DISTANCE LEARNING | CONTINUING EDUCATION | ONLINE DEGREES

Thousands of children from the Gaza Strip attempted to set the new world record for kite flying.  There were hundreds of colorful kites flying amid the ruins of Israel’s offensive last year.  This was a joyous day for this seaside territory ruled by Hamas militants.

The kite flying event was sponsored by the United Nations.  There were almost 6,000 campers brought to a beach in the north of Gaza where the kites were let off into the sky.
 
"We hope that we can be free and can enjoy the same freedom these kites enjoy in the air.  All we are looking for is to grow up like normal children," said Marwan Mohammad an 11-year-old that participated in the event.  "We are happy we came here."

Since Israel’s bombardment last year, the militants have mostly stopped firing rockets across the border and Israel has reduced its military activities which has allowed daily life to resume in Gaza. 

The Guinness Book of World Records said it received an application from Gaza for "most kites flown simultaneously."  Guinness was unable to attend because of travel restrictions into Gaza.

But the children would be able to break the record without a judge by verifying the accomplishment in other ways.  The current record stands at 967, set last year in Germany.  The UN agency reported that the Gaza children smashed the record and will release the final tally on Saturday.

"The symbolism of thousands of children in one of the world’s most locked up communities, creating beautiful kites, letting them soar upward, is truly beautiful" said Christopher Gunness a spokesman for the U.N.

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates believes that the U.S. can improve its universal educational ranking by rewarding effective teaching and by developing better performance measures for students and teachers.

Gates told lawmakers that federal stimulus money should be used to increase educational innovation, improve accountability, and spread best practises.

American public school students have been lagging in comparison to students of other developed countries.  Gates has been a long-time critic of education in America.  He believes that philanthropy is the basis for a better educational system.

There have been many proposals on how to improve achievement standards but nothing has changed.  It is not clear when or what path will be used to get schools back on track.  Gates believes that one step in the right direction, is for lawmakers to require colleges and universities to publish graduation rates. 

Then those institutions would be rewarded with funding based on the number of degrees granted, and not just students enrolled.
He also wants to see teachers rewarded for their effectiveness and not just seniority. He believes that data identifying the best instructors would be more likely to increase quality than by reducing class size.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has spent nearly $4 billion in eight years in order to improve America’s high schools and even offer award scholarships, primarily to low-income and minority students.

Bill Gates wants to see the U.S. graduation rate increase from 70 percent to 80 percent.  Then he wants to see the number of low-income adults 26 years and younger, who get a degree or certificate beyond high school to double.

These may seem like lofty goals but America needs to take steps to improve education.  Americans are and have been falling behind many nations in terms of education.  Drastic actions need to be taken if American students are going to keep up with China, Korea, and many other nations.

Due to the continued increase in unemployment, President Obama has unveiled a new plan that would give $12 billion to help community colleges.  This money is intended to create a new generation of educated workers that will turn around the economy.

President Obama has been working on turning around the economy, but there have been no visible signs that his plans are working.  There is a soaring deficit and unemployment rates are rising.  Michigan now has an unemployment rate of 14.1 percent, the nation’s worst.

The $12 billion dollars over 10 years is set to bump the two year colleges that educate millions of Americans.  These institutions help train people for jobs, in this changing economy. 

Under the plan, grants would be offered to schools to try new programs or expand training and counseling.  This money would be used to help track students and their success along with rebuilding and renovating facilities.  It would also help many schools get online classes that would help colleges offer more degrees.

The government has put so much money into education.  If you are interested in furthering your education, then now is the time to start.  College classes are starting all the time online.  You can begin and finish in a short amount of time and be ready to start your career in something that you love.  Get signed up today!

The cyber attack that affected both South Korea and U.S. government agencies was even more powerful than initially realized.  The attack took place during the July 4 holiday.  The attack was aimed at many agencies but luckily many organizations were able to undermine sustained computer assaults.

U.S. targets included the National Security Agency, Homeland Security Department, State Department, the NASDAQ and the Washington Post.  The White House, Pentagon, and New York Stock Exchange were also targeted but not affected.

The attack was remarkably successful in limiting public access to the web sites of these agencies, but internal e-mail systems were unaffected.  However, the Treasury Department, Federal Trade Commission, and Secret Service are still reporting problems days after the event.

The presidential Blue House and the Defense Ministry in addition to some banking sites in South Korea were still experiencing problems on Tuesday.  South Korea Intelligence believes that the attacks were initiated by North Korea sympathizers in the South.

South Korea intelligence investigating the incident believes that one attack occurred on July 4.  Some agencies were able to contain the attack, but then a second attack came on July 7. 
 
Officials think it will be difficult to determine who is responsible for the attacks because there were between 30,000 and 60,000 computers that participated in the assault.  Many personal computers were infected by a virus which ordered them to visit major official Web sites in South Korea and the U.S. at the same time. 

One U.S. federal agency received one million hits per second per attack which added up to 4 billion internet hits at once.  The site was only geared to handle 25,000 hits.

These government agencies need to have better security.  Apparently some agencies were prepared and others were not.  There needs to be an organized effort in order to ensure that an attack will not mess up or shut down our government sites. 

If our sites can’t defend themselves now,  what will happen when there is a full attack launched against us and cyber attackers are trying to shut down more than just public access to the sites?  The answer, is serious trouble. 

The more advanced these attackers get, the easier it will be to shut our systems down.  One example is satellites.  Two years ago there was a cyber attack that shut a U.S. satellite down while it was over China, and it took several hours to get it working properly again.

In another instance, the Chinese tried to hack into the military email system (milnet) and other systems.  Cyber security is very important these days because everything is run by a computer.  America has many enemies out there and really needs to take these threats seriously and place a top priority on improving their defenses in order to protect itself from future attacks.