Shrinking aid flows risk making Education for All out of reach

By Pauline Rose, director of the Education for All Global Monitoring Report.
New aid figures released this week by the OECD make for sombre reading. Globally, aid has fallen since 2010, poor countries hardest hit. This is worrying news for children worldwide as it further jeopardises the Education for All goals, which are already in danger of not being met by 2015. If funds for education become scarcer, access to education will continue to stagnate and the quality of schools will decline, denying the most vulnerable children in the world’s poorest countries the opportunity to learn. Given that 250 million primary-school aged children are not learning even the basics, this downward trend in aid needs to be reversed urgently.

Read more at: http://efareport.wordpress.com/2013/04/05/shrinking-aid-flows-risk-making-education-for-all-out-of-reach/

See it on Scoop.it, via ICT for Education and Development

Masters Teaching Programs

In order to teach in public schools in the US, you need to have passed a suitable program of study and obtained teacher certification (licensure).
This page provides details of online masters teaching programs, where they can be found, what the career and salary prospects are, and more ...

Read more at: http://onlineanddistancelearning.com/masters-teaching-programs

Will the Ubuntu Phone Rock the African Software Development Market?

Ubuntu is shooting for 200 million users by 2015, and with the announcement of the Ubuntu Phone and that they’re building the national operating system for China, there may be a lot of traction to be had.

Reading their material and watching Richard Collins, Ubuntu Mobile product manager at Canonical talk about what the phone will do, you can’t help but think that there’s something bigger here. Mobile phones these days are computers. Apple’s iPhone 5 has the same amount of processing power – and not just specs, but real benchmark performance – as the first generation Macbook Air. Ubuntu’s promise to make their OS available through a phone could be the melding of the two worlds that tablets have yet to be – the one device with the portability and power-consumption properties of a phone and the productivity of a desktop. Maybe.

Read more at: http://www.ictworks.org/news/2013/04/03/will-the-ubuntu-phone-rock-the-african-software-development-market/

ODDC Project

The Exploring the Emerging Impacts of Open Data in Developing Countries (ODDC) project aims to to establish practical and actionable knowledge about effective strategies for employing open data as means to achieve greater quality of openness in government, support citizens’ rights, and promote more inclusive development in developing countries.

Read more at: http://www.opendataresearch.org/emergingimpacts/

REPORT RELEASE! Education Technology in India: Designing Ed-Tech for Affordable Private Schools

Education technology interventions have promised the reinvention of education for children in the developing world. But time and again these interventions have failed to reach their potential due to a lack of understanding of the school environment and users, leading to poor implementation of the product.
As a team of researchers in Hyderabad, India, we sought to understand how education technology solutions could be better designed to serve the needs of users. Insights were garnered from surveys, interviews, various human-centered design research methods, and secondary research conducted in 2012 and 2013 in Hyderabad, India.

Read more at: http://edtechindia.wordpress.com/2013/04/03/report-release-education-technology-in-india-designing-ed-tech-for-affordable-private-schools/

Choosing an MBA Program Online or On Campus

A masters in business administration program (or MBA program) is one of the most popular degrees in higher education. This page has details of a range of programs, where they can be taken, what the prospects are, and more ...

read more

Choosing an MBA Program Online or On Campus

Empowering Women and Girls Through ICT at Libraries

Despite the rapid proliferation of access to information and communication technologies (ICT) in developing and transitioning countries, one distinct gap remains: Women and girls are often restricted to traditional roles and do not have equal access to technology nor the capacity to build social capital through the use of ICT.

Read original article at: http://zunia.org/post/empowering-women-and-girls-through-ict-at-libraries

 Link: http://www.beyondaccess.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/GirlsandICT1.pdf ;

New apps transforming remote parts of Africa

An app called iCow is an example of how mobile phone technology is transforming lives in Africa.

For generations, breeding cows in the rural highlands of Kenya has hinged on knowledge and experience passed down from parents to children. But Mercy Wanjiku is unlike most farmers. Her most powerful tool is her cellphone, and a text messaging service called iCow.
The service informs her when her cows are in heat, which feed might boost their milk output and what their fair market price is. And when she needed a veterinarian recently, she relied on the service’s extensive database. “Otherwise, it would have been hard to find someone qualified in my area,” said Wanjiku, a 29-year-old farmer in Mweru, a village about 100 miles north of the Kenyan capital, Nairobi.

Read more at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/africa/new-apps-transforming-remote-parts-of-africa/2013/03/31/2149f93a-9646-11e2-8764-d42c128a01ef_story.html

Online Teacher Certification Programs To Start Your Career in Education

Online teacher certification programs are an excellent way to qualify for a teaching career. This page gives details of the programs and where they can be found.

Read more at: http://onlineanddistancelearning.com/online-teacher-certification-programs

How do Mobile Applications Benefit the Education Sector

In 2007, when the iPhone made its debut, there was little doubt that it would revolutionize the mobile phone industry. But at the time, few imagined that it would spawn a multibillion-­dollar market for mobile applications, and fewer imagined that this market might become a significant one for children.
Less than six years later, more than a quarter of all parents have downloaded apps for their children to use. Babies have achieved virtual celebrity for mistaking a magazine for a broken iPad, children now learn to “swipe” before they can tie their shoes, and tweens and teens coveted the iPad over any other gift holiday season. Today’s children will benefit if apps become an important force for learning and discovery.
 
Read more at: http://ictpost.com/2013/03/28/how-do-mobile-applications-benefit-the-education-sector/