Dot Learnt

News on the street last summer was that the government of South Korea would be making moves to replace all hardback textbooks with electronic readers and their digital equivalents by 2015. With a $2.4 billion price tag, the Ministry of Education reports that they would be raising and teaching students who would be “equipped for the future.”

In recent days, the government has had some second thoughts, spurred by resistance to the program from South Korean educators.

In a world that is becoming increasingly teched out, why are some governments backing out? South Korea – one of the world’s most wired nations – is starting to think that digital devices are becoming too pervasive and that, “young students won’t have as much time to experience real life and real things.” (more…)

Early this month, the social media hegemon laid down the law and stated it was acquiring Push Pop Press, a digital bookmaker that is famed for their dynamic digital content for Apple’s ipad. Dare I say it? These are not just books. These are elegant, visually teasing, intellectually stimulating packages of knowledge.

So what’s the deal? Is Facebook trading in their status updates for a bunch of e-books? Not necessarily. What the multibillion-dollar company is doing though, is recognizing the growing market for e-books and asking for a piece of the pie, or at least claiming rights to it. A Push Pop representative explains how the “ideas and technology behind [their company] will be integrated with Facebook, to give people an even richer way to share their stories.”

Let’s talk e-books for a minute. As of recent, the Association of American Publisher’s released data showing e-books as the bestselling category in American publishing. Just a few months ago, Amazon came out and stated that after four years of selling e-books, they are “now selling more of them than printed books.” E-books allow users to engage in the learning process as readers dive deeply into the content with the use of multimedia and interactive text-supporting features. For example, in Al Gore’s first e-book, published and created by Push Pop Press, Our Choice allows readers to explore audio, video and interactive graphics as they read. Users become more than readers, they become a part of the story itself.

Through the fusion of access, content and connectedness individuals, organizations and governments alike are hopping on board the digital and mobile technology train. Just recently, the government of South Korea has mandated that all school-age curricula will become digitized by the year 2015. In one the New York Time’s recent opinion piece, Virginia Heffernan discusses how 65% of today’s grade-school youth will end up doing work in a field that has not even been invented yet. Such developments should only push us to embrace technology use in the classroom, as technology will help us better prepare for society’s evolution. How’s that for knocking down the bookcase?

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Living out of a suitcase this summer, I’ve been out and about traveling across the Middle East. Nonetheless, some things stay the same. My daily news-fix continues to allow me, to share with you, the latest updates and blog posts unearthing around the globe!

Ladies First

During Google’s first annual international science fair, teens from over 91 different countries were engaged on matters such as engineering, space exploration and medical technology.  With all leading finalists being female and hailing from the United States of America, the top projects included Lauren Hodge’s examination on decreasing carcinogenic compounds in grilled chicken and Naomi Shah’s focus on the effect of environmental pollutants on the lungs. The grand prize went to Shree Bose who researched how to improve the effectiveness of cisplatin treatment, the most common drug used to treat ovarian cancer.

TechWomen, an organization that links up women from Muslim-majority countries with female mentors from U.S. tech companies, has recently graduated its first class of women. In an effort to strengthen collaboration between the United States and the Middle East, women from Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon, Morocco, the Palestinian Territories and Algeria analyzed entrepreneurism in leading US tech firms and will use the skills learned in their own projects back home.

Teching it for the Team

The “SMS for Better Schooling in Sindh” is an initiative adopted by the World Bank to improve the links between government, schools and local communities in Pakistan. As of now, 400 schools are participating in the pilot project, which involves using text messages to keep schools up to date on matters such as textbook delivery dates and the quality of the drinking water in the schools. Recently, USAID amongst other donors, have focused on erecting Mobiles for Education Development (m4Ed4Dev), in hopes of exploring the solutions at the junction of mobile tech and education development.

Keep reading for more on e-learning and global tech initiatives (more…)