Ada Lovelace Day back for 2010

"Ada Lovelace Day is an international day of blogging (videologging, podcasting, comic drawing etc.!) to draw attention to the achievements of women in technology and science," writes Suw Charman Anderson, founder of Ada Lovelace Day. I joined in last year.

It's the perfect day to tell a story about an innovative woman in science or tech, whether a famous person or someone you know! As Suw wrote:

"Women’s contributions often go unacknowledged, their innovations seldom mentioned, their faces rarely recognised. We want you to tell the world about these unsung heroines, whatever they do. It doesn’t matter how new or old your blog is, what gender you are, what language you blog in, or what you normally blog about – everyone is invited."

So join in!

Deep ecology and monitoring tropical forests with technology

Jane Goodall is an amazing primatologist, and also UN Messenger for Peace. Here is an interview by OneWorldTV, spanning a range of inspiring topics. She talks about how local people can monitor forests with mobile phones combined with Google Earth through to her educational programmes, and the spiritual importance of experiencing forests.

French reform to science and tech curricula

Like most EU countries, France is suffering from falling interest in science and tech studies and careers. In addition, the curriculum had not been revised in these topics for some years. The French Ministry of Education and Research has just published information on a reformed approach to science and tech teaching and learning. Most documents available are in French only, but here are some of the highlights:

• Science and technology subjects will be easier to combine with languages. In the past, only one language could be studied together with science. Now students can choose two - exactly what I wanted to do back when I was at secondary school...
• Science and tech will be organised in several sub-topics according to whether you go for 'science and industrial technology' (comprising technology innovation and eco-design; digital information systems; energy and sustainable development; building and architecture) or 'laboratory science and technology' (including biotechnology and applied physics and chemistry).

The curriculum looks really interesting and modern - however, where is biological and life science in this framework? It seems that it has been totally separated from the other sciences, which seems to be a mistake when sustainable development and eco-design relies on a fundamental understanding of these topics.



More information (in French)

Web roundup: my top picks

With e-Skills Week only just out of the way, I have little time to scan the blogosphere - but these caught my eye:

• New research on 1:1 computing indicates that students in such programmes outperform their peers. My colleague Riina Vuorikarii has just launched a new project with ACER to look at 1:1 computing in EU schools too, and has a great new website with technical support, learning resources and more.
• Skeptical video from Australian TV show 'Hungry Beast' about Google's expansion and involvement in many industries. I'm dependent on Google services online so it's an interesting reminder.
• Interview with researcher Ying-Ta Wu on how grid computing can fight dengue fever and enable international data sharing 
• The annual Reporters without Borders report on web freedom highlights that even democratic countries like Australia and South Korea are now cracking down on online expression.

e-Skills Week: podcast interview

Interested to hear me waffle on about e-Skills, geekery and why tech is cool? You can download an interview I did for e-Skills Week, as part of the e-Skills Week podcast series.

• Listen to the interview
• Get the full list of podcasts and videocasts