International News,
France: Teacher Sets Herself on Fire
Students and teachers rushed to the aid of the 44-year-old teacher after she doused herself in petrol during morning break and set herself alight in the playground of the secondary school.
The incident reportedly followed a combative meeting with students at the school in Beziers.
The education minister said he was shocked by this "desperate act".
Luc Chatel visited the hospital at which the teacher is being treated for third-degree burns.
Speaking on RTL radio, he described her as a "teacher who is in a situation of great fragility", and said an investigation was under way.
Jerry can
Parents and pupils told AFP news agency that they had a difficult relationship with the teacher - saying she had been hostile at a recent parents' evening and did not get on with several students in her maths class.
A meeting to clear the air with some of her students on Wednesday had become rowdy, they said.
She came to the Jean Moulin school on Thursday morning with a jerry can, gave a class at 09:00 (07:00 GMT) and then, when the morning break came, walked to the centre of the playground, poured petrol on herself and set herself alight.
"I saw her body on fire, walking forward with her hands on her head," said one student witness, Karim.
"Several people tried to put her out. She said 'No, leave me alone. I don't need help. God told me to do this.'"
Teachers threw blankets over her, Karim said, and the teacher was airlifted to Montpelier nearby.
The school - which houses 3,000 students and 280 teachers - sent all of its pupils home after the incident, and a psychological support unit was set up to cope with the aftermath.
Press Release,
ALHOSN University announces winners of stand design contest for 2011-2012 exhibitions
ALHOSN University announces winners of stand design contest for 2011-2012 exhibitions
Best design to be used at Najah & GETEX
October 9, 2011
ALHOSN University, a leading Abu Dhabi-based university dedicated to high-quality and value-based education, has announced the winners of its annual ‘ALHOSN Exhibition Stand Competition’ which ran from mid-August to October 3, 2011. The best design will be used for all major events ALHOSN will participate in for the academic year 2011-2012, including Najah, a leading education training exhibition and career fair in the Middle East, and Gulf Education and Training Exhibition (GETEX), the largest education fair in the Middle East and Asia.
The contest was open to all ALHOSN students, who were challenged to design creative and modern display spaces to represent the university. Entries included the ALHOSN logo, audio visual presentations, a workstation, a display counter, and a brochure holder.
Rana Al Hussaini, the 1st Placer from the Architectural Engineering Department, won AED 2,000; Manal Constantin from the Interior Design Department was 1st runner-up and received AED 1,000; Adeelah Al Hassan from the Architectural Engineering Department was awarded AED 500 as 2nd runner-up.
“The 2010 winners of our stand design contest did an excellent job capturing the essence and values of ALHOSN in a unique and dynamic way. Competition was tighter this year as all of the previous awardees were from the Department of Architectural Engineering and so the other departments wanted to prove their designing skills as well. This is an excellent platform for us to showcase the talent, determination and creativity of our students to a regional and even global audience during the various exhibitions we attend each year,” said Dr. Raymond Tennant, Provost, ALHOSN University.
The ALHOSN University competition jury met on October 3, 2011, the deadline set for the submission of entries. The winners were named the following day at the Female Campus.
Named after Abu Dhabi’s historic ALHOSN Palace, ALHOSN University was founded in 2005 by the Abu Dhabi Holding Company in response to growing local demand for high-quality, value-based educational institutions. It currently offers 11 undergraduate and 7 graduate programs under the Faculties of Engineering and Applies Sciences, Business, and Arts and Social Sciences. ALHOSN accepts students of all nationalities and also accommodates youths with special needs. All its programs are accredited by the UAE Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research.
Press Release,
GETEX Autumn 2011 will support efforts to diversify and strengthen the education infrastructure in the region
GETEX Autumn 2011 will support efforts to diversify and strengthen the education infrastructure in the region
IDEAS introduced to support UAE Ministry’s student-centric strategy for 2010 to 2020
October 5, 2011
GETEX Autumn, the Middle East and Asia's leading education, training and professional development event, has been positioned to complement the exponential growth of the Dubai’s education sector, which now has more than 40,000 university students currently enrolled in the emirate and at least 52 higher education institutions from just a few universities 10 years ago. GETEX Autumn will be presenting multiple options of graduate and postgraduate degrees from leading academic institutions around the world, as the event has been strategically timed to assist students looking to enrol for courses starting early 2012.
GETEX Autumn 2011 will hold its first leg at the Dubai International Convention & Exhibition Centre from October 26 to 28, while the concluding leg will be held at the Gulf Hotel in Manama, Bahrain from October 31 to November 1. This year’s edition will focus on distinct areas of higher education, targeting a much wider range of students and young working adults who are keen to explore their study options or looking for specialized courses to keep abreast with the growing competition in the global job market.
Anselm Godinho, Managing Director, International Conferences & Exhibitions (IC&E), organisers of the event, said: "GETEX Autumn 2011 provides an excellent platform to help higher secondary and undergraduate students explore their options for further studies or training. We are particularly excited to have launched the IDEAS forum this year. IDEAS which stands for ‘Innovation, Design & Engineering Arena’ is an active display of Occupational Education achievements intended to motivate aspiring Students into vocational trades.”
A diverse option of postgraduate courses that are now in great demand in the Arab World will be on offer at GETEX, including popular programs in engineering, medicine, HR, marketing & communications, humanities, natural resources, business, finance, research, accounting, languages and management. The more popular occupational course preferences such as architecture and interior design, aviation, fashion, graphic design, hospitality, photography, teaching and technical programs will also be available at GETEX Autumn.
Local News,
Abu Dhabi Approves New Healthy Eating Guide for Schools
A new guide designed to encourage healthy eating in schools in Abu Dhabi has been approved by the emirate's food control authority, officials said on Sunday.
In co-operation with Abu Dhabi Health Authority and Abu Dhabi Educational Council, it has certified a new guide for school canteens for the new school year 2011 to 2012.
The guide uses a traffic light system to advise on the most nutritional foods, with red signifying those foods that are banned and green for those that are allowed.
Those with the yellow code are allowed under certain conditions, such as the amount to be served, or the kind of oil that is used.
Local News,
Special Needs Pilot Project in UAE
Teachers in Abu Dhabi's Western Region have been taking part in a pilot project aimed at helping schools integrate special needs pupils into mainstream classrooms.
The research project was one of 12 run by the British education charity, the Centre for British Teachers (CfBT), in partnership with the Abu Dhabi Education Council.
Dymphna de Siun, an adviser on special education needs with CfBT, worked with two female teachers from Al Shatha Kindergarten in Al Gharbia to teach six pupils from the Zayed Centre for Disabilities in mainstream classes.
"We looked at the attitudes to integration, what systems need to be in place for future integration projects, and we also looked at the existing challenges to integrating children into a mainstream kindergarten," said Mrs de Siun, who added that several other teachers also helped in the project. "The teachers learnt a lot about teaching and learning. The children also learnt an awful lot about each other."
Read the article in The National
Hat tip to creativeeducation.co.uk for photo
International News,
South Korea to Phase Out Textbooks by 2015
WHEN school textbooks make the headlines in East Asia, they are usually cast as bystanders to some intractable old dispute, and related demands that children be taught “correct” history. Thankfully though, future-minded officials in South Korea have given cause for this correspondent to write about something altogether different: by 2015, all of the country’s dead-tree textbooks will be phased out, in favour of learning materials carried on tablet computers and other devices.
IT Corner,
Meet Comex, The 19-Year-Old iPhone Uber-Hacker Who Keeps Outsmarting Apple
Nicholas Allegra lives with his parents in Chappaqua, New York. The tall, shaggy-haired and bespectacled 19-year old has been on leave from Brown University since last winter, looking for an internship. And in the meantime, he’s been spending his days on a hobby that periodically sends shockwaves through the computer security world: seeking out cracks in the source code of Apple’s iPhone, a device with more software restrictions than practically any computer on the market, and exploiting them to utterly obliterate its defenses against hackers.
“It feels like editing an English paper,” Allegra says simply, his voice croaking as if he just woke up, though we’re speaking at 9:30 pm. “You just go through and look for errors. I don’t know why I seem to be so effective at it.”
Web Resources,
Kids National Geographic
The Kids National Geographic website offers tons of videos, games and other fun ways to show your students what goes on around the planet. Awaiting your kids just a mouse click away is a world of discovery, exploration and wonder. Now you never have to regret that you can’t show your students something you saw on the National Geographic channel, because it’s all here, and geared for kids!
Talks we like on TED,
Scott Kim takes apart the art of puzzles
We post this talk in tribute to the late Martin Gardner
