Ways to use Cricket in Classroom

As we are the World Cup 2011 champions, and the celebrations continue,I was thinking how to use this Gentleman's Game inside the classroom . These things came to  my mind;
1. can be used to teach Math/Geometry concepts like distance,area,speed,velocity,graphs,average,rate etc.
2.Build Vocabulary/language skills
3.Children can learn about Continents,Countries,History,GMT/UST etc.
4.Political History/Diplomacy,Neighbouring Countries
5.Keeping these above mentioned in mind, teachers can give Project works as per the grade

Turn it upside down-Revolution not Reform

We should think of revamping the subjects which we teach to the children now in schools.It doesn't have much relevance to the day to day life.Basic skills are ignored and alien ideas are pushed  into the minds.The ultimate purpose of exams are not achieved,evaluation should be stressed instead of exams.A boy of Class IX should know how to fill the Draft form in a Bank and be able to calculate the volume of wooden planks.Our system doesn't build confidence in our children, instead creates passive listeners who never ask questions.This is a generalized idea of our educational system.Applicability of knowledge is always ignored.We cannot think beyond the values created by our own system .

 Our generation is the product of the same old values which still believes in sending the children to school for a better earning.The so called educated people are often we find cheated by the socially deviated people.We never taught the children to discriminate between genuine and fakes,never ever taught them to free themselves from greed,fear,anger etc.and left this to Religions.Quest or Curiosity is not awakened in them.Narrowness or living in tight compartments in life is more convenient for many who never think out of the box and allow the coming generation to do so.Justifying their actions and acting with a preconceived notion with their conditioned mind is a Crime and not a Sin.

  What is right yesterday no more hold any ground today,except certain time tested moral values.Even moral codes may vary from society to society.All this I learned when I taught and thought in the school,but  I learn when I teach my children at home and observe their actions."Child is the father of Man".We should groom the children to adopt and practice healthy attitudes so that they become a balanced individuals.

WHY IT IS EASY TO LOVE GANDHI AND DIFFICULT TO FOLLOW ?

Gandhian principles are time tested for its validity around the world, it is neither a dogma nor an ideology, it is the practiced way of Gandhi. It is tough to be a satyagrahi, inner strength and freedom from fear,death,jealousy,anger,greed etc. , love ...pure love towards all existence ,Brahmacharya are expected and practiced by a Satyagrahi.Love towards the person harming you and no hatred towards him is really  hard for we mortals. It is very hard to follow in its whole nature. We can at least try and inculcate certain ideas of Gandhi in our day today life.Gandhian way is not a cowards way.We as world citizens can make aware the children and cherish the ideals in our family to have peace and get rid of the modern day stress .We complicated our lives with all those things which are not real in essence or by comparing ourselves with others so called material achievements .Doing things in a simple way and our standing on truth and non- violence can bring a change .Dependence on modern technology is good as far as we don’t forget the conventional way of doing things. -ANDAMANSIKKIM

MID-DAY MEAL SCHEME

One of the pioneers of the scheme is the Madras Presidency that started providing cooked meals to children in corporation schools in the Madras city in 1923. The programme was introduced in a large scale in 1960s under the Chief Ministership of K. Kamaraj. However, the first major thrust came in1982 when the then Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, Dr. M. G. Ramachandran, decided to universalise the scheme for all children in government schools in primary classes. Later the programme was expanded to cover all children up to class 10. Tamil Nadu’s mid-day meal programme is among the best known in the country.

There is an interesting story about how K. Kamaraj got the idea of a noon meal scheme. The spark is said to have occurred in a small village (now a town) called Cheranmahadevi in Tirunelveli District ofTamil Nadu. K Kamarajar was a very simple person who used to travel in his car (even without the red lamp at the top) and was not accustomed to convoys.

On one such journey, he had to stop at the railway intersection in Cheranmahadevi and got out of the car and waited. He saw a few boys busy with their cows and goats. The Chief Minister had asked one small boy, "What are you doing with this cows? Why didn't you go to school?" The boy immediately answered, "If I go to school, will you give me food to eat? I can learn only if I eat." The boy's retort sparked the entire process into establishing the mid-day meal programme.

Kerala has computerized the Mid-day Meal Scheme in schools. All the dealings are made online and the accounting become accurate.

Several other states of India also have had mid-day meal programmes. The most notable among them is Gujarat that has had it since the late 1980s. Kerala started providing cooked meals in schools since 1995 and so did Madhya Pradesh and Orissa in small pockets. On November 28, 2001 the Supreme Court of India gave a landmark direction, which made it obligatory for the government to provide cooked meals to all children in all government and government assisted primary schools. The direction was resisted vigorously by State governments initially, but the programme has become almost universal by 2005.

HAPPY TEACHERS DAY

Dr,Radhakrishnan's handwritten letter.

HOW WIRELESS POWER-Witricity WORKS

HOW WIRELESS POWER WORKS 1. Magnetic coil (Antenna A) is housed in a box and can be set in wall or ceiling. 2. Antenna A, powered by mains, resonates at a specific frequency. 3. Electromagnetic waves transmitted through the air. 4. Second magnetic coil (Antenna B) fitted in laptop/TV etc resonates at same frequency as first coil and absorbs energy. 5. Energy charges the device.

A system that can deliver power to devices without the need for wires has been shown off at a hi-tech conference.

To harness power from lightning...A controversy !

Tiny charges gathered directly from humid air could be harnessed to generate electricity, researchers say.

Dr Francesco Galembeck told the American Chemical Society meeting in Boston that the technique exploited a little-known atmospheric effect.

Tests had shown that metals could be used to gather the charges, he said, opening up a potential energy source in humid climates.

However, experts disagree about the mechanism and the scale of the effect.

"The basic idea is that when you have any solid or liquid in a humid environment, you have absorption of water at the surface," Dr Galembeck, from the University of Campinas in Brazil, told BBC News.

Continue reading the main story

Related stories

• Wireless power system shown off
• Wireless energy promise powers up

"The work I'm presenting here shows that metals placed under a wet environment actually become charged."

Dr Galembeck and his colleagues isolated various metals and pairs of metals separated by a non-conducting separator - a capacitor, in effect - and allowed nitrogen gas with varying amounts of water vapour to pass over them.

What the team found was that charge built up on the metals - in varying amounts, and either positive or negative. Such charge could be connected to a circuit periodically to create useful electricity.

The effect is incredibly small - gathering an amount of charge 100 million times smaller over a given area than a solar cell produces - but seems to represent a means of charge accumulation that has been overlooked until now.

Dr Galembeck suggests that with further development, the principle could be extended to become a renewable energy resource in humid parts of the world, such as the tropics.

Charged debate

However, while the prospect of free electricity from the air is tantalising, the prospect of harnessing enough of it to be widely useful is still a matter of some debate.

Hywel Morgan of the University of Southampton says that a similar effect has been known for some time; he points out that tribocharging - the generation of charge by rubbing wool over amber or water droplets over water droplets - is the origin of thunderstorms.

Continue reading the main story

“Start Quote

There have been many attempts to harness electricity from the atmosphere and most had bad endings”

Francesco GalembeckUniversity of Campinas

"What we think is happening is he's pumping the water vapour across his capacitor and during the pumping mechanism, tribocharging the water vapour."

That would result in a charge, but would not be the same as simply pulling the charge from still, wet air.

Marin Soljacic, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology physicist behind a wireless power transmission technology, known as Witricity, disagrees.

He calls the paper "very interesting" and "a good area of research".

He concurs, however, that the amount of charge gathered in the initial tests suggests the effect may be difficult to put to good use, saying that "at this point it is far-fetched to see how it could be used for everyday applications".

"It really warrants future research and understanding what all the limitations of this are, how far it can go," he told BBC News.

"[Prof Morgan] is right that a similar and closely-related effect is known to exist, but we're very pressed for finding new sources of renewable energy, [so] I think it's a bit early to discard this research."

Dr Galembeck is familiar with the controversy that this kind of work generates, saying that disagreement about the mechanism behind it forms "the motif for bitter discussions among scientists".

"There have been many attempts to harness electricity from the atmosphere and most had bad endings."

source:BBC

CBSE CLASS IX & XI REGISTRATION

Click here to start registering your school data/details..
     1. CBSE  site

     2. Registration work
     3. Circulars
     4.OLD CBSE result verification since 2004
     5.Namthang School
     6.Central Pendam School

Human brain on a microchip nearly ready - University of Calgary

Toronto: The human brain on a microchip is almost ready!

Turning into reality science fiction of films such as "The Terminator" - where machines and men meld into reality - Canadian scientists have successfully connected brain cells to a silicon chip to "hear" conversation between brain tissue.

The neuro-chip, which has been developed by medicine scientists at the University of Calgary, will network brain cells and thus record brain cell activity at a resolution never achieved before, according to Naweed Syed who led the team that made the breakthrough.

The neuro-chip will help future understanding of how brain cells work under normal conditions and thus permit drug discoveries for a variety of neuro-degenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's, a university statement said Tuesday.

"This technical breakthrough means we can track subtle changes in brain activity at the level of ion channels and synaptic potentials, which are also the most suitable target sites for drug development in neuro-degenerative diseases and neuropsychological disorders," Syed, who is professor and head of the Department of Cell Biology and Anatomy, has been quoted as saying.

The new neuro-chips are also automated.

"Previously it took years of training to learn how to record ion channel activity from brain cells, and it was only possible to monitor one or two cells simultaneously. Now, larger networks of cells can be placed on a chip and observed in minute detail, allowing the analysis of several brain cells networking and performing automatic, large-scale drug screening for various brain dysfunctions," the university statement said.

The University of Calgary is excited at the potential of this made in Canadatechnology, said university vice president Rose Goldsmith.

"The University of Calgary is proud to be the home of this cutting edge Canadian work with a neurochip. The advances in research and healthcare made by possible by this technology are immense. The work and collaboration happening in the lab of Naweed Syed is another example demonstrating our leadership in the field of biomedical engineering."

The new technology has been published online this month in the journal, Biomedical Microdevices. IANS

Synthetic Life :Story

right click the picture and save to read...

New plan to educate poor...

In a major push for inclusive education, the government has decided to allow corporates, non-profit companies and societies to open 2,500 schools across the country. The Public Private Partnership (PPP) model finalised by the Planning Commission in consultation with the private sector this week allows the government to fill 1,000 of the 2,500 seats in each school with children from the deprived sections.

The schools envisaged will remain government schools, but run by private management. The scheme will benefit as many as 25 lakh poor children.

Half the 1000 seats in each of these PPP schools will be reserved for scheduled caste (SC), scheduled tribe (ST) and other backward classes (OBC) students, who would be required to pay month as tuition fee of Rs 25. The remaining seats would be filled by children of non income tax payee parents, the panel has decided. They will have to pay a monthly fee of Rs 50.

“The Central government will bear the remaining cost of educating these poor students as per the Kendriya Vidyalaya norms,” a plan panel official, requesting anonymity, said. It will include free textbooks and two uniforms in a year.

The estimated cost per child for the government would Rs 1,000 to Rs 1,200, resulting in the government paying over Rs 10,500 crore till 2017 to the private education providers.

The private entities, having full management control over the schools, will charge market-based fees from the remaining 1,500 students. “There will be no government interference in deciding fees for the non-reserved categories,” an official said.

source: Hindustan Times

Road to......

Monkeys on the road between Siliguri and Sikkim are a common sight.Some of them lost their legs,tails and fingers as they evolved to survive with the humans on wheels who left a impact on their taste buds and ear.

The Jarawa tribes of Andaman Islands are objects of curiosity for the tourist,This tribe who came into open human contact only fifteen years ago is causing a great dilemma,whether to bring them closer or to keep them isolated .The only solution is to keep them as they are and improve their living conditions and work towards stabilizing their population without affecting their habitat. Read More.......click

Why we failed to Pass ? Dozen reason or solutions

1.Schooling is not only for a living.(Paisa paisa karti ho !!!)Schooling for stomach! Education

and Literacy are different things .All literates are not educated...

2.After getting a job we forget to read or right.(Chalta hai !)Alliteracy.

3.Secure job,family,kids-happy .(All is well..)No risk taking.

4.Kids of 21st Century ,Teachers are from 20th Century.(Sau Saal pehle.....)Generation gap.

5.Punishments-Carporal,Exams (Fear factor)Schools should be inviting.

6.Matriculation-Class X phobia(Dus ka Dum).Grade or no grade..parental pressure in urban will continue.

7.No life skill/survival skill education(Zindagi ye kaisi hai paheli..haai ..)Paper Tigers cannot withstand the wind!

8.Peer pressure( Mitwa....).Negative,misinformation,habit formation etc.starts here.

9.Insecure childhood(Dil hoom hoom kare gabraaye..)Don't worry about your kid,be concerned.

10.Sense of humour(lacking) among teachers(Bum bum bole..)

11.Lack of motivation -teacher/kids(Saabasi dega kyaaa?)

12.Encourage divergent thinking.(Socho jara socho...)

You can add more......

Moral of the story: "Don't miss the Tiger for the Woods"!!!.

Why Digital Media Is A Novelists BEST FRIEND

I sold so many books because I made my work freely available online

Paulo Coelho

St Martin, France: 2009 has been a year of fear in the publishing world. The specter is digital media, in wide and varied forms.

Ten years ago, in 1999, my agent returned from Russia bearing bad news: The publisher of my novel The Alchemist had decided to discontinue publication because fewer than 3,000 copies had sold. After considerable effort, we found another Russian-language publisher. Unfortunately , he was based in Kiev, in Ukraine, and was having difficulty buying paper (which was not, at the time, generally available).

The odd thing is that, only weeks before, I had found a pirated edition of the Russian translation on the Internet , and my immediate reaction had been to attribute the low sales of my books in Russia to piracy.

Like any other author, I wanted my books to be read. Since a physical book wasnt available, and I had no idea when the new publisher would manage to buy the paper he needed to print the new edition, I thought: Why not make a virtual version available Acting on impulse, I posted the pirated translation on my Web site, where anyone could download it without paying.

At the end of 2000, my Ukrainian publisher was thrilled to report that we had sold 10,000 copies! A year later that had risen to 100,000. By 2002, 1 million Russian-language copies had been sold.

During that time, I received emails referring to the pirated edition I had placed on my Web site. Many of those messages said: Im so glad to have found your work. My conclusion: Russia was a vast country with enormous distribution problems, and the Internet was helping to bring the book to readers.

Excited by this discovery, I decided to do the same with my other books. But I ran into a legal problem : The Russian translation had been posted on the Internet by the translator, but what about translations to which I did not have the rights My solution was to gather all the links to file-sharing P2P (peer-to-peer ) sites and create my Pirate Coelho Web site.

This became a hit on social networking sites, which spread the news. By the time I spoke publicly of this at the 2007 Digital, Life, Design conference in Munich, a million unique visitors per month were visiting the site. There, they could find almost all my books in various languages - from German to Malayalam. Meanwhile, the printed versions were selling in ever greater numbers. Since none of my publishers had complained up until then, I assumed they must know about the Web site but had decided not to intervene.

The day after newspapers published my remarks in Munich, my telephone began ringing. Some of my publishers asked: Do you know the risk youre running Dont you realize that this is going to decrease your sales

Pirate Coelho had been online since 2005, I argued, and sales had continued to rise. That meant the traditional publishing model benefitted from file sharing. I must confess that, much as I respect my publishers , their view of reality bore little relation to what was happening in the bookstores.

By that time, I had sold more than 100 million books, and that gave me a few privileges. Among them was keeping Pirate Coelho online (where it is today) despite the bad example it set.

How can I explain what happened It isnt only the financial world that finds the word greedy problematic, but any industry that tries to claim a monopoly on anything , be it information or a specific product. In my case, people started reading my books on the screen, liked them and went on to buy a print copy handier and cheaper in the long term. And so it went for several years.

Somerset Maugham said: We do not write because we want to; we write because we must. And, I would add, because we want to be

In the 16th century, the Catholic Church created the Index Librorum Prohibitorum (List of Prohibited Books), and despite the fact that many of the authors of those books were burned at the stake, the list continued to grow during the four centuries it existed. More recently , dissident Soviet citizens produced mimeographed copies of their books in order to make their ideas available to whoever wanted to read them. Two of those writers, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and Boris Pasternak , went on to receive the Nobel Prize in literature.

The publishing industry cannot follow in the footsteps of the music industry, which managed to close down Napster only to witness an explosion of file-sharing sites. With new products like Kindle, Nook and Sonys Reader , and various applications for the iPhone and Blackberry, the author who once posted his books on blogs (for free) will now choose electronic formats and, from then on, the publishers like record companies will become expendable . Those countries in favor of banning file sharing France, for example, passed legislation this year will find their writers losing ground and importance in an ever more competitive world.

Banning things is just not the answer. The answer is to use the good things about technology to promote and disseminate the very best in literature.

Many people argue that I can allow myself the luxury of doing this because my books have sold in such large numbers. In fact, it was the other way round: I sold so many books because I took the trouble to make my work available. If someone today were to offer me the choice between getting paid $3 million to write a book for three readers and getting paid $3 to write a book for 3 million readers, I would definitely choose the latter. Im sure I wouldnt be alone in my choice. Most writers would do the same.

(Paulo Coelho is the author of 26 books, including The Alchemist, which has sold 65 million copies)

source:TOI

Copenhagen deal: Key points

A US-led initiative called the Copenhagen Accord has formed the centre-piece of a deal at UN climate talks in Copenhagen, despite some countries' opposition.

Below is an explanation of the main points in the agreement.

LEGAL STATUS

The Accord, reached between the US, China, India, Brazil and South Africa, contains no reference to a legally binding agreement, as some developing countries and climate activists wanted.

Neither is there a deadline for transforming it into a binding deal, though UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said it needed to be turned into a legally binding treaty next year.

The accord was merely "recognised" by the 193 nations at the Copenhagen summit, rather than approved, which would have required unanimous support. It is not clear whether it is a formal UN deal.

TEMPERATURE RISE

The text recognises the need to limit global temperatures rising no more than 2C (3.6F) above pre-industrial levels.

The language in the text shows that 2C is not a formal target, just that the group "recognises the scientific view that" the temperature increase should be held below this figure.

However, the accord does not identify a year by which carbon emissions should peak, a position resisted by some richer developing nations.

Countries are asked to spell out by 1 February next year their pledges for curbing carbon emissions by 2020. The deal does not spell out penalties for any country that fails to meet its promise.

FINANCIAL AID

The deal promises to deliver $30bn (£18.5bn) of aid for developing nations over the next three years. It outlines a goal of providing $100bn a year by 2020 to help poor countries cope with the impacts of climate change.

The accord says the rich countries will jointly mobilise the $100bn, drawing on a variety of sources: "public and private, bilateral and multilateral, including alternative sources of finance."

A green climate fund will also be established under the deal. It will support projects in developing countries related to mitigation, adaptation, "capacity building" and technology transfer.

EMISSIONS TRANSPARENCY

The pledges of rich countries will come under "rigorous, robust and transparent" scrutiny under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

In the accord, developing countries will submit national reports on their emissions pledges under a method "that will ensure that national sovereignty is respected."

Pledges on climate mitigation measures seeking international support will be recorded in a registry.

REVIEW OF PROGRESS

The implementation of the Copenhagen Accord will be reviewed by 2015. This will take place about a year-and-a-half after the next scientific assessment of the global climate by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

However, if, in 2015, delegates wanted to adopt a new, lower target on global average temperature, such as 1.5C rather than 2C, it would be too late.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_pictures/8420747.stm#blq-nav

NATIONAL CURRICULUM FRAMEWORK-2005(NCF)

CLICK TO DOWNLOAD.. National Curriculum Framework-2005 NCERT

Merry Christmas

CCE-Continuous & Comprehensive Evaluation

CCE website download powerpoint on CCE

Central Board of Secondary Education, New Delhi has issued a teachers manual on CCE for class 9 and class 10. The new scheme of continuous and comprehensive evaluation is being implemented in class 9th from the current session 2009-2010 and the same will be implemented in class 10th too from next session i.e. 2010-2011. In this new grading scheme, CBSE will not take board exam for class 10 and a Certificate of School Based Assessment will be issued by the school authorities as per the guidelines given by CBSE.

The proposed Certificate of School Based Assessment is divided into three parts.

Learn More from the official source at CCE website

HORSE SENSE

"If a statue has a person on a horse with both front legs in the air, the person died in battle. If the horse has one leg in the air, the person died of wounds from a battle and if the horse has all four hooves on the ground, the person died of natural causes."

MAKE THE GRADE - By Jug Suraiya (TOI)

The class struggle in India is about to get a little easier: students in Class X will not have to take board exams but will be subject to a grading system based on term papers, quizzes, group discussions and other activities. This long-awaited measure will liberate these students from the cruel tyranny of the dreaded board exams, which exact a frightful toll of panic and despair, leading in extreme cases to suicide.

The HRD ministry deserves two cheers for this. The third cheer must remain reserved until further reform of our oppressively antiquated educational system, which still remains obsessed with 'marksism': academic success or failure is determined by the number of marks a student gets for spewing out undigested information which has been learnt by rote, and which will be forgotten as soon as the results are out, if not sooner.

While the new measure will, it is hoped, free Class X students from despotic 'marksism' and inculcate in them a sense of inquiry which is the foundation of all true education it only defers the ordeal of the exams they will eventually have to face to pass out of school. Why not carry the grading system right through Class XII?

A more serious shortcoming of the new system is that it addresses only one side of a multifaceted problem: it seeks to grade only students, and not those who teach them or those who monitor and supervise their schoolwork, like parents. Why is it that only students must pass tests? Or, as will now be the case for Class X students, learn to make the grade? What about teachers? Isn't it equally important that they too should be regularly tested to see if they pass muster?

Having got their qualifying degrees by the same system of 'marksism' that they will perpetuate throughout their professional careers the great majority of teachers don't trouble themselves with keeping abreast in this ever-changing world with the latest developments in their supposed expertise, be it in science subjects or the humanities. In short, the moment they start teaching, they stop learning. Which is a contradiction in terms. Or ought to be. For learning and teaching are two sides of the same two-way street. Even as they test, or grade, those whom they teach, teachers should also be regularly tested, or graded, in a process which includes input from their students. (On a scale of 1 to 10, rate your teacher on the following counts: Grasp of Subject Matter, Clarity, Communication Skills, etc.)

But if teachers are to make the grade, it has to be made worth their while. Barring a handful of so-called 'elitist' institutions whose faculty members are reasonably well paid, most schoolteachers in India receive a derogatory pittance by way of salary, with government schoolteachers probably at the bottom of the heap. (So where does that 3 per cent education cess that is added onto your tax go? Don't ask.)

Indian schoolteachers' salaries are so poor, for the most part, that teachers have been described as the white-collar 'shudras' of the country. How do we upgrade our teachers who supposedly are the moulders and shapers of young minds, who in turn will shape the future of the country not just economically, but also socially?

Should not just schools, but also individual teachers, be graded by a star system awarded by an autonomous body comprising eminent educationists the way hotels and restaurants are rated?

If we really want our schoolchildren to make the grade in all senses of that term then we have to ensure that their teachers are sufficiently motivated to themselves make the grade. And in order to do that, we as a society parents, taxpayers, policymakers also have to make the grade in the common project of redefining the content and purpose of education. What is the purpose of education? Is there any purpose beyond the obvious one of getting a job and making money? How our school kids make the grade will depend on how we make the grade in answering that question.

source:TIMES OF INDIA

secondopinion@timesgroup.com

http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/jugglebandhi/

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READ AN OLD NEWS ITEM from INDIAN EXPRESS

Sep 19, 2003

NEW DELHI, SEPTEMBER 18: Union Human Resource Development Minister Murli Manohar Joshi today reversed the decision of the Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan (KVS) to allow students to evaluate their teachers.Though some private schools do allow such internal assessments, this was the first time that such a measure was being introduced in a nationwide network like the Kendriya Vidyalaya system.

Joshi’s decision evoked a positive response from the large constituency of teachers but some of them like Arjun Dev, formerly with the NCERT, felt that such a system would have to be incorporated in the long run. However, he added that emphasis given to such assessment should not result in teachers being penalised in any way.