Category: General Education

8th

Nov 2014

Have We Become a Disposable Society?

I look around me today and see that I am surrounded by many products that are manufactured to only last 5 years or less. From a myriad of electrical appliances to clothing, motor vehicles, furniture and building materials, little is build to last the way it was 40 years ago.

Then I look around again in the world of business and commerce and see much the same. Bank relationships built on trust and a mutual confidence no longer exist.

Loyalty to customer or staff is about as durable and robust as a printed sheet of paper outlining the company’s monthly latest policy towards customer service – which is adequately demonstrated now by the use of outsourced customer call centres where the telephone is answered by someone who can barely understand the same language as the caller, let alone speak it. (more…)

3rd

May 2014

The problems in education, but united we conquer divided we fall

Resolving problems in the education system requires unity and vision

Most of us appreciate the problems in education that exist today, and there are sufficient numbers to start to bring about change, but while we remain a divided force, nothing will happen to stimulate the start of those changes. Meanwhile those investors in ed-tech continue to throw money at areas that really do not address the real problems in education that exist.

Consider for a moment the number of teachers, schools, home schoolers, unschoolers, parents and care givers of special needs kids and you have a large number of people that represent a force significant enough to start the ball of change rolling. However everywhere I look I see those many different groups divided by theories and philosophies that really do nothing more than fragment the group as a whole, and so the problem will remain.

unification of hands The old cliché of ‘United we stand, divided we fall’ has never been more true than in the field of education as it stands today.

The last two years has seen what is virtually an unprecedented interest from the investment community in funding ed-tech opportunities, yet only a mininmal amount of those hundreds of millions of dollars that has been thrown at education really address anything more than tools, services and resources used by the existing system of education, and I have yet to see anything that really addresses the core problems.

What an opportunity wasted. (more…)

Tags: investment in education, problems in education system
Category: General Education
Comments: 1 Comment

2nd

May 2014

History can teach us much ….and at the same time reveal business opportunity

Opening my email this morning reveals news of an Ed-Tech “startup” that has just filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy after having received in excess of $50m in funding. It’s hardly surprising when the amount of money injected into this part of the education market has been so significant in the last two years.

The education market is a strange beast with no clearly-defined routes to market for the provider of a service or product, particularly when that service or product is delivered online.

On one end of the spectrum we have the teachers and schools (mistakenly thought of by many as the core of the education market) with limited budgets, and on the other end we have a variety of educationally related products and services – many of which closely resemble each other, looking to access those very limited education budgets. Yet unlike many other industries, the marketing conduit between the supplier and the market is both ill-defined and expensive to use, especially when exposure is largely limited to either costly face-to-face representation, or costly media advertising options. (more…)

Tags: business opportunity, education investment opportunity, education technology, finance, history, investment
Category: General Education
Comments: No Comments

5th

Feb 2014

Developing and Nurturing Children’s Talents and A Better Education

Identifying children’s strengths and developing and nurturing children’s talents could provide a more effective and better education and produce a happier and more successful society.

So what do you think of the idea of improving the educational outcome for our children by assessing each child at a reasonably early age for their natural talents and abilities, and then focusing their educational years on developing those natural talents to nurture and improve them, thereby helping that child achieve their greatest potential.

In reality we are largely a society with a system of education that encourages children and students to make a decision about their future career at 15 – regardless of their natural skills, and we often end up trying to turn natural musicians into scientists or natural gifted nurses, or doctors into business entrepreneurs. (more…)

Tags: better education, developing Children's talents, identifying children's strengths, nurturing childrens talents
Category: General Education
Comments: 1 Comment

24th

Oct 2013

What is the Right Amount of Homework?

Karl Taro Greenfeld an author from New York was concerned over the sheer amount of homework his 14 year old daughter, Esmee, had to do during a week. The homework was taking family time and running into meal times, so in order to find out why, Karl decided to take on his daughter’s homework for a week. Karl told the Moms Today website that he just wanted to know what was the actual nature of the work that she’s doing every night?

So, for one whole week during the last school year, Karl took on all the homework that his daughter’s school set. She attends a selective public middle school in New York and the week that the experiment took place was a ‘light week’ according to Esmee. (more…)

Tags: Homework
Category: Educational Blogs, General Education
Comments: No Comments

15th

Oct 2013

Young People in the UK are Not What They Were

Do you remember when you first started work, that very first day? I guess that you made sure you arrived on time and you were careful about how you were dressed. I imagine that you made a real effort to show willingness and you asked lots of questions. That’s just how it was back then. However, a recent report in the UK says that Young People in the UK these days have no idea what to expect when they enter the wold of work.

A report published by OECD stated that there is a shrinking pool of talent entering the UK workforce and UK young people lag behind their international competitors in terms of literacy and numeracy. I have seen this at first hand. Here in the UK there is very little homework or home study expected whereas in both China and the Philippines I have seen students spending hours studying at home. (more…)

Tags: Category: Educational Blogs, General Education
Comments: No Comments

9th

Jul 2012

The Best Bagel Recipe Ever !

Say Goodbye to Bagel Recipes that Don’t Work. THIS BAGEL RECIPE WILL

Once you have discovered the taste and texture of a REAL bagel, there is no going back.

Most of what is sold in supermarkets and stores and is mass produced as a Bagel, is nothing whatsover like the real thing.

So after having been introduced to the real thing many years ago, I became sick and tired of making do with the ‘imposter’ bagel – or the Bagel that was nothing more than just another bfread roll, I decided to learn how to make my own. I spent 6 months buying whatever cooking and baking books I could find with all types of Bagel recipes, but without exception – they were all failures that would not produce the REAL Bagel, no matter how closely I followed each recipe and set of instructions.

I finally found the right recipe that worked for me and produced the REAL Bagel after more than 9 months searching. Yes, there is a little bit or worked involved, but if you are a true Bagel lover, then what I am about to share with you is the next best thing to a treasure map. Follow the instructions as carefully as you can and you will reap the rewards. I have decided to share this on our Blog due the the number of requests I received.
(more…)

Tags: bagel recipe, baking bagels, making bagels, the best bagel recipe, Visual Learning, Zane Education
Category: General Education
Comments: No Comments

9th

Jul 2012

Kiwibank Says No to Free Online Education for New Zealand Kids

And Special Needs Kids in New Zealand will need to wait for someone other than Kiwibank.

Making approaches to other business with proposals of one kind or another, is part of daily business for many companies, and sometimes those approaches bear fruit, other times they don’t – and that is all just part of business.

However when you approach an organisation, and attempt to open a discussion, with someone that is supposedly qualified to occupy a reasonably senior position of responsibility within the organisation, and then they refuse to return your calls, instead palming you off to a junior – that has to resort to out-and-out lies and blatant falsehoods as their excuse not to extend the most basic of courtesies – is simply appalling.

As a person that works in field of online education, I believe this is yet one more example of how we are continuing to producing generations of “dumbed-down” kids that have an inability to think for themselves, and certainly not creatively. It also demonstrates how relying on supposed educational qualifications – rather than common sense, is actually hurting business opportunity and inhibiting commercial growth, not only here in New Zealand, but many other countries too.

Being a Director of Zane Education – the owner of currently the largest fully subtitled educational video library currently available online – it is simply not commercially feasible for us to focus on an education market as small as that in New Zealand. However as a father – and a New Zealand citizen, I would love to be able to provide our Visual Learning resources to schools, students and special needs kids in New Zealand at no cost, so as to benefit them.

Being a person that likes to think outside the square, it had occurred to me that one of the most obvious choices available to me, was to team up with a bank so they could provide those resources to schools around New Zealand – and in doing so they would be seen to actively support education in a meaningful way. After all many banks have identified the youth and education markets as an important way of targeting young savers and future new customers. Currently those New Zealand banks attempting to build their brand in the education market are providing little more than lip-service, offering children free plastic piggy banks and providing minimalist advice about financial literacy – all of which may appear great, but is really doing little more than scratching the surface.
(more…)

Tags: children, education in new zealand, kiwi bank, kiwibank, national bank of new zealand, new zealand, nz, online education in New Zealand, special needs, Zane Education
Category: General Education, Latest Website News
Comments: No Comments

4th

Apr 2012

The Power of Music in Education

Using Music to Improve & Motivate our Children’s Education

My memories of the only time that music ever made an appearance in my education involve a class of ten year old boys standing around a piano and being asked to learn a song that I had never ever heard of before. Worse still I had never ever been informed what singing in tune involved, and as a result I recall standing there wondering why the sound of my own voice did not seem to quite fit in with those of my classmates. This was neither a pleasant introduction to learning music, nor an experience that allowed music to become a meaningful part of my education.

Looking back forty years later I feel utterly robbed of what music could have become in my life, and the paths it could have led me down. And bearing that I now play two or three different instruments with varying degrees of success, simply for the sheer enjoyment and relaxation it brings me, it is one of the few areas of any regret that I have in my life.

However as I have come to understand and appreciate in recent years, music has far more to offer us then simply joy and relaxation – and that is particularly the case when it comes to our children and their education. To our children it can make the difference between not only enjoying and motivating their education, but also the pleasure and effectiveness of the learning process itself. (more…)

Tags: education, motivation, music in education, Visual Learning
Category: General Education
Comments: No Comments

27th

Mar 2012

Motivating Children to Learn

What Can We Do To Motivate Our Children’s Interest in their Education?

I have just completed a period of research into the education market in India and was extremely impressed about just how motivated such a large percentage of both children, and their parents, are towards their own education and learning.

My research revealed two interesting facts.

A recent research survey in the last 12 months indicated that parents across 16 of the largest cities in India, saw education and learning being such important that the monthly expenditure on their children’s education ranked just second on their list of spending priorities. Only their monthly spend on Groceries and food shopping came ahead of their child’s education. In most Western countries, the monthly spend on education would be considerably less important.

Then I discovered that approximately 20 million students in India have a private tutor even though they attend school on a full-time basis. That number equates to just under half of all the children studying at school in the United States.

So what is it that motivates children in India to take such and interest in their own education.

In an effort to find out more about this I have spoken to many people in India. They have explained that both children and their parents realise that education is the only way that they can hope to fight their way out of poverty.

Many also explained that because of the sheer number of people in the country the competition to get into the better schools and universities was fierce, and to succeed students really did have to achieve their best.

Others explained to me this motivation towards education was simply part of their cultural beliefs and their approach to life in the same way that the respect children have for their elders is so different to that in many countries in the West.

I suspect that there is another factor too. With the exception of periods like the Great Depression of the 1930’s, and maybe also the years during World Wars I and II, most countries in the West have never really ever experienced times of real hardship, or oppression. As a result we have bred generations of people that have a reasonably “soft” life. It is well known that hardship and adversity bring out the best in a person’s nature, yet for most of us since the 1960’s life has become easier and easier.

We now live in a generation were the range of social security and support facilities provided act as a “safety net” for those that are unemployed, or don’t want to work. Loans and credit is made available to virtually everyone by the banks, whether people can afford to repay it or not. In many ways the recent generations have never had it so good. In fact many would suggest that today’s students and children expect the world to come to them, rather than having to go out and earn whatever they want. Many students expect success to be handed to them on a plate rather than having to earn it.

So with this air of “expectancy” being part of many children’s lives, is it any wonder that few place any importance on learning and their own education.
(more…)