Special GUI for your eyes only.
...Researches at the University of Washington have recently developed a system, which for the first time, offers an instantly customizable approach to user interfaces. Each participant in the program is placed through a brief skills test and then a mathematically-based version of the user interface optimized for his or her vision and motor abilities is generated. The current off-the-shelf designs are especially discouraging for the disabled, the elderly and others who have trouble controlling a mouse, because most computer programs have standardized button sizes, fonts, and layouts, which are designed for normal users....

The fingerprinting of overseas students for biometric identity cards has begun for those extending their visas. (BBC)

Design and the Plastic Mind

...Over the past twenty-five years, people have weathered dramatic changes in their experience of time, space, matter, and identity. Individuals cope daily with a multitude of changes in scale and pace—working across several time zones, traveling with relative ease between satellite maps and nanoscale images, and being inundated with information. Adaptability is an ancestral distinction of intelligence, but today’s instant variations in rhythm call for something stronger: elasticity, the product of adaptability plus acceleration. Design and the Elastic Mind explores the reciprocal relationship between science and design in the contemporary world by bringing together design objects and concepts that marry the most advanced scientific research with attentive consideration of human limitations, habits, and aspirations. The exhibition highlights designers’ ability to grasp momentous changes in technology, science, and history—changes that demand or reflect major adjustments in human behavior—and translate them into objects that people can actually understand and use. This Web site presents over three hundred of these works, including fifty projects that are not featured in the gallery exhibition....  

ONLINE EDUCA BERLIN 2008
December 3-5, 2008
Conference Programme Online!


Universite de Montreal professor Frank Vitaro correlates severity of [juvenile justice] sentences with likelihood of relapse

...A new study shows that juvenile delinquents sentenced to either a juvenile retreat, probation or unsupervised community service were seven times more likely to commit criminal acts as adults than youngsters from the control group who managed to avoid the juvenile justice system....



UC San Diego Researchers Report on How to Improve Long-Term Learning

...Combine the aphorisms that “practice makes perfect” and “timing is everything” into one and you might get something resembling findings published in this month’s issue of Psychological Science. Proper spacing of lessons, the researchers report, can dramatically enhance learning. And larger gaps between study sessions result in better recall of facts...

Certain Skills Are Predictors of Reading Ability in Young Children

... A new study in the journal Learning Disabilities Research & Practice reveals that differences found between pre-kindergarten reading-disabled children and their typically reading peers diminish in various measures by pre-first grade, with the exception of phonological awareness abilities....

The Edubuntu community is built on the ideas enshrined in the Edubuntu Manifesto: that software should be available free of charge, that software tools should be usable by people in their local language and despite any disabilities, and that people should have the freedom to customise and alter their software in whatever way they see fit.


IBM has announced it will lead a US government-funded collaboration to make electronic circuits that mimic brains.(BBC)

...According to Dharmendra Modha, the lead scientist on the project, '[t]he key idea of cognitive computing is to engineer mind-like intelligent machines by reverse engineering the structure, dynamics, function and behaviour of the brain.'...

Q&A on Technical Assistance for the Assistive Technology Act of 1998, as amended.
...The Assistive Technology Act of 1998 (AT Act) was amended on Oct. 25, 2005, and is administered by the Rehabilitation Services Administration (RSA). The AT Act provides grants to states to maintain comprehensive, statewide programs (Statewide AT Programs) that are designed to increase access to assistive technology for individuals with disabilities. In addition, the AT Act provides grants to each state for protection and advocacy related to AT (PAAT)...



Artificial Intelligence in Education (AIED) 14th Annual Conference

Building Learning Systems that Care : From Knowledge Representation to Affective Modelling

...The International Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Education (AIED2009) is part of an ongoing series of biennial international conferences for top quality research in intelligent systems and cognitive science for educational computing applications. The conference provides opportunities for the cross-fertilization of techniques from many fields that make up this interdisciplinary research area, including: artificial intelligence, computer science, cognitive and learning sciences, education, educational technology, psychology, philosophy, sociology, anthropology, linguistics, and the many domain-specific areas for which AIED systems have been designed and evaluated...

YSDN 16 Words (video)


....Each year since 1985, the editors of THE FUTURIST have selected the most thought-provoking ideas and forecasts appearing in the magazine to go into our annual Outlook report. Over the years, Outlook has spotlighted the emergence of such epochal developments as the Internet, virtual reality, and the end of the Cold War.
6. Professional knowledge will become obsolete almost as quickly as it's acquired. An individual's professional knowledge is becoming outdated at a much faster rate than ever before. Most professions will require continuous instruction and retraining. Rapid changes in the job market and work-related technologies will necessitate job education for almost every worker. At any given moment, a substantial portion of the labor force will be in job retraining programs. -Marvin J. Cetron and Owen Davies, "Trends Shaping Tomorrow's World, Part Two," May-June 2008, p 41 ....




From the New York Times
...When people who believe such things reported them to the police, doctors or family, they said they were often told they were crazy. Sometimes they were medicated or locked in hospital wards, or fired from jobs and isolated from the outside world.

But when they found one another on the Internet, everything changed. So many others were having the same experiences....

...November 11, 2008 (Computerworld) DeepDyve Inc. today announced that it has launched a free search engine that can be used to access databases, scholarly journals, unstructured information and other data sources in the so-called "Deep Web" or "Dark Web," where traditional search technologies don't work.

The DeepDyve search engine enables searches of the Dark Web to more easily find life sciences, patent and Wikipedia data. The new engine indexes 500 million pages, said DeepDyve, which was known as Infovell before changing its name today....


Charter for Compassion
...By recognizing that the Golden Rule is fundamental to all world religions, the Charter for Compassion can inspire people to think differently about religion. This Charter is being created in a collaborative project by people from all over the world. It will be completed in 2009. Use this site to offer language you'd like to see included. Or inspire others by sharing your own story of compassion....

Light Triggers a New Code for Brain Cells
...Brain cells can adopt a new chemical code in response to cues from the outside world, scientists working with tadpoles at the University of California, San Diego report in the journal Nature this week...


The United States is failing hundreds of thousands of its youngest citizens on the day they are born, according to the March of Dimes.

...In the first of what will be an annual Premature Birth Report Card, the nation received a "D" and not a single state earned an "A," when the March of Dimes compared actual preterm birth rates to the national Healthy People 2010 objective...


http://blackwellpublishing.com/press/pressitem.asp?ref=1958
...Researchers investigated whether middle school students solved geometry problems more successfully than their peers when they were provided with clues consistent with their own style of thinking. The cognitive styles that were identified and the related clues were verbal, spatial, and shape-based. They found that regardless of the type of clue provided, spatial and verbal thinking styles were useful for solving the geometry problems, while shape-based thinking was much less effective...

Quality, quantity lacking in children's educational TV, study says
...Commercial broadcasters are doing the “bare minimum and not much more” for children’s educational programming, according to University of Illinois communication professor Barbara Wilson, one of two lead researchers on a study released today (Nov. 12) by the organization Children Now...

Talks Samantha Power: Shaking hands with the devil
....Samantha Power tells a story of a complicated hero, Sergio Vieira de Mello. This UN diplomat walked a thin moral line, negotiating with the world's worst dictators to help their people survive crisis. It's a compelling story told with a fiery passion....

From next year, universities will be expected to monitor whether overseas students are really attending courses.

Sally Hunt, head of the University and College Union, says staff do not want to enter the "spying game".

Overseas students will have to be fingerprinted, in a drive to tackle the problem of bogus colleges. (BBC)


ITHACA, N.Y. -- The American Medical Association journal Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine has published a new study by researchers at Cornell University indicating evidence of an environmental trigger for autism among genetically vulnerable children. It is the first peer-reviewed study to positively associate the prevalence of autism to a factor related to the levels of precipitation in the areas in which children live....



Published in Science: how the brain decodes human voice and speech processes

Scientists from Maastricht University have developed a method to look into the brain of a person and read out who has spoken to him or her and what was said.


Schools with high-achieving students, services for ESL families provide best learning environment

WASHINGTON—Children of immigrants who enter school with low math and reading skills have a better chance of catching up with their peers if they attend a school with high-performing students, well-supported teachers and services to families of English as a second language (ESL) children, according to a new study.

Caring for people less fortunate is not socialism, it's being human.
--anonymous

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/gallery/2008/nov/08/barack-obama-messages-gallery?picture=339480642


...It’s like something out of “The Terminator.” Self-aware virtual humans, regenerating body parts on “nano-scaffolding,” mind controlled weapons - all the stuff of movie robots, comic heroes and otherworldly tomes.

But for some, this kind of higher-than-high tech is as real as life and death...
http://www.dodbuzz.com/2008/11/04/army-tries-holograms-qauntum-computing/

[and]

...The United States government, in an effort to establish credible and human-realistic AI for their newest literal killing machines, is looking to test the "humanity" of this AI in popular MMOs. According to a recent article, two named MMOs that have been cited as examples for this project include World of Warcraft and EVE Online. "We want to use the massively multi-player online game as an experimental laboratory to see if they're good enough to convince humans that they're actually human," says Dr. John Parmentola, Director of Research and Laboratory Management with the Army's science and technology office...
http://www.massively.com/2008/11/07/the-u-s-army-to-enter-the-wow-botting-business/

The Genetics of Speech and Language Impairments
http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/NEJMe0807813v1

...Without instruction, most children master the complexities of spoken language by the age of 6 or 7 years. About 5% of apparently healthy children, however, struggle to acquire basic competence in one or more aspects of spoken language and are classified as having specific language impairment.

Genetic factors have an important role in many such cases.^1,2 Children with specific language impairment are four times as likely to have a family history of the disorder as are children who do not have such an impairment,³ and the concordance rate for the disorder is almost twice as great for monozygotic twins as for dizygotic twins.⁴ More than 10 susceptibility loci have been identified. More often than not, loci that are robustly linked to specific language impairment in one study show no linkage in other studies, and all these loci have been linked to other neurodevelopmental disorders.⁵ Are these reported associations real? If so, which genes underlie these linkages, and what is their mechanistic effect?...

Staff fears in toddler exclusions (BBC)

...Head teachers' leaders say that teachers' fears about restraining violent pupils is behind the suspension of three and four-year-olds.

The Conservatives revealed figures showing 1,500 suspensions of children aged four and under in the past year...

Unusual use of toys in infancy a clue to later autism
'Atypical object exploration' seen at 12 months in children later diagnosed with autism
http://www.ucdmc.ucdavis.edu/newsroom/newsdetail.html?key=1344&svr=http://www.ucdmc.ucdavis.edu&expired=no&table=drafted

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-11/uoc--uuo110608.php

...

The study involved 66 one-year-old infants. Nine of the children were later diagnosed with autism. Seven of the nine children displayed significantly more spinning, rotating and unusual visual exploration of objects than typically developing children.

"We found that these behaviors were relatively rare in the contrast group, but very high in the group who later developed autism," Ozonoff said....

Social mobility 'improving in UK' (BBC)

...The study said the results "suggest a statistically significant decline in the importance of family background on educational attainment".

But the Conservatives said any improvements were "fractional" at best....

The Economic Bill of Rights

http://www.economicbillofrights.org/


From BBC's Ouch 13 questions for Mark Hayes

...Originally from Glasgow, he started his fashion career by studying Graphic Design at the city’s School of Art, and it was during this course that he was diagnosed with dyslexia. On graduation, he immediately got a job on the Channel 4 show She’s Got To Have It, having done fashion styling for newspapers and magazines whilst at college. This year, he featured at number 25 in The Guardian’s Top 100 most influential people in the fashion industry. With Dyslexia Awareness Week running between 3rd – 9th November, Mark took a few moments out of his full-on schedule to answer our exceptionally well-dressed questions...

From Good to Outstanding
http://www.teachers.tv/video/29312
...Top inspector Clare Gillies assesses one of Kath's Year 2 lessons and highlights some clear areas for improvement. Kath then receives some one-to-one CPD on her subject knowledge and RE skills from RE Advisor Lesley Prior, as well as some help from voice and communications expert Ulrika Schulte-Baukloh....

The "Good to Outstanding" videos can be found at:
http://www.teachers.tv/good



http://www.teachers.tv/video/3463 15.min
Refugee Kids that have made it into school

...Woven together, their stories tell of conflict at home, the dreams and disappointments of coming to Britain, and the pain and joy of family reunions and separations.

For all of the children, learning English is key to fitting in, making friends and getting the education they all value highly.

Some are already sure that Britain is home now, with all its differences in street and playground culture; some dream of going home with the skills and qualifications to help build a new country. But continuing conflict produces a bleaker outlook in others. Teachers are asked to understand that many such children have a lot on their minds, however much they appreciate school...

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-02/uom-dpr022608.php
...One trait that aids in distance learning is related to personality type. Strickland found those with quiet, introverted personalities are more likely to feel comfortable with online learning courses. Shy individuals have a tendency to be uninvolved in the typical classroom setting. Online courses allow them to complete work on their own with a degree of anonymity...

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-09/asfh-cgp092808.php
...Youth gardening programs are becoming popular experiential vehicles to help children get "down to earth" and promote environmental awareness in communities and schools. Previous studies have indicated that children who participate in formal gardening programs have shown improvements in science achievement, nutritional choices, self-esteem, and patience...

Our cheatin' brain: The brain's clever way of showing us the world as a whole
....Boundary extension is a mistake that we often make when recalling a view of a scene -- we will insist that the boundaries of an image stretched out farther than what we actually saw. Results of a new study indicate that boundary extension occurs when a scene is interrupted for as little as 42 milliseconds (quicker than an eye blink!) and even when volunteers know exactly what is being tested....


New Study Explores Social Comparison in Early Childhood
http://www.psychologicalscience.org/media/releases/2008/rhodes.cfm
...These results indicate that when preschoolers see that they have performed more poorly than a peer of the other gender—even just one time—there are lasting negative consequences on behavior and self-concept. The authors conclude that “these findings have implications for the origins of social comparisons, category-based reasoning, and the development of gender stereotypes and achievement motivation.”...


Baby Talk: The Roots of the Early Vocabulary in Infants’ Learning From Speech
http://www.psychologicalscience.org/media/releases/2008/swingley.cfm
...Recent research has shown that during infancy, babies learn not only individual speech sounds but also the auditory forms of words; that is, babies are not only aware of the pieces that make up a word, but they are aware of the entire word. These auditory forms of words allow children to increase their vocabulary and help them to eventually develop grammar...

Study of learning disabled mice shows balance in the brain is key
...A new study in the Oct. 31 issue of Cell, a Cell Press journal, has revealed the molecular and cellular underpinnings of one of the most common, single gene causes for learning disability in humans. The findings made in learning disabled mice offer new insight into what happens in the brain when we learn and remember...