· June, 2010

Stories about Education from June, 2010

Chile: From California to Chile on Biodiesel

  30 June 2010

Maria Jose Calderon and Carlos Herrera embarked on a 6-month road trip from California, USA to Chile in a biodiesel truck. The couple traveled Latin America in search of grassroots initiatives to help the environment, and they documented their findings and their journey through videos, photos and blogging.

Japan: Questionnaire about English ability

  29 June 2010

What Japan Thinks translated the results of a questionnaire about “when Japanese feel most ashamed about their lack of English”. The number one situation? “When a foreigner asks me the way and I cannot answer. ” Here's a series of comical commercials from Nova, the now defunct English conversational language...

Chile: Students Arrested After Protesting Against University Reform

  27 June 2010

A week ago the government of Sebastian Piñera announced a major reform to the higher education system. At the inauguration ceremony of the president of Universidad de Chile (University of Chile) Víctor Pérez, students were arrested while protesting against a reform which they fear will get rid of public higher education.

India:

  24 June 2010

Dheera Sujan at South Asia Wired highlights the works of an organization named ‘I Hear Foundation’, which is “working with hearing impaired kids and their parents to help diagnose, treat, and then help the children assimilate into a hearing world”.

Japan: A day at an elementary school

  23 June 2010

Ploychompu Srisa-an, a student at Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University, spent a day teaching at a Japanese elementary school as part of an exchange program. She created an in-depth video of her experience.

World: Protecting Human Rights on Citizen Video

  21 June 2010

Making a video to protect human rights might backfire and end up threatening the rights of those who appear or participate in the video. WITNESS' The Hub shares with us how we can make a human rights video that gets the message across while minimizing the risk to those involved.

Japan: Online seminar on digital journalism

  21 June 2010

Joi Ito holds a weekly seminar on digital journalism at Keio University, that is live broadcast [en] on UStream. Today's guests were New York Times journalist Hiroko Tabuchi and Jun Hoshikawa [en], executive director of Green Peace Japan.

South Korea: A Generational Tug-of-War Over Subway Seats

  21 June 2010

In South Korea, a generational tug-of-war is surfacing daily over a subway seat. Physical or verbal hassles over the seat have been reported online and new posts complaining of elderly people's blatantly inappropriate behaviour on the subway are mushrooming over the internet.

India: Fallacy Of English Medium Education

  20 June 2010

Ram Bansal at India in Peril criticizes some Indian English medium educational institutions which forbid Hindi and have no provision of Hindi to English translations or vice-versa in the curriculum.

El Salvador: One Laptop per Child

  19 June 2010

The Education Ministry of El Salvador has started giving out XO laptop computers –from One Laptop per Child– to low-income students. Tim's El Salvador Blog says 400 children from 5 schools have received their laptops: “A year from now, the goal is to have the computers in the hands of 78,000 students...

Puerto Rico: Strike Over

  18 June 2010

“Thousands of students at the University of Puerto Rico who went on strike two months ago to oppose severe budget cuts declared a historic victory after reaching an agreement with administrators”: Repeating Islands has the details.

Peru: Shining Path at the University of San Marcos?

  18 June 2010

A video of a rally in favor of Shining Path (Sendero Luminoso), which took place at the campus of San Marcos University, was seen by the media as a resurgence of the terrorist movement. Some students and bloggers think that the way the incident was handled by the media and the government exaggerates the facts; but, others consider it is important to pay attention to how this story develops.

Fiji: Priorities questioned for boarding school

  13 June 2010

Just a week after Fiji's Ratu Kadavulevu School was closed by the health department because its kitchen wasn't up to code, the country's largest boarding school dedicated a new chapel at the cost of about US $500,000. Wendy, writing in the blog Babasiga, asked why the school kitchen wasn't fixed...

Puerto Rico: Decisive Moment 50 Days into the Student Strike

  11 June 2010

Students of the state-run University of Puerto Rico (UPR) have sustained a student strike that enters its 50th day today. On this decisive day, the students' National Negotiating Committee has another round of negotiations with the UPR's administration. Students have transmitted their second message to the country via the website UPR es un País [ES] in which they explain their proposals...