Month: September 2022

What teachers think of children and young people’s technology use

Published by skeptic

Mobile phones, computers, social media and the internet are part of the daily lives of children and young people, including at school. Concerns over the risks of too much screen time or online activity for children and young people have been tempered by the reality of technology use in education and leisure. The experience of life during the pandemic, when much schooling and socialising went online, has also changed attitudes to technology use. UK communications regulator Ofcom reported that in 2020 only a minority of children and young people did not go online or have internet access. Teachers are in a unique position when it comes to assessing how children and young people use technology such as mobile phones and the effect it has on them. They see how children and young people use technology to learn, socialise, and how it affects their relationships with their peers. The University of West London’s Annita Ventouris, along with my colleague Constantina Panourgia and I carried out in-depth research with eight teachers from different backgrounds, ages, years of …

what is exotic matter, and could we use it to make wormholes?

Published by skeptic

What is exotic matter, and could we use it to make wormholes? – Julia, aged 14, London Matter is “stuff”. It is anything that is made up of particles that take up space. Everything we can feel and see on Earth is matter, and it’s usually in one of three types: solid, liquid or gas. This could be the chair you’re sitting on, sea water, or the helium in a balloon. There are other types of matter that do not behave like the gases, liquids or solids that we normally encounter on Earth. The ones that behave in the weirdest ways are called exotic matter. We can create exotic matter in laboratories by cooling some materials to very low temperatures. Extremely cold helium is one example. It is called superfluid helium, and is a liquid that can climb walls. Experiments with liquid helium. It’s possible that exotic matter could one day explain some of the mysteries of space. It might be a key ingredient for making a wormhole. Bending space and time A wormhole is …

The cost of living crisis will hit schools hard

Published by skeptic

Schools, like homes and businesses, are facing a financial squeeze over coming months. Spiralling inflation and rising staff costs are set to threaten England’s schools just as they are getting back to an even keel after the pandemic. Unlike businesses, schools have no profit margin to cushion the blow of rising prices. The six-month support scheme for non-domestic energy users, including schools, announced by new prime minister Liz Truss in September 2022 will bring little reassurance, as it contains no detail and leaves open the potential for costs to rise again before the end of the year. A House of Commons report in July noted that schools in England had absorbed a 9% real-terms cut in income between 2009–10 and 2019–20. Former chancellor Rishi Sunak had already acknowledged this in the 2021 budget pledge to return English schools to 2010 levels of funding. However, an independent analysis by the Institute of Fiscal Studies suggests that school costs have been rising and will continue to rise faster than any funding increases: a real-terms cut, despite government …

Universities call for a tuition fee rise – here’s what that would mean for students and taxpayers

Published by skeptic

University vice-chancellors in England and Wales have recently called for an increase in tuition fees. There are a number of reasons for this demand. In the face of a decade-long decline in real pay for university staff, pressure from unions for a higher wage deal is increasing. Energy costs are hitting unprecedented highs. The current tuition fee cap of £9,250 in England has been in place since 2017 and the government plans for it to remain frozen until 2025. With inflation now hitting 10%, this means that by 2025 there will effectively have been a long-term cut to university per student incomes by around a third. A substantial rise in tuition fees in the near future towards £12,000 or £13,000 a year, as suggested by the founder of the University of Buckingham medical school Karol Sikora, looks increasingly inevitable. This is despite the government setting out its current plans for the future funding of higher education only in February this year. The government’s plans are for a lower salary threshold for student loan repayment, a …