E-Learning in a cold climate, and other stories

cyber-security in 1943

Around the World considers no destination too remote for education and online learning. Nevertheless, even we are surprised this week at news that the high-speed cables may soon even reach frosty Victoria Island. Also in the weekly round-up: the people helping to get the news out of Syria and into the classrooms, and the meeting of the old and modern faces of cyber-security. Read on…

SYRIA: Syria Deeply news website, which highlights the humanitarian crisis through in-depth, crowd-sourced reporting, is focusing on e-learning – helping teachers to incorporate news stories into their teaching (MASHABLE)

AUSTRALIA: an e-learning training programme is being launched by Anti-Slavery Australia to tackle forced marriage – an issue highlighted in many recent court cases in the country (SBS)

RWANDA: students have been equipped with smartphones and tablets and sent out to map their country digitally – a generation of investigative cartographers hoping to record and analyse wildfires, water quality and deforestation (PHYS)

THE ARCTIC: to find a sea route through North-West passage between the Atlantic and Pacific was once the holy grail of polar exploration. A high-speed internet cable is now set to follow in Amundsen’s path, linking Japan, the UK, and many isolated settlements in the icy north (ALASKA DISPATCH)

SAUDI ARABIA: the Kingdom, where only 17% of the workforce is female, ranked 127^th out of 136 countries on 2013’s Global Gender Gap Report, published yesterday. New reforms are being put in place, however; and now a partnership between the Princess Noura University and Pearson is to allow 12,000 University Students access to edTech (TRADE ARABIA)

and in other news…

UK: it was here that the first programmable computers thundered away to crack the Lorenz cipher. Now, 70 years later, Bletchley Park is getting a cyber-security update – with a computer learning zone and cyber-security exhibition (THE TELEGRAPH)