Japanese university giving pupils iPhones to monitor classroom attendance

September 4th, 2009 LONDON - A new study has given kids the perfect excuse to throw traditional classroom adage "Sit quietly then teacher will begin" out of the window: Outspoken children learn more. Edinburgh University academics claimed that encouraging youngsters to speak out in class could be a more effective way for them to learn, reports The Scotsman.

August 28th, 2009 France questions Apple about shattering iPhonesPARIS — Apple sought to reassure the French government on Friday that several recent cases of iPhones cracking and allegedly shattering were not caused by product defects, but were the result of improper handling by users. The secretary of state for trade and consumer affairs Herve Novelli met with Apple France's financial director Michel Coulomb to discuss the issue and possible measures, according to Novelli's office.

August 6th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Learning history by watching historically based blockbuster movies can make students to repeat mistakes portrayed in the flicks, reveals a new study from Washington University in St. Louis. The study has suggested that showing popular history movies in a classroom setting can be a double-edged sword when it comes to helping students learn and retain factual information in associated textbooks.

July 16th, 2009 LONDON - An England-based primary school, which asked its pupils to come up with ideas for a new outdoor classroom, now has one in the form of a decommissioned commercial aeroplane. The winged classroom, a refurbished Short S-360, is believed to be the first of its kind in the world, and students at Kingsland Primary School in Bucknall, Stoke-on-Trent, checked in for class in the aircraft for the first time on July 15.

July 8th, 2009 LONDON - The best teachers are enthusiastic, inspiring, innovative and indeed in a class of their own. These are the latest findings of research funded in primary and secondary schools by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) into what makes good teachers even better.

July 1st, 2009 NEW DELHI - The Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) Wednesday said the discovery of thousands of bogus employees in the civic body was made possible due to biometric attendance systems. Nearly 45,000 of MCD employees are said to be existing only on the paper and are not traceable, according to reports.

May 31st, 2009 LONDON - Students of history enjoy the most active sex lives at university, says a survey carried out by the Oxford University student newspaper Cherwell. What's more, those who take up politics, philosophy and economics, and English literature are also more sexually active than any other undergraduate, the survey revealed.

May 29th, 2009 Japan university gives away iPhones to nab truantsTOKYO — A prestigious Japanese university is giving away hundreds of iPhones, in part to use its Global Positioning System to nab students that skip class. Truants in Japan often fake attendance by getting friends to answer roll-call or hand in signed attendance cards.

May 28th, 2009 LONDON - Using the names of real pupils in a sexy novel has cost an English teacher her job. Leonora Rustamova, 39, has been suspended for writing the Internet novel 'Stop! Don't Read This', which also describes drug dealing and underage boozing.

May 12th, 2009 LONDON - The age-old picture of a teacher has undergone a technological makeover, after a robot schoolteacher developed by Japanese scientists conducted a class in a Tokyo school. The female humanoid robot, called Saya, taught a science and technology lesson to a class of 10-year-old pupils at Kudan Elementary School in Tokyo.

April 26th, 2009 LONDON - Having a bad teacher in the reception year can harm a child's entire education, according to a new study. Researchers at Durham University found that the effect of having an exceptionally poor - or an unusually good - teacher in the first year at primary school was still detectable six years later.

April 3rd, 2009 LONDON - A leading educationalist in the UK says that kids learn four times fast when they are taught by the best teachers, compared to those taught by the worst ones. Professor Dylan Wiliam, of the Institute of Education, London, suggests that the Government better focus on making teachers better at their jobs, instead of cutting class sizes or buying new technology.

March 29th, 2009 LONDON - British researchers have come up with a suggestion as to how kids can have themselves counted among clever children at school as well as avoid being labelled "nerds"-follow fashion and have a "fall guy" friend who is badly-behaved. This proposition is based on the findings of studies conducted in nine state secondary schools in England.

March 24th, 2009 LONDON - Head teachers have stood up against plans by the British Government to grade schools based on pupil happiness, and have branded them "meaningless" and "absurd". The Government's proposals have been seen as being too bureaucratic, and also leading to schools in deprived areas being "castigated".

March 18th, 2009 LONDON - One in seven migrant pupils in the United Kingdom does not speak English, even as the number of immigrant children in primary schools has soared by 25 per cent in five years. According to The Sun, around 566,000 primary children now have a foreign language as their mother tongue - up by 113,500 since 2004.