We've already got Nokia handsets being used to teach math in South Africa, so we totally knew it was only a matter of time before a gaming handheld or two got in on the fun. Select middle school kids at Tokyo Joshi Gakuen school are not only allowed to bust out their DS in class, they're required to. As the school attempts to make English education "fun" for everyone, it's currently using Nintendo's famed handheld along with English learning software in order to keep students interested in nailing those dilettantes, truckles and wunderkinds. There's no telling if the pilot will blossom and invade other institutions, but we have all ideas children across the country will be requesting it when asked to fill out end-of-year comment cards and the like.

[Via Switched]

Carlos Slim, who is (debatably) the richest man on the face of the planet, has recently pledged to do some good with all that fundage, and we'd say that donating "250,000 low-cost laptops to children by the end of the year and as many as one million in 2008" is a fine start. Noting "digital education" as the key for turning much of Mexico around, he is aiming to "initially put the laptops in libraries and schools" and hand them out to students afterwards. Moreover, he suggested that his company (Telmex) would be there to help set up wireless networks for the machines to connect to, and as if these plans were enormous enough, he's also looking to establish "early stimulation" preschools within four years to give "poor children training at a young age in math, language, and computers."

[Via Wired]

Quite a lot has transpired in the android universe in the past two years, and it's fairly safe to say that Kansei has made a few solid strides during that time as well. A Japanese research team has purportedly crafted a working prototype that can "pull up to 36 different facial expressions based on a program which creates word associations from a self-updating online database of 500,000 keywords." According to a professor at Meiji University's School of Science and Technology, the idea of the project is to "create a flow of consciousness in robots so that they can make the relevant facial expressions," and the device relies on 19 movable parts and a silicon face mask in order to work its magic. Developers also noted that speech abilities should be added within a few years, and while we doubt you had to guess, it's quite likely that fully developed Kanseis will one day roam nursing homes as Japan seeks to care for its quickly growing geriatric set.

We know deans, principals, and presidents -- it sounded like such a terrific idea at the time, eh? Apparently, the notion that throwing a portal into the world laptop in front of easily distracted and technologically savvy kids doesn't look so rosy anymore, as the NYTimes is reporting that many schools across America are finally ditching one-to-one laptop programs after seeing "literally no evidence it had any impact on student achievement." Of course, a good deal of teachers already had beef with the idea, and schools have subsequently found out that allowing DAPs or even WiFi in a supposed learning environment just might cause more harm than good, but in a particular New York high school, students tended to "crash the network" during study hall rather than actually complete work. Interestingly, studies also insinuated that in-class laptops proved more of a hindrance than a learning liaison regardless if the school was considered affluent or low-income. And these overseas officials really think its youngsters are going to utilize the OLPC for learning purposes. Right on.

We've see a myriad of methods to communicate and even learn Braille, but we'll admit, most of the previous iterations lacked that sense of excitement necessary to motivate most folks to assimilate something new. Akinori Oishi's creation, however, seeks to be different, as the OtoTenji interactive machine allows users to press touch-sensitive pads and then hear back the letter / character in which they've signaled. We've no word on whether or not the machine is programmed to handle a one-on-one Braille spelling challenge, but if you're interested in just how this peculiar teaching tool actually goes about its business, be sure to click on through for a videotaped demonstration.

[Via FreshCreation]

While we English speaking folk may prefer our pocket translators to start in English and convert to some other foreign tongue, Casio's latest rendition helps those fluent in Japanese order tickets to the Space Needle, haggle at the Chevrolet dealership, and of course, pick up the correct ingredients for warm apple pie. Aimed at middle / high school students, the XD-SW4800 lineup of handheld dictionaries reportedly house the denotation and correct pronunciation for over "85,000 languages," which ironically enough, probably translates to "85,000 words" when not read through a broken translator. Nevertheless, these handy gizmos come in a variety of colors, and aside from supporting keyboard input, it can recognize stylus-written characters and toss back definitions while pronouncing the word to you via headphones. If America isn't your final destination, it also comes with five other major languages on CD that can be loaded on the 50MB of internal space or on your SD card if necessary, and while these things won't last forever, the approximate 60 to 130 hours of battery life should be more than enough to get you acclimated. So while you're waiting for your passport to show up, make sure you pick up Casio's latest travel necessity -- if you can manage the admittedly steep ¥47,250 ($394) to ¥52,500 ($437) price points, that is.

[Via Impress]

Let's face it, not all of us will have the luxury of attending a school where we get to construct massive LEGO machines or learn how to become savvy in SMS, but a developing technology that tracks student emotions could help tutors and distance instructors alike in keeping kids focused while learning. Co-developed by Essex University's Vic Callaghan and Shanghai Jiao Tong University's Liping Shen, the emotion-tracking tutoring software can analyze physical signs to keep track of a student's attention span, their level of understanding, and even the amount of stress a certain lesson produces. Aimed to help tutors become more effective and to add another layer of "personal" to distance-based education courses, the software would receive information about a student's "heart rate, blood pressure and changes in electrical resistance caused by perspiration" via a sensor-laden, Bluetooth-enabled ring worn on one's finger. The information can then be assessed to determine a student's interest level and frustration level, but a decibel meter to measure snoring isn't likely to be included. If all goes as planned, the team intends on testing the system out in "real learning scenarios in China" to further tweak their creation, so it won't be too long now before an interest-tracking ring will become as necessary as pencil and paper a stylus and a tablet PC come class time.