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One of the better sections of the proposal in the US National Education Plan for 2010. As always, there is enough material other (coutries) to think about and discuss:

• In a time when we have the capability of supporting learning 24/7 and personalizing the way a student interacts with digital content, it no longer makes sense to give every 13-year-old the same set of 45-minute American history lessons.

Here is a link to the "Reorganizing teaching and learning section": http://www.ed.gov/technology/netp-2010/reorganizing-teaching-learning

You can view the full proposal (or download a PDF) of the same here: http://www.ed.gov/technology/netp-2010/

Kellog foundation's view on early childhoold education - extracted from the IDEO report on "Tangible steps toward tomorrow. New design for early education".

We see a future for early childhood education,

Where education is not a separate activity from society—but allows kids to be embedded and thrive within their local community. A future in which
the community is invested in, and responsible for, the success of each child’s experience.

Where children and their care givers are engaged in learning that responds to their unique ways of understanding and interpreting the world.

And where teaching and leading in education remains an engaging and creative activity, with permission to evolve with new knowledge, understanding, trends, and technologies.

- W.K. Kellog Foundation

It's that time of the year! Yeah, you guessed it. It's trends in 2009 time. So, here goes. Unlike last year where we lumped the schools across the cities, this year we are going to be giving the top 5 schools in each city.

Approach & disclaimer: We just used Page Views as the basis to come up with the list and there is nothing more to it. Also we want to make perfectly clear that this list for all practical purposes is not an indication of anything useful. It's just something that we observed from the analytics data over 2009.

Bangalore takes the top honors of being the most engaged audience for the 2nd successful year. This was followed by Hyderabad, Pune and Chennai. There was a looooot more engagement and updates from the community - especially around the admissions season. Thanks for taking the time to share the information and write about your experiences about various schools.

Here's our top 5 viewed schools in the descending order of Page Views in each city

Bangalore

• National Public School (NPS), Koramangala, Bangalore
• Sishu Griha, New Thippasandra, Bangalore
• National Public School (NPS), Indiranagar, Bangalore
• Vidya Sagar Nursery School, Bhoopasandra/Sanjay Nagar, Bangalore
• Sri Kumarans Children's Home, Bangalore

Pune

• DAV School, Aundh, Pune
• VIBGYOR High, Pune
• Hutchings High School, Pune
• Bishop School, Pune
• The Orchid School, Pune

Hyderabad

• Chirec Public School, Kondapur, Hyderabad
• Kennedy High, The global school, Hyderabad
• Bharathiya Vidhya Bhavan, Jubliee Hills, Hyderabad
• Hyderabad Public School, Begumpet, Hyderabad 
• Silver Oaks, Hyderabad

  
Chennai

• Padma Seshadri Bal Bhavan (PSBB), Chennai
• Vidyodhaya Girls Higher Secondary School, Chennai
• Chettinad Vidyashram, Chennai
• The School - KFI, Chennai
• PS Senior Higher Secondary School, Chennai

  
On a different note - Lot of you wrote to us to say how useful Zeeksha has been for you. This really means a lot. Some of you also wrote to us to say how and where we need to improve. We do agree that there are lots of areas where we can improve and do better and will try to address them in the year ahead. As always, we are open to your feedback, suggestions - so keep them coming.

We hope that you will continue to share your experiences about various schools and that you will continue to spread the word about Zeeksha.

Happy holidays and advanced wishes for a very happy new year!!!

-Zeeksha Team

Article in NY Times on the school admission scenario in Manhattan: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/21/nyregion/21testprep.html?_r=1

Given the recession, there is also a greater likelyhood of a lot more parents trying to seal their place in good public schools instead of sending the kids to private schools.

I guess, ultimately it boils down to the demand vs supply. Things get wierder as this ratio goes out of whack. And that is pretty much guaranteed in India, given the number of people applying for limited slots in "good" schools.

Thoughts?

Folks,

The annual Bangalore Book Festival 2009 edition is starting on the 6th of November @ Palace grounds. The event will be there for 10 days.

It's a must visit for any book lover.

If you go there, please share your experiences and tips. Here's a link to the last year's event: http://zeeksha.com/blog/the-2008-bangalore-book-festival-fair-here

-Zeeksha Team

Came across this post on RWW today, titled - "Is online education more effective than offline learning"? Interesting read indeed.

If online education is reasonably effective (and looks like it may actually may be more effective in some circumstances at least) -  may be there is a possibility that we can take a page out of "online education" and apply it to educating the masses in India.

The challenge will be to figure out how to incentivize the "online education coursework providers" to achieve this.

Thoughts?

Looks like we are coming closer to that time of the year where parents go crazy trying to figure out the right school for their children. We are talking about the admissions season for the academic year 2010-2011.

Over the last year - YOU - the community have contributed some valuable information that we are sure will help a lot of parents looking for the right school. As the next admission season comes up, we hope that you will continue to share such information here @ Zeeksha.

In general we have found information such as admission dates, admission criteria, fees etc. to be very much in demand around now. Of course, your reviews and views would be useful too.

Looking forward to your continued support.

-Z Team

Came across this really good resource for Maths.

http://www.khanacademy.org/index.html

The Khan Academy is a not-for-profit organization with the mission of providing a high quality education to anyone, anywhere.

Hope you find this useful

-Z Team

A lot of the enthusiastic learners (which we hope is all of you) know quite well that Learning is a never ending journey.

The case of Shaq (NBA fame) going back to college to learn about sports journalism highlights this quite well:

Nice read at the Harvard Business Blog - "Never let your ego stop you from learning"

-Zeeksha

Today is March, 14th (or 3.14) and is Pi day.

Though Pi day has been "celebrated" since 1988, it took on a new dimension this year since the US Congress made it "official". The intent is to use this day as a trigger greater interest in mathematics across the schools. Nice to see some "geek factor" being introduced back into the mainstream discussions.

FYI - Apparantely the staff of the San Francisco exploratorium went around in circles and ate a lot of pie (of course) on the first Pi Day celebration. The founder of Pi day is Larry Shaw, a retired physicsist. [ Source: Wikipedia  ]

It is also interesting to know that we have a (two actually) pi second that arrives at 1.59.26. Now isn't that cool.

Hope more kids take to math starting this day :-). Readers - Are you aware of any school that did anything special for this day?

-Ganga