Hasta La Gadget!

Acer is adding the Z, a mid-range smartphone, to its Liquid Jade lineup at MWC. Acer’s flagship, the Liquid Jade S featuring a 64-bit Mediatek Octo-core (MT6752M) was launched during CES 2015.

At 199 euros, the Liquid Jade Z is hundred euros cheaper than its sibling and gets a 64 bit quad-core Mediatek processor (MT 6732m), a similar 5-inch HD IPS display with Gorilla Glass and 4G LTE (Cat 4) connectivity.

The 13 MP rear camera features a F1.8 aperture, exposure control to adjust exposure and focus independently with one finger, a “Perfect Selfie” feature, and Dual-shot for simultaneous capture from the front and rear cameras for picture-in-picture and video-in-video. The 5 MP front camera features a F2.2 aperture, for better performance in low-light.

The Jade Z features a curved surface – according to the information sheet, I cannot see it well in the photos – and is 7.9 mm thin for a very light weight of 110g! By comparison, most 5-inch latest Smartphones are more in the 150g range. Knowing that, we need to check how the build quality feels in regard of the materials used for the chassis.

On the software side, ACER offers two custom apps: AcerEXTEND to control your Windows PC either wirelessly or via cable connection, and AcerNAV, a free online navigation software powered by TomTom that aggregates Trip Advisor Points Of Interest that does not require a data plan to work on the device.

The ACER Liquid Jade Z will be available for 199 euros in the EMEA market in March.

Acer Liquid Jade Z Smartphone , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.

Director Kirby Dick and producer Amy Ziering, whose 2012 documentary The Invisible War took a look at the epidemic of rape within the American military and won 2014 Emmy Awards for Best Documentary and Outstanding Investigative Journalism, Long Form; a 2013 Peabody Award; and the 2012 Sundance Film Festival Audience Award. It was also nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. They now shift the focus to sexual assault on the American college campus with their new film, The Hunting Ground, a Radius TWC release which premiered at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival and opened in theatrical release February 27.

Among the sobering statistics documented in the film are the following:

1. One in five college women will be sexually assaulted.
2. One in 33 college men will be sexually assaulted.
3. Only five percent of campus assaults are reported.
4. Experts say false reports account for only two to ten percent of charges made–meaning between 90 and 98 percent are true.
5. As many as 90 percent of reported assaults are acquaintance rapes.
6. Serial predators are responsible for 91 percent of all sexual assaults on campus.
7. Serial predators will commit an average of six assaults during their college years.

Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering sat down recently to discuss these and other disturbing facts about The Hunting Ground. Here’s what transpired:

This is an unofficial sequel, in many ways, to The Invisible War.

Amy Ziering: Yeah, it indirectly came out of that film, but when we were taking Invisible War around college campuses, after nearly every screening, people would approach us and say that what happened to these people in the military happened to them on campus. Then we started getting emails about the same thing. We were surprised about this, and didn’t realize it was as big a problem as it was, so we decided to jump into it and make this film.

You profile two very brave women, Annie Clark and Andrea Pino, who were victims of sexual assault on their campus, and they become the main focal point of the film.

Kirby Dick: When we were researching, we did so all over the country and Annie and Andrea had just filed their Title IX complaint and were just starting to speak about this issue as a national one. We could see that they really wanted to change things not just at UNC Chapel Hill, but at schools across the country. Our very first shoot involved them and two other activists from the Know Your IX organization. We wanted to start following them because they were very ambitious and dynamic and to be fair, we had no idea they’d be so successful. We didn’t think that a year and a half later as a result of their work and those like them, that sexual assault on college campuses was a topic that would be debated nationally and they’d be invited to the White House. It was really exciting to see their story develop.

It was nice to see their argument finally being given credibility. Do you see the problem being a geographical one, say more so in the south or the west, or is it just universal?

KD: Definitely universal, or national. And it’s not limited to secular schools versus religious schools, either. It’s a problem everywhere, from Berkeley, to Harvard, to Florida State. If people try to minimize it by saying it’s a regional problem, they’re really missing the big picture. Also, we have to remember that many of the statistics might not be accurate, in the sense that they’re most likely far worse, because many schools choose not to have those statistics taken on their campuses. And until they start having these surveys and getting those statistics out to the public and their students, they’re still participating in a kind of cover-up.

The other thing that struck me is that the men who are guilty of these assaults are predators in the truest sense of the word. Is there any evidence to indicate that a person is born with this kind of psychological wiring?

AZ: That’s another film unto itself: how to identify a serial predator and I don’t know that either one of us are experts enough to expound on that. But what is revelatory in our film and what we want the public to understand is that most men don’t commit rape, and if these predators are able to embed themselves in institutions that enable them to do so with impunity, then they’ll continue to do so ad infinitum. So that’s the story that we’re telling and what our focus should be: that if we put in place good procedures to investigate and adjudicate these crimes, then you can radically reduce their numbers.

Let’s talk about what some of those solutions are.

KD: Schools have to prioritize. This is not a mid-level bureaucratic problem, this should be their number one or two priorities and it should be matched by dollars. They should put money into these investigative systems they have. They should professionalize them. The end result of that will be that more people will feel confident to report these incidents and the more people that report, more perpetrators will be caught and prosecuted and for those few cases of people who are falsely accused, there will be a more robust system in place to protect them, so it’s better all the way around. Also, going back to surveys, Senator Gillibrand and Senator McCaskill’s bill has a lot of great reforms including memorandums between local police and colleges and universities so they can work more closely together on these things. There’s a tendency on many campuses now to discourage people from going to the police. This will give them an option and if they decide to go to the police, they’ll be supported instead of discouraged.

My self-confidence as a woman dramatically increased when I recently stopped doing one thing: apologizing.

This, of course, is not to say that I refuse to apologize for any real wrongdoing, although I have recently noticed that many women in my life, including myself, say, “I’m sorry” for no good reason at all.

Many women, especially millennials, apologize for their appearance, things that were someone else’s faults, or something entirely out of their control. Why should I apologize for not wearing makeup, when this decision doesn’t affect anyone but myself? Why should I make myself feel that I am in the wrong when someone bumps into me? I often find myself saying “I’m sorry” in passing when “excuse me” is the more appropriate term. While it may not seem incredibly important, constantly and unnecessarily apologizing can take a toll on one’s self-esteem.

What’s more, the environment of the college classroom also suffers from an imbalanced gender dynamic. I’m sitting in my history class, and my professor poses a question to the class. Both a male and female student raised their hands and started speaking at the same time. “Sorry, go ahead,” the female student said apologetically. With that, the male student immediately continued his answer. I sat there confused why this female student was so quick to withdraw her opportunity to participate in class when both she and the male student had the same right to answer our professor’s question. A miscommunication like this isn’t uncommon — it happens in classrooms all the time. Although more often than not, I’ve noticed that female students, including myself, feel overpowered by gender dynamic of a class. After becoming aware of this imbalance, I’ve made a conscious effort to make sure my voice is heard in class. Refusing to apologize unnecessarily is an important part of this endeavor.

This concept of living unapologetically is nothing new. Pantene’s “Sorry Not Sorry” campaign, released over the summer, highlights the power given to men by women who unnecessarily apologize. Rather, the commercial advocates for strong, confident attitudes in order to break down masculine and feminine stereotypes and gender roles.

So here’s my proposition: Let’s stop apologizing to our friends for not wearing makeup. Let’s not say sorry when someone pushes us out of the way. Once I became aware of how often I say the seemingly innocuous words “I’m sorry,” and subsequently eliminating unnecessary usage of this phrase, I realized just how harmful it can be to one’s self confidence. While elementary school taught me the importance of saying sorry for my mistakes, my experiences in college have shown me how to live life unapologetically.

As I lay by the pool, contemplating how to structure this article on the uses of technology in education, I am rudely awoken from my reverie by a group of yammering high school students hunched over their iPhones.

Having lost my train of thought, I decide instead to go investigate which teen heartthrob is on their mind, and discretely inch my sun recliner closer. I am, however, shocked to find that the topic of their interest is ozone depletion, not One Direction.

In fact, the group have efficiently split up their project tasks, with two of them reading out research material off an app, while the third expertly relays said information to group members elsewhere via WhatsApp and coordinates their next steps.

Clearly the process of doing high school homework has changed drastically in the mere five years since I graduated. Education today is a rapidly evolving field in which students, institutions, administrators and research alike are critically challenging what it means to learn, how to assess their growth in learning and thus what their role is in the process.

In an era where we are continuously exposed to novel technologies, we are being pushed to incorporate these advanced tools into our learning processes, which as a whole is taking education in an exciting new direction. This begs the question — what exactly are these tools bringing to our learning outcomes? What are the 21st century skills needed in this new learning environment, and how can mobile technology help us get there?

21st Century Skills 101
In the relevant literature, across various sources, there seems to be a consensus on what exactly these skills entail. Learning and innovation play a huge part. Today’s students are expected to be critical thinkers who collaborate and effectively communicate in order to solve problems through creativity and innovation. Digital literacy is a must in all areas from Microsoft Office usage to social media. Last, but not least, career and life skills constitute an increasingly important part. On top of the obvious development of leadership skills and a sense of responsibility, one must also be willing to take initiative, be productive, but also accountable to themselves.

Knowing what these skills are in itself is not enough. In order to imbue these skills in students today, they must be implemented into educational curricula. In order for this to happen, we must have a better understanding of what kind of learning environments best support these 21st century skills.

Lesson 2: Learning Environments
One of the most effective approaches is through a student-centered learning environment. This is essentially the complete opposite of the traditional lecture-style approach where the main source of information comes from being talked at by teachers, while the students are expected to absorb all the knowledge, like sponges.

The modern approach sees the students at the center, as the builders of their own knowledge, while the teachers act as guides and help facilitate said knowledge building. Rather than being spoon-fed the answers, this approach requires students to be active, aware and engaged.

Add In Some Mobile…
Thus is follows that mobile technology (referring to both mobile apps and the internet) is an ideal tool to help support individualized, hands-on student-centered learning environments. The internet is able to provide access to vast and immediate information, while educational mobile apps provide learning tools and organizational platforms which enable students to be the agents of their own learning.

One of the greatest advantages to mobile technology is that it offers anytime, anywhere access to exactly what is needed, when it is needed. This can be particularly beneficial in tertiary education, where large, lecture hall type courses cater to the needs of the class as a whole, but do not readily support individualized learning for those students who learn at different paces, or through different means.

… And What Do You Get?
Used correctly, mobile can be used to support a plethora of 21st century skills. And no, stalking your exes and crushes on Facebook does not count. Rather, students who use their phones to access relevant information to their learning tasks practice initiative and self-direction. Taken a step further, their ability to assess whether or not the information constitutes a credible source applicable to their learning goal shows the practice of information literacy skills.

There also exist educational mobile apps that are particularly conducive to student-centered learning, which are aimed at helping students self-regulate their own learning. Basically, this means that students are able to consciously take strategic action to plan, monitor and evaluate their learning tasks.

Apps that enable time management (e.g. online calendars), self-evaluation (e.g. calorie tracking) and communication (e.g. a campus wall feed) are especially beneficial in supporting goal setting, self-monitoring and help seeking. Self-regulation in itself is a valuable tool with lifetime value that aids with problem solving, taking initiative and planning, adapting to situations and thinking critically.

Simply put self-regulation is a skill that takes everyday students and turns them into 21st century ninjas.

Where To Go From Here?
Sitting at the Starbucks opposite the NYU campus finishing up this article, I decide to end how I began, by discretely (I hope) observing how the students around me are using mobile to support their education. Again, students hunched over their phones surround me. While I’m sure that many are on Facebook, there are also a significant number reading articles and taking notes from their phones.

As a student-centered learning platform, mobile helps schools bridge the gap between how students live and learn. Mobile allows for a level playing ground where students can access the same information as their peers, with the added benefit of providing an authentic, real-world learning environment, based around their learning needs.

The future of mobile use in education promises apps specifically designed to support 21st century skills like self-regulation, which set a foundation for growth and development throughout a lifetime.