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Author, economist and TV celebrity Ben Stein gives his take on the current state of education in the United States.

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How Not to Ruin Your Life with Ben Stein.

You may know him best for his deadpan delivery in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, or his offbeat game show, “Win Ben Stein’s Money.” But this active thinker is also a major contributor to current discussions and understanding of business, ethical and social issues in the world of finance, and the political and social content of mass culture. Come hear this polymath speak about the many economic, political and social issues confronting us today – The Commonwealth Club of California

Ben Stein is a lawyer, economist, and commentator on finance (and a well-known actor and Hollywood personality).

Stein served as an economist at the U.S. Department of Commerce. He has been a longtime contributor to Barron’s and a columnist and editorial writer for the Wall Street Journal. He has also written extensively about finance for New York magazine and the Washington Post.

In addition to writing for Yahoo! Finance, he currently writes a biweekly column on economics and finance for the New York Times and appears weekly on the Fox News network commenting on finance and economics.

He is the author of several personal finance books, including How to Ruin Your Financial Life, Moneypower: How to Make Inflation Make You Rich, Financial Passages, and – with Phil DeMuth – the best-sellers Yes, You Can Time the Market, Yes, You Can Be a Successful Income Investor, and the forthcoming Yes, You Can Still Retire Comfortably.

Stein is Honorary Chair of the National Retirement Planning Coalition, and lives in Los Angeles, Calif.

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Rip Van Winkle awakes after one hundred years and visits a school…

Created as a conversation starter for professional development on the use of educational technology.

An amusing, animated retelling of the popular education story about the need for twenty-first century skills to be taught in schools.

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We received a question from a listener about how American schools use educational technology. There is not a simple answer.

It depends on the subject and level of students, of course. But it also depends on the interest and training of the teachers, and the goals and budgets of the schools.

Schools are almost all connected to the Internet. But some have more technology, and use it more, than others. For example, some schools use computers for activities like video conferencing, to bring the world into the classroom.

And some classrooms are equipped with things like a Smart Board, a kind of interactive whiteboard. Interactive whiteboards are large displays for presentations.

They connect to a computer and can operate by touch. They can be used for documents or writing or to project video.

Some teachers are trying creative new ways to teach with devices like iPods and mobile phones.

But educators say the most important thing, as always, is the content.

Yet technology can have special importance in some cases.

Cosmobot is a therapy robot. It stands about half a meter tall and has a blue body and a friendly face with big eyes.

One child who works with it is six-year-old Kevin Fitzgerald. Kevin has developmental dyspraxia; he has difficulty moving his mouth and tongue.

He works with Carole Semango-Sprouse as he uses a set of buttons attached to a computer. He can make the silent robot move forward, backward or around in circles.

Kevin’s mother thinks the robot has had a calming influence, helping her son get along better with his friends.

Cosmobot was developed by AnthroTronix. Corinna Lathan started the company ten years ago to work with children with cerebral palsy, Down’s syndrome, autism and other developmental disabilities.

Children become friends with the robot, she says. That can have a big effect on their behavior, helping them work harder and longer in therapy sessions.

Corinna Lathan is currently working with a British company to develop other socially assistive robots.

She says they are still considered research tools in the United States. They are not used as much as in places like Britain and Japan. But she hopes to change that.

And that’s the VOA Special English Education Report. You can comment on our reports at our Web site, voaspecialenglish.com.

(Adapted from a radio program broadcast 17Dec2009)

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