by all of its intended users, taking into account their differing capabilities. Accessible ICTs have the potential to provide persons with disabilities unprecedented levels of access to education, skills training and employment, as well as the opportunity to participate in the economic, cultural and social life of their community

11:35:00 PM

Pat Glass has resigned as Labour's shadow education secretary, two days after being appointed by Jeremy Corbyn.

The North West Durham MP's appointment came on Monday during a wave of resignations by Labour MPs seeking a change in leadership.

She said she was resigning "with a heavy heart" because the "situation is untenable".

On Twitter, her resignation was met with a series of angry tweets from people declaring support for Mr Corbyn.

They threatened to deselect her and called her decision "disgusting".

Ms Glass had been shadow minister for Europe and a shadow junior education minister and described the post of shadow education secretary as her "dream job".

She replaced Lucy Powell, who stepped down on Monday after saying Mr Corbyn's position as Labour Party leader had become "untenable".

Ms Glass served as a member of the education select committee during the coalition government between 2010 and 2015.

Source : http://www.bbc.com/news/education-36661409

4:26:00 PM