JISC Collections - The trusted experts in negotiating, procuring, and licensing digital content for libraries. Headlines from 1811: Riots, cuts and a snake-eating cow. 2 December 2011Last updated at 09:51 By Kathryn Westcott BBC News, Magazine As four million pages of historical newspapers dating back three centuries go online, what were people preoccupied with 200 years ago in 1811?
The British Library's online collection will be the largest collection of online papers and include titles from across the UK and Ireland. Most of those are local regional titles and a trawl through the archive from 200 years ago reveals a treasure trove of history. Rory Cellan-Jones reports on the largest collection of historical newspapers to be published online One report in the Manchester Mercury would not appear too out of place in a tabloid newspaper today - although two centuries ago the potential for eye-catching headlines had not been fully explored. "The servant on opening her afterwards found a snake about a yard long with its head close by the cow's heart - half of the snake appeared in a state of mortification," the report reads.
Only With My Life Thompson! Yet! Penzance school buys iPads for 900 pupils. 4 November 2011Last updated at 13:15 Mounts Bay Academy has spent £100,000 equipping its students with iPads A Cornish academy has spent £100,000 on iPads for its pupils.
Mounts Bay Academy in Penzance is the first school in Cornwall to invest such an amount in computer tablets. It hopes it will save money in the long term. All 900 pupils at the school will have one of the handheld computers, which are due to arrive at the school within the next fortnight. Campaign group the Taxpayers' Alliance has argued the move does not offer "value for money". The academy hopes the investment will save cash by eventually replacing text books. Sara Davey, the principal of Mounts Bay Academy, said: "We think the iPads will be a way of making literacy, numeracy and all the other subjects so much more exciting.
"It is so much more relevant to the young people who are digital natives, as opposed to our generation who are digital immigrants. " "You can get cheaper laptops which are more hard-wearing. Common Inspection Framework for the Learning and Skills sector in England. We have published our response to Ofsted's consultation [hyperlink to record in the ALT Open Access Repository].
Here are two key extracts. Response to Question 3 (concerning the quality of teaching, learning and assessment) We think that the absence of any mention of technology supported learning in relation to the quality of teaching, learning and assessment is a major omission that must be remedied, and we were very pleased to learn during IfL's consultation meeting with Matthew Coffey on 18/11/2011 that this problem has been recognised by Ofsted with a view to it being addressed. Our specific concern is that the CIF must take explicit account of the fundamental and seismic changes that are currently taking place in the way that knowledge is created, acquired and distributed. Essentially the environment for learning has been rapidly changing beneath our feet for the last decade and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.
Digital textbooks open a new chapter. South Korea, one of the world's highest-rated education systems, aims to consolidate its position by digitising its entire curriculum.
By 2015, it wants to be able to deliver all its curriculum materials in a digital form through computers. The information that would once have been in paper textbooks will be delivered on screen. South Korea's Minister of Education, Science and Technology, Ju-Ho Lee, said that his department was preparing a promotion strategy for "Smart Education", focusing on customised learning and teaching. The project, launched during the summer, will involve wireless networks in all schools to allow students to learn "whenever and wherever", as well as an education information system that can run in a variety of devices including PCs, laptops, tablets and internet-connected TVs.
He said the government would support an open content market containing a variety of learning materials, aimed at keeping up quality while keeping down costs. Tech-friendly teenagers Teaching gap. FastCGI Error.