Sanasto, another association you might want to get familiar with...

Another association through which you can sort of get your money back if you're already a published author, based on library loans.

http://www.sanasto.fi/front-page/

The Finnish Association of Non-fiction Writers

Currently or about to start writing non-fiction work (i.e. course manual) and looking for financial and legal support ? This is for you!

http://www.suomentietokirjailijat.fi/en/

NEWS ABOUT FINLAND IN ENGLISH

YLE:
http://yle.fi/uutiset/news/

New collaboration between Helsingin Sanomat and Helsinki Times (now possible to read articles from HS translated into English)
http://www.helsinkitimes.fi/


Six Degrees newspaper
http://www.6d.fi/6d/

PISA related article

Shedding (new ?) light on Finland's PISA results 2013: The American perspective

New City of Knowledge project in Ecuador

I lived in Ecuador for a while... ages ago. A few weeks ago I was asked to host 2 guests from Ecuador at HAAGA-HELIA, as part of an official visit organized by the Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture. This is when I heard about the Yachay city of knowledge, a groundbreaking, ambitious and innovative project with a cutting edge university due to welcome its first students in the beginning of next year.
Interested or just curious to see what a small, not much spoken about South American country can achieve ? Check the video...

Pisa results 2012 slides available on Slideshare

If you missed yesterday's Pisa results webinar hosted by Andreas Schleicher it is now available on slideshare.

PISA 2012 Evaluating school systems to improve education from OECD Education

I hope it is possible to listen to the presentation and not just look at the slides. Some of them are rather complex and need oral explanations.

All in all, it was a rewarding experience to take part in this webinar, not only content wise (even if the focus was just on mathematics) but also method wise. It worked pretty well even if the sound quality wasn't optimum and thus made it a little harder at times to follow the conference. In the end participants had the chance to ask questions and the speaker did a good job at answering them.

As we know, Shanghai got the best results in all 3 subjects which made me wonder if there is any  price to pay for the students. I got the answer in today's (5.12) Helsingin Sanomat: pupils study very hard during the day and also at home and spare time doesn't exceed half a day per week. Also, self reflection is not encouraged. Parents and children are mostly interested in the grades rather than by learning itself.
And of course, Shanghai (together with Hong-kong) are exceptions as other regions in China suffer from the lack of qualified teachers, poor infrastructures and a huge number of pupils per class.

Did anyone take part in this webinar ? Any reflections you would like to share with us ? This is the place!

PISA RESULTS

If you are interested in Pisa results and related news, check the following link. Note that you can sign up for Pisa day (this will direct you to another page where you can have access to "Pisa in the news" and "resources") and  register for a webinar with OECD deputy director for education and skills.

http://www.oecd.org/pisa/