Tens of thousands of Kiwi kids and their teachers have added, subtracted, multiplied and divided their way to a new world record. They spent all last Wednesday and Thursday challenging other students around the world in quick-fire 60-second online maths games as part of the world’s biggest education event – World Maths Day 2010. With 1,133,246 students getting involved official results are still being calibrated. However classes from Devon Intermediate in New Plymouth and Upper Moutere School have placed within the world’s Top 50 classes in for the 9-13 age category. Rob Haddock, Principal of Tahuna School, has taken out New Zealand’s top honours in the over 18 category for Teachers and Parents, although he noted that his final score was nowhere...   more

Opera Software has released Opera 10.50, the latest version of its Web browser. Billed as the "fastest Web browser thus-far produced for Windows computers", it has been completely redesigned, adopting what look suspiciously like some of Google Chrome's style elements. It also comes with a new private feature that does not leave any browsing records. Opera 10.50 is available for Windows in 42 different languages – Mac and Linux versions are “coming soon". ...   more

The Australian website My School ( www.myschool.edu.au ) was launched at the start of the school year and attracted nine million hits on its first day. The website was developed by the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA), an independent authority that is responsible for publishing nationally comparable data on Australian schools. It provides detailed literacy and numeracy results for years three, five, seven and nine for every school in Australia, and offers comparisons with similar schools. The site also details the number of students, the number of teachers, attendance rates and each school's social-economic profile. In the six weeks it has been in operation, My School has received mixed reception from principals – some claiming they have...   more

Children with more freedom to surf the Internet at school are more likely to stay safe online in the long term. A report from UK watchdog Ofsted found that limited access systems do not teach students about using the Internet responsibly, therefore making them more vulnerable overall. “A child whose use of the Internet is closely monitored at school will not necessarily develop the level of understanding required to use new technologies responsibly in other contexts,” said the report. The watchdog added that working around “locked down” Internet systems takes up valuable teaching time, which could be better utilised by teaching about online safety. However it also noted that training given to teachers was the 'weakest aspect of e-safety' overall. ...   more

A new US poll suggests children are not getting enough instruction in class on how to use the Internet and other technology safely. The study by the National Cyber Security Alliance (NCSA) and supported by Microsoft Corp. found that less than 25 per cent of teachers have spent more than six hours a year teaching students about online safety, security, ethics and privacy.  Despite this deficiency, 90 per cent of teachers and school staff surveyed supported the teaching of Internet and technology awareness in schools. However, 72 per cent of teachers believe that parents hold primary responsibility for teaching their children how to be safe online. While 90 per cent of US schools employ website filtering precautions, “they don’t prepare students to act more...   more