US heads for learning crisis

US schools face a learning crisis triggered by the Internet, according to an education expert, notes Technorati.

An alarming number of students from the Facebook generation fail to discern between fact and fiction online and are graduating without the proper thinking skills needed to meet college and workforce demands, says Donald Leu, founder and director of the New Literacies Research Lab at the University of Connecticut.

Most students “simply have very little in the way of critical evaluation skills,” Leu says. “They may tell you they don't believe everything they read on the Internet, but they do.”

Internet giant Google says it will give $5 million to upgrade and support 50 elementary schools run by India's Bharti Foundation, the philanthropic unit of Bharti Enterprises, says The Wall Street Journal.

These schools, in the northern Indian states of Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh, will be named Satya Elementary Schools, the two companies said in a joint statement.

The funds will also be used for setting up middle schools and to meet the operational costs to upgrade primary schools to elementary level, they said.

English language teachers across Indonesia now have access to lesson plans, methodological articles and learning opportunities through the online Virtual Teachers Support Network (VTSN), reveals the Jakarta Globe.

The VTSN is provided for free by the National Education Ministry and the British Council, as part of efforts to improve English language education in the country.

Lilik Gani, head of the ministry's Centre for Information Technology and Communications, says the network was essentially a Web resource that teachers could refer to in drawing up lesson plans.