Lucky British Students Get To Test Super Cool Interactive Desks!

A group of lucky 8-10 year olds have been involved in a super-exciting experiment - To see if replacing traditional pencil and paper with hi-tech interactive desks would help improve their math skills! The children have been using the interesting technology for 3 years.  But before we tell you the result, let’s talk about the new desks…

 Britain’s Durham University and SynergyNet research projects thought of the product and aimed at enhancing classroom learning through technology, it involved 400 students across 12 schools in North East Britain. The interactive desks were fitted with interesting software that responded to touch-based commands enabled by vision systems that could detect infrared light. The teacher obviously needs to see the work that the children have done so, the desks were wired to a Smart Board, which allowed the teacher to assign math problems for the students to solve solo or as a group.

 

That’s not all; the interactive board gets better... The educator could interactively assign different problems to different groups and send one group's answer to another, to see if they agreed. Also, a smart feed provided the educator with instant feedback, which enabled him/her to assist students that were struggling with a concept, while allowing the rest of the group to continue forging ahead. Plus, if the whole class are having problems…  The teacher could simply post it on the whiteboard and explain it to them at the same time. Though the study was used exclusively for math, the desks could easily be used to teach other subjects as well.
 

As a result after looking at the desks, they revealed what most of you could have predicted by simply looking at the desks - 45% of the test students improved their math skills as opposed to just 16% when the same lessons were taught using traditional methods.

But don’t throw your pen and pencil away just yet because… these desks are not about to come to your school anytime soon. This is because it’s new and cool, also they are currently too expensive to go mainstream and they take a lot of time to set up. Even though 400 lucky students were able to keep theirs as a reward for taking part in this rather 'grueling' study!

Should Cloning Take Place?

Have you ever wished you could have a clone of yourself to do homework, while you hit the skate park with your friends?
Well…Over the past few years, the ethics of human and animal cloning has become a great issue. The advocates for both sides of this argument have many reasons to clone and not to clone. Cloning is the creation of an organism that is an exact genetic copy of another. This means that every single bit of DNA is the same between the two! You may not believe it, but there are human clones among us right now.

Those who support cloning see quite definite benefits in carrying out research.
Some of the more common arguments are:
Nature is already a cloning organism. For example, the strawberry plant, potatoes, grass and bacteria. Also it could able people to raise an identical child after an unfortunate death. Plus cloning would be useful to have the ability to clone genetic modified animals. These animals could include cows that produce milk with no lactose, which would help people who are allergic to lactose.

On the other hand cloning is a very sensitive subject. The cloning debate attracts quite passionate objections from people. Lots of people say… Just because we can clone, doesn’t mean we should! A very large percentage of cloning efforts end up in failure. For instance, it took 277 attempts to clone Dolly the sheep. Often clones don’t live as long as sexually reproduced animals, possibly because the genes taken from adults are more likely to have undergone mutations. Cloning can be very upsetting. In January 2001 a little baby gaur was cloned. Unfortunately the animal only survived for 48 hours, this makes me feel that cloning should not be developed any further. Most importantly cloning will stop genetic improvements to a species. This is because genetic improvements usually occur through sexual reproduction, which result in a mixing of the genes of the mother and father. If we try to clone endangered species, then we will put the females of the species at risk.

One must understand that cloning does not produce an exact copy of the person or animal being cloned. What cloning does, is that it copies the DNA/genes of the person/animal and creates a duplicate genetically. In conclusion I think cloning should stop, it shouldn’t really develop any further. Apart from the odd chance, cloning makes people end up in tears. Maybe having a clone of your self won’t be as good after all.

More Marriages on the 12/12/12

As we all know, 12/12/12 was the last unusual day for 89 years (01/01/2101) and, for some unusual reason, marriages today have shot up tons. Registry offices across the country are reporting a rise in the number of people wanting to get married today. 51 marriages were reported in the district of Gretna in southern Scotland, 25 more than last year on the very same date. In Gloucestershire, west England there was 12 ceremonies. In Barnet, London, 14 have been booked; three times more than usual The average marriages on a normal Wednesday is 1. By Abigail Smith and Lily Hawley

Bradley Wiggins Wins Sports Personality

The Tour de France winner and the Olympic time trial Bradley Wiggins beat 11 other contestants.

There were more than 1.6 million votes. Olympic champion Jess Ennis came runner up against Brad also Olympic and US Open champion Andy Murry came in third.

This year it was a close contest. Almost all the contestants were Olympic champions and Paralympions.

Team GB and the Paralympics GB were also named the teams of the year.

The winner Brad quoted  "What a year it has been, to stand on this stage with these incredible people.
I would like to say thank you to my team mates I would not be on this stage if it wasnt for them."

Kevin Barron visits DCS!

Kevin Barron being greeted by Mr Blackwell and Mr Welch.

Last Friday students from all years were gathered in ME1 for a visit from Labour MP and representative for the Rother Valley area Kevin Barron who turned up despite the dreary weather to speak to pupils as part of Film Club and to answer questions, some of which were based around Suzzanne Collins' "The Hunger Games" which explores Totalitarian regimes and democracy. On his arrival Mr. Barron was greeted by Mr. Blackwell and Mr. Welch before addressing the group.

After a short, simple (albeit predicatably poorly acted) film in which two children interviewed various people about their views on democracy. Mr Barron took center stage and spoke about his role in the Rother Valley area and how he sees areas such as Dinnington developing in the future but said it is "Up to your (our) generation".

He also spoke of his past and how his late wife attended university later on in her life before urging that all children seriously consider further education as it will "Help you out massivley".

Mr Barron then allowed pupils to direct questions to him around topics which varied from "The Hunger Games" to politicians wages to area development and why sometimes in politics you have to really push for what you feel your area needs, in Kevin Barron's case it was the installation of a new roundabout which took nearly 30 years to pass!

On occasion Mr Barron would drift off from a question with a story of his career or his past to help emphasise his point which seemed to fascinate the younger students but after a while the charm appeared to wear thin on the sixth form / staff.

After around an hour long stay the MP wrapped up his visit by posing for photographs with members of the school and after the usual hand shaking and shoulder grabbing which I'm sure a politician who does as many site visits as Mr Barron claims to do must seem like second nature, he departed with a final wave of his hand.

On a whole the meet and greet seemed to have a possitive affect on the class who (more or less) seemed pleased to get the opportunity to speak with a member of parliament and put their views across.

Sixth formers listening to Mr Barron.

A video on democracy was shown upon Kevin Barron's arrival.

Some of the younger years.

Mr Welch getting involved in the debate.

Kevin Barron.

Mr Barron addressing the class.

UK Top 40 16th December 2012

1-James Authur- Impossible
2-will.i.am- Scream and Shout Feat Britney Spears
3-Bruno Mars- Locked Out Of Heaven
4-Gabrielle Aprin- The Power Of Love
5-Olly Murs- Troublemaker Feat Flo-Rida
6-Rhianna- Stay Feat Mikky Ekko
7-Rhianna- Diamonds
8-Labrinth- Beneath Your Beautiful Feat Emeli Sande
9-PSY- Gangham Style
10-One Direction- Little Things
11-Taylor Swift- I Knew You Were Trouble
12-One Direction- Kiss You
13- Ke$ha- Die Young
14-P!nk- Try
15-Robbie Williams- Candy
16-The Lumineers- Ho Hey
17-Swedish House Mafia- Don't You Worry Child Feat John Martin
18- The Pouges- Fairy Tale Of New York Feat Kirsty Maccoll
19-Alicia Keys- Girl On Fire
20- Pitbull- Don't Stop The Party Feat Tjr
21- Mariah Carey- All I Want For Christmas Is You
22-Shontelle- Impossible
23-Adele- Skyfall
24-Daley- Remember Me Feat Jessie J
25-DJ Fresh- Gold Dust
26-Calvin Harris- Sweet Nothing Feat Florence Welch
27-Christina Perri- A Thousand Years
28- Disclosure- Latch Feat Sam Smith
29- Wizzard- I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday
30-Little Mix- DNA
31-Rudimental- Not Giving In Feat John Newman And Alex Clare
32-Wiley- Can You Hear Me Feat Ms D Skepta And JME
33-Marroon 5- One More Night
34-The Script- Hall Of Fame Feat will.i.am
35-Emeli Sande- Clown
36-Ellie Goulding- Anything Could Happen
37-McFly- Love Is Easy
38-The Script- Six Degrees Of Seperation
39-Slade- Merry Xmas Everybody
40-BURNS- Lies

PC Halts Nativity Play To Order Parents To Move Cars.

Christmas may be heading here fast but the festive spirit was in short surply at a Surrey prep school, after a policeman stoped the nativity due to bad parking!

Pupils at the school in Smallfeild where mid way though there performance of tinsle and teatowels, a modern take on the traditional nativity, when a police man walked in.

PC Paul Baker told parents they were blocking the pavements outside and preventing patients at a nearby doctor's surgery from parking.

He then demanded the nativity play be stopped, only 15 minutes into the performance, and ordered parents to move their cars.

But some parents, angry that they were forced to miss their children's time in the limelight, accused the policeman of "petty meddling" and being "heavy-handed".

One uncle of a pupil, who asked to remain anonymous, said:"Most of the parents were shocked as they thought someone had committed a serious crime. They thought they were going to be arrested!"