6 World Education Blog

Education has an immense impact on the human society. One can safely assume that a person is not in the proper sense till he is educated. It trains the human mind to think and take the right decision. In other words, man becomes a rational animal when he is educated.

It is through education that knowledge and information is received and spread throughout the world. An uneducated person cannot read and write and hence he is closed to all the knowledge and wisdom he can gain through books and other mediums. In other words, he is shut off from the outside world. In contrast, an educated man lives in a room with all its windows open towards outside world.

The quality of human resource of a nation is easily judged by the number of literate population living in it. This is to say that education is a must if a nation aspires to achieve growth and development and more importantly sustain it. This may well explain the fact that rich and developed nations of the world have very high literacy rate and productive human resource. In fact these nations have started imparting selective training and education programs so as to meet the new technical and business demands of the 21st century.

In the US, many educational institutes offer vocational as well as other training programs apart from the normal credit programs. To cater to the educational needs of the working population, many colleges offer online education. The degrees and certificates offered by these online colleges and universities are very convenient for working people as well as students. Working people needs these degrees to update their knowledge and skill level which will come handy in their promotion and achieving growth as professionals. Students can also pursue an online degree and work and earn at the same time.

In fact, certain professionals like doctors and dentists, are obliged to follow mandatory lifelong learning. This is done so that they keep pace with all the research and development done in the medical field. These professionals not only needs to update themselves about these developments, but also learn new techniques of practice and perfect old ones. Learning about patient management and the delivery of care is rather a continuing process. Since these professionals, especially doctors have huge moral responsibility towards the patients and society in general, continuing education is a must for them.

It is in such a scenario that distance education comes into the picture. Since professionals do not have the time to attend classroom classes, distance education comes as a convenient alternative. They can learn at a time convenient to them and from the comfort of their homes.

Keeping the importance of continue reading

Finding educational resources on the web is as simple as a few clicks of the mouse. Whether you are a teacher or a student looking, you will find a ton of resources on the Internet, most of them free of charge. Every subject you can imagine is explored in depth on the web. Just be sure to credit your sources properly if you use them in a research paper or a lesson plan and always double check your source to make sure it’s reliable.

Below, you will find a compilation of links that are…compilations of more links, all educational, all offering resources for students, teachers, and kids. Enjoy!

Weasel World Education Index – A host of links provided for over 30 different subjects.

http://www.educationindex.com/education_resources.html

Federal Resources for Educational Excellence – Offers links to great curriculum, homework sheets, and lessons on a variety of subjects.

http://www.ed.gov/free/index.html

Special Education Resources on the Internet – Offers links to those interested in the field of special education, separated into more than 25 categories.

http://seriweb.com/

K-12 Resources for Music Educators – Choral teachers, classroom music teachers, orchestra teachers and more. A list of links divided up by musical focus. Updated frequently.

http://www.isd77.k12.mn.us/resources/staffpages/shirk/k12.music.html

Microsoft in Education – This is Microsoft’s page of links to technological tools, programs, and solutions to educational challenges for both students and teachers.

http://www.microsoft.com/education/default.mspx

NASA Education Enterprise – This is NASA’s page of links for its Education Program with tons of activities for all levels education.

http://education.nasa.gov/home/index.html

The EnviroLink Network – This is a compilation of thousands of online environmental resources divided up by environmental topic.

http://www.envirolink.org/

The Educator’s Reference Desk – More than 2000 lesson plans, 3000 links to online education information, and 200 question responses for the education community from the Information Institute of Syracuse.

http://www.eduref.org/

Education Index – An index of links to the best online education-related sites sorted by subject and life stage of the student. Search for educational information and links in over 50 categories.

http://www.educationindex.com/

BBC Learning Network – Resources for home and school divided by age group. Sections for teachers and parents.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/

Smithsonian continue reading

Rocco Basile is a man from Brooklyn, New York who has impressed me with regard to his beliefs about how we can all help to make changes in our world today through education.

Rocco Basile noted something that Gandhi believed. Real education consists in drawing the best out of yourself. What better book can there be than the book of humanity? (Mahatma K. Gandhi)

“My education taught me to be sympathetic to the needs of others and helped me understand how that can change a world. Like Gandhi said it is important for us to be the change we want to see in the world,” said Rocco Basile.

The US Department of Education (ED) tagline states, “Promoting educational excellence for all Americans.” This organization was created in 1980 and the ED mission is “to promote student achievement and preparation for global competitiveness by fostering educational excellence and ensuring equal access.”

Some 4,500 ED employees and a $71.5 billion budget dedicated to establishing policies on federal financial aid for education, as well as distributing and monitoring the funds; collecting data on America’s schools and disseminating research; focusing national attention on key educational issues; and prohibiting discrimination and ensuring equal access to education.

For example, in Brooklyn, New York, gang violence is just part of everyday life. There are 17 thousand child abuse cases in this community that have been documented. One out of every three families lives below the poverty line. There is a 48 percent drop out rate among high school students, so out of the 30 thousand students, 15 thousand are dropouts. Drugs, disease, gang violence, and crime contribute to about a thousand deaths annually. More and more people are realizing that the answer is education.

“I feel my education has allowed me to understand the adverse effects it had on my life. I was educated, therefore I was able to read many books from every culture and religion, which inspired me to make positive changes,” he continued. “It has given me the intuition to see how positive change circulates back into my life.”

What happens to those in society that don’t invest in education? Does it make a difference to the overall social structure and eventually affect our economy? William Schweke, author of a book entitled “Smart Money: Education and Economic Development” believes that prevention is almost always cheaper than treatment. He states that if we do not invest now, we most certainly will pay later and discusses the social costs of inadequate educational and workforce preparation opportunities, believing that by increasing earnings, education can lower social costs.

Schweke notes that there is a strong relationship between low basic skills and welfare continue reading