Today is Global Recycling day, we've got all the facts and figures as well as a tricky recycling game for you

Feeling a bit bored? Well don't worry we've got you covered, test your knowledge with our huge quizzes to try out.

Feeling a bit bored? Well don't worry we've got you covered, test your knowledge with our huge quizzes to try out during the holidays.

Newsround presenter De-Graft Mensah tells the story of his trip to Ghana where he found out more about his family's history and the impact of the British Empire in the West African nation.

With record numbers of families living in temporary accommodation, Newsround reporter Shanequa Paris investigates how children are being affected.

It's Press Pack time - and this film comes from a school with a very special four legged student. Get ready meet Buddy the dog

A crimewave has shaken one school to the core...and the culprit? Not exactly who, or WHAT you’d expect.

Two Press Packers from Northern Ireland tell Newsround all about their gymnastics club and why they're so excited for the 2024 Paris Games.

Eva has been swimming come rain or shine for 366 days.

Press packers Callum and Jamie are finding out what people in their local community are doing to help the mollusks

The government has announced plans to make it illegal to smoke outside schools and hospitals, and in children's playgrounds in England. They have also said that some outdoor places could become vape-free.

Research by the National Literacy Trust (NLT) charity suggests that the number of children reading has gone down to around one in three. We want to know about your reading habits.

Politicians in Australia's parliament will vote on the law next week and, if passed, it aims to stop children being allowed social media accounts. But for some kids there will be ways around it.

13-year-old Nasser has experienced racism and bullying - he explains how he's dealt with it.

Ricky shares his experience of being bullied when he was younger and asks an expert, why does someone become a bully?

Nina brings us an animal themed Your Planet this week with stories from South Africa and the United States of America, as we look at what is being done to help endangered animals.

 

An Illinois, non-profit organisation called Innovations for Learning has released a handheld cosole, like a Game Boy or Nintendo DS designed for education and targeted at kindergarten and elementary students. Despite its simplicity and lack of software, this device has a lot of potential for English language education.

Use this printable math daily warm-up to reinforce your students' number and numeration skills.

For a power system to operate efficiently and securely, the importance of the correct and coordinated provision and control of reactive power cannot be overemphasised. It is necessary to examine reactive power requirements under both steady-state and dynamic conditions. Although... Read more

The post Parameters of generators, transformers, lines and cables for vars, voltage and loads control appeared first on EEP - Electrical Engineering Portal.

Help students master important reading skills with a passage about the Pony Express and reading comprehension questions, in this printable warm-up.

A panel of state legislators rejected a bill that would have provided new financial incentives in New Mexico for the hydrogen fuel that is derived from natural gas.

The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission approved Xcel Energy’s 2019 Integrated Resources Plan (IRP), which guides the utility’s direction over the next 15 years.

Melanie Green is currently Sr. Director of Power Generation at CPS Energy in San Antonio, Texas.

The CareerTech Testing Center (CTTC) works closely with instructors, industry representatives and credentialing entities to identify and develop assessments and assessment preparation materials that are aligned with recognized industry standards.

Study guides are designed to help students prepare for the assessments. Each study guide includes:

It's unbelievable that 2016 is here and the school year is half over, but that also means we are closer to the busiest time of year for those of us in the assessment industry.

I hope everyone has created and follows a secure assessment policy, but if not, John Kleeman, founder of Questionmark, created Ten tips for Securing Your Assessment System, which provides a secure foundation for your assessment system.  It seems security breaches most often occur as we get busy and are more prone to creating shortcuts in our work, but a "system" should help minimize these errors.  Please read John's post in its entirety and address any weaknesses in your assessment security:

What can you do to make your assessment system more secure? How can you avoid a disruptive data breach where people’s personal information is disclosed? Using a vendor who takes security seriously reduces risk, as I wrote in my blog article Eight ways to check if security is more than skin deep. But security involves both vendor and user. This post gives ten good practice tips on how you as a user or administrator of an assessment system can reduce the risk of data breaches.

1. Don’t give yourself or other administrators unnecessary privileges. Follow the principle of least privilege. It may sound counter-intuitive, but most administrative users don’t need access to all capabilities and data within your system. Limiting access reduces the impact of a data breach if an account is compromised or someone makes a mistake. If you are using Questionmark, allocate appropriate roles to limit people to what they need.

2. When someone leaves the project or organization, remove their access. Don’t allow someone who has left your team to still have access to your assessment data.

3. Follow good password security. Do not share passwords between people. Do not use the same password for two accounts. Choose strong passwords and change them periodically. If someone asks you for your password, never, ever give it. And if a web page doesn’t look right, don’t type your password into it.

4. Install all the patches and secure the system. A common cause of security breaches is failing to install the latest versions of software, and attackers exploit known vulnerabilities. You need to be proactive and always install the latest version of system and application software, set up good technical security and follow the vendor’s recommendations.

If you haven’t got the time or resources to do this properly, move to a cloud solution. In a cloud SaaS solution like Questionmark OnDemand, the vendor is responsible for updating Windows, updating the application, monitoring security and ensuring that everything is up to date.

5. Install good quality antivirus / anti-malware software. Reportedly there are nearly a million new or variant malware and viruses produced each day. Protect your computer and those of your co-workers with up to date, professional software to address this threat.

6. Protect any downloaded data. Questions, assessments and reports on results are generally safer on a server or in an on-demand service than on a workstation. If you need to download data locally, set up security procedures to protect it and try to ensure that any download is temporary only.

7. Dispose of data properly. Deleting a file on a computer doesn’t erase the data, it simply erases the index to it. If you use a reputable service like Questionmark OnDemand, if a disk is repaired or reaches end of life, it will be securely destroyed for example by degaussing. But if you download data locally or use installable software to manage your assessments, you need to do this yourselves. A recent study suggested that about half of used hard drives sold online contain residual data. Make sure this is not your assessment data!

8. Be careful about clicking on a link or attachment in an email. Phishing attacks use email or malicious websites (clicking on a link) to collect sensitive information or infect your machine with malware and viruses. Such attacks could even be aimed at your organization or assessment activity directly (this is called spear phishing!). Think before clicking.

9. Be aware of social engineering. Social engineering is when someone tries to trick you or someone else into a security breach. For example someone might ring up and claim to be a student who wants their results, but really is an imposter. Or someone might spoof an email from your boss asking for the questions for the next test to review. Be wary of strange phone calls or emails that ask for something urgent. If something seems suspicious, clear it with a security professional before you give them info or ask a caller to hang up and call them back on an official number.

10. Conduct security awareness training. If you’re not already doing this, organize training sessions for all your authors, proctors, administrators and other users to help them be security aware. if you can, deliver tests after the training to check understanding. Sharing this blog article with your co-workers would be a great way to start.

To see more Questionmark posts click HERE.

Photo courtesy of the Clayton Christensen Institute

Want to know how sleep "resets" your brain? How memories are formed and retained?  Then watch The Benefits of a Good Night's Sleep, embedded below, and learn how sleep balances and regulates the body's vital systems which, in turn, affects declarative and procedural memory.

This short TED-Ed lesson by Shai Marcu is an important topic as school starts and students will soon be staying up late or all night in order to cram for tests and other educational requirements. Marcu goes into detail describing the neurological importance of 8 hours of sleep, but the application is interesting as going to sleep three hours after memorizing math formulas (declarative memory) and one hour after practicing music scales (procedural memory) is the most ideal.

I'm left wondering what I might have accomplished if my sleep and learning patterns were consistent during my formative years...
    

Educational Technology and Mobile Learning provides a list of some of the best iPad apps curated for learning and instructional purposes.

The list is divided into 19 sections with each containing a list of apps for a specific need. The sections include apps that facilitates:

1. presentation
2. screencasting
3. video creation
4. file storage
5. whiteboard
6. PDF annotation
7. audio recording
8. note-taking
9. blogging
10. book creation
11. comic apps
12. digital storytelling apps
13. apps for grading
14. mindmapping apps
15. portfolio apps
16. apps for creating posters
17. apps for creating timelines
18. apps for creating word clouds
19. speech-to-text apps

 Educational Technology and Mobile Learning also provides a list of 10 indispensable Android apps for teachers. The list is curated from the top trending apps in the education section of Google Play store. The listed apps are as follows:

1. Book Creator
2. Handouts
3. Remind
4. Google Keep
5. ClassDojo
6. Nearpod
7. Socrative Teacher
8. Edmodo
9. Google Classroom
10. Explain Everything

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Nearly a year after releasing its Moments curation feature, Twitter Moments is now available to users.

Twitter Moments are curated stories about what’s happening around the world—powered by Tweets.  Originally, a user could click on Moments on their profile page to find curated stories, i.e News, Entertainment, Sports, and Fun, in a typical news format.

But now, it’s easy to create your own story with Twitter Moments.  I think this is a great way to share school events and activities and it could also assist with classroom discussion, especially when dealing with current events.

Either watch the video by Richard Byrne of Free Technology for Teachers or follow the directions from Twitter below:

How to create a Moment

There are three ways to begin creating your own Moment. You can access Moments through the Moments tab, your profile page, or through a Tweet detail. To get started all you need is a title, description, Tweets, and a selected cover image.

From the Moments tab:

1. From the Moments tab, click the Create new Moment button.
2. Click the Title your Moment field to give your Moment a name.Note: Titles can be up to 75 characters in length.
3. Click the Add a description field to type in a description for your Moment.Note: Descriptions can be up to 250 characters in length. 
4. Choose Tweets to add to your Moment: 
1. From the Add Tweets to your Moment section at the bottom of the page, quickly access content to select Tweets from Tweets I’ve liked, Tweets by account, Tweet link, and Tweet search prompts. 
2. To add a Tweet to your Moment, click on the checkmark icon 
5. Click Set cover to choose a cover image from one of your selected Tweets, or to upload an image from your computer. Drag your selected image to set a Mobile preview, click the Next button, then click the Save button.Note: To change your selected image, hover over the cover image and click on Change cover media. After you’ve set your cover media, the source will be credited below the image. 
6. Once you have Tweets in your collection, click on the up  or down arrow buttons  to the right of a Tweet to move it up or down.
7. Click on the delete button  to remove a Tweet from your Moment.
8. Click on the crop button  next to any of your selected Tweets to make an image selection for mobile viewing.
9. Click the Finish later button at the top of the page to save a draft.
10. When you are ready to make your Moment live, click on the Publish button at the top of the page.

From a Tweet:

1. Click the more button 
2. Select New Moment to add the Tweet to a new Moment.Note: Any completed Moments or Moments drafts you have in progress will also be listed in the drop-down to choose from.
3. Follow the directions above to complete your Moment.

From the Moments tab on your profile page:

1. Click on the Moments tab, then click the Create new Moment button to get started.
2. Follow the directions above to complete your Moment.

From the More menu at the top of the page:

1. Click on ••• More while in draft mode.
1. Select Choose mobile theme color if you’d like to apply one.
2. Select Mark that Moment contains sensitive material if appropriate.
3. Select Share Moment privately to copy and paste your Moment’s URL to share privately with others. Note: The Moment will only be visible to people who have the URL, it will not be visible on your profile page, or published on Twitter.
4. Select Unpublish Moment to unpublish a Moment you have previously published. 
5. Select Delete Moment to permanently remove the Moment from your profile and Twitter. Note: You will see a confirmation pop-up message to confirm the deletion.

After you’ve saved your Moment as a draft:

• You can click on the Edit button under the Moment description to continue editing your Moment.
• Click the Tweet button under the Moment description to share your Moment with your followers. Note: The Tweet compose box will pop up giving you an opportunity to edit or add to the auto-populated Moment title and link in the compose box.
• Click on the more button  under the Moment description to send your Moment via Direct Message, and to view the copy and embed links to your Moment. Note: As you scroll through your saved or published Moment you will see a menu pop-up on the left hand side to conveniently Edit, Tweet, or Message your Moment.

Frequently asked questions

Can I make my Moments private?
When creating a Moment, you can select Share Moment privately, which will only make the Moment available to those who have the link. If you would like to make previously published or shared Moments visible to only you, select Unpublish Moment.

Can content in my Moment be reported?
Yes. Content displayed in a Moment, such as photos, videos, or Tweets can be reported. To learn about the various options for reporting components of a Moment, read our How to report violations article.

What happens if a Tweet I included in my Moment is reported?
If the cover or any of the individual Tweets of your Moment is reported to us and found to be in violation of the Twitter Rules, your account may be locked—even if you did not author the Tweet.

To be honest, a circuit breaker is fairly simple device. However, the process of specifying circuit protection is often complicated and unclear, leading many engineers to either include insufficient or excessive protection in their equipment designs. Insufficiently protected circuits expose... Read more

The post Twelve ultimate mistakes when selecting circuit protection for low-voltage equipment appeared first on EEP - Electrical Engineering Portal.

To be honest, transmission and distribution networks are full of problems. But that’s nothing new, and you already knew that. This technical article will shed some light on solving some pretty severe problems in transmission and distribution networks by using... Read more

The post Controlling power system parameters through reactive power (VAr) compensation appeared first on EEP - Electrical Engineering Portal.

In addition to the known phenomena of lightning and switching, numerous new sources, in particular power converters, can cause disturbance in installations. This disturbance, which is generated by the installation itself or carried by the system from external sources or... Read more

The post Six less known phenomena that can cause disturbance in electrical installations appeared first on EEP - Electrical Engineering Portal.

Nowadays everybody speaks about power quality. For many reasons, I would say. Electrical energy is now polluted more than ever, and consumers are more sensitive to power disruptions and fluctuations than a small flower to the stronger wind. But, it... Read more

The post Five power quality devices that every commercial plant must have installed appeared first on EEP - Electrical Engineering Portal.

Measuring power quality and finding a bugbear in the network which is messing with the power are considered a highly paid job. Every electrical network and its problems with harmonics, transients, or disturbances are unique and need careful planning, setting... Read more

The post How to measure power quality? What devices should you use and what to measure? appeared first on EEP - Electrical Engineering Portal.

The first technique to control harmonic-related problems in the industry involved substantial use of single-tuned filters to offer a low-impedance path to harmonic currents. Interestingly, it is not difficult to find harmonic-producing loads in the megavolt-ampere range in the industry... Read more

The post Six methods to control the flow of harmonic currents and decrease harmonic distortion limits appeared first on EEP - Electrical Engineering Portal.

Transformers are not perfect. Transients and noise (radio-frequency and low-level spikes) normally pass through transformers, not only by way of the magnetic lines of flux between the primary and the secondary windings but through resistive and capacitive paths between the... Read more

The post The magic that isolation transformer uses to suppress transients and noise appeared first on EEP - Electrical Engineering Portal.

Once the branch circuit loads are calculated, the feeder circuit loads may be calculated by applying demand factors to the branch circuit loads. General Lighting Loads (Article 220.42) Show window or track lighting (Article 220.43) Receptacles in other than dwelling... Read more

The post 8 NEC Basic Feeder Circuit Sizing Requirements appeared first on EEP - Electrical Engineering Portal.

There are a lot of opportunities to optimise lighting system in (almost) any industrial facility. Seven practical energy-efficiency opportunities to reduce energy use cost-effectively are given below: Lighting controls Replace T-12 tubes by T-8 tubes Replace mercury lights with metal halide or... Read more

The post 7 energy-efficiency improvement opportunities in lighting system appeared first on EEP - Electrical Engineering Portal.

1st part | 2nd part | 3rd part The list of the last eleven household circuit wirings: Three-way switches & light fixture (fixture at start of cable run) Three-way switches & light fixture (fixture at end of cable run) Three-way... Read more

The post 31 Common Household Circuit Wirings You Can Use For Your Home (3) appeared first on EEP - Electrical Engineering Portal.

1st part | 2nd part | 3rd part The list of the next ten household circuit wirings: Double receptacle circuit with shared neutral wire (receptacles alternate circuits) Double receptacle small-appliance circuit with GFCIs & shared neutral wire Double receptacle small... Read more

The post 31 Common Household Circuit Wirings You Can Use For Your Home (2) appeared first on EEP - Electrical Engineering Portal.

The circuit wirings in this article show the most common wiring variations for typical electrical devices. Most new wiring you install will match one or more of the wirings shown. Find the wirings that match your situation and use them to... Read more

The post 31 Common Household Circuit Wirings You Can Use For Your Home appeared first on EEP - Electrical Engineering Portal.

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