Tech-Camp

    No.6 Devon Road, Kowloon Tong, Hong Kong a technology day camp for students 12-17  

About Tech-Camp       

Tech-Camp is a day camp with a focus on computers and electronics technology. We offer 2-week summer programmes for students of 12 to 17 years of age. We have a computer lab with the latest and fastest equipment, an electronics lab, and a video production studio. Our staff are special, too. They are experts in computers and electronics, of course, but they are also people who care about children and enjoy working with them.

The benefits of Tech-Camp        

    In all of our programmes, we show students how to work in teams and how to solve problems by themselves. We encourage them to think creatively.       

What students will do at Tech-Camp       

    Each day Tech-camp is filled with useful, interesting and challenging activities. For example, in the Computer Programme, students learn the basic computer programming, and how to use the Internet. In the Tech-Camp Programme, they make radio-controlled model cars and produce their own short videos.       

Programme Session 1 Session 2 Session 3

Computer Programme 15 June-26 June 15 June-26 June 15 June-26 June

High-tech Programme 29 June-10 July 27 July-7 August 15 June-26 June

Fee: HK $2,000 per student       

(10% discount available for groups of 10 or more students.)       

For more information about Tech-Camp, please contact Director of Summer Programmes, Ms     Julia Brown, by phone, fax or e-mail.       

Telephone: 26548898           

Fax: 26948850       

E-mail: juliab@techcamp.com.hk       

    Every day I see advertisements in the newspapers and on the buses claiming that it is easy and quick to learn English. There is even a reference to William Shakespeare or Charles Dickens to encourage learners even more. When I see advertisements like this, I don't know whether to laugh or cry. But many people must believe these ridiculous claims, or else the advertisements would not appear.

    Of course it is clear that students who go to England to learn English have a great advantage over others, but too many cannot afford to do so. Some go to the opposite extreme and think they can teach themselves at home with dictionaries. But it is wrong to assume that each word in English has a precise equivalent in another language, let alone produces good pronunciation and intonation.

    Most teaching is still based on behaviorist psychology. Behaviorists are fond of making students repeat phrases and making sentences. If we were parrots or chimpanzees, these methods might be successful. A large number of theorists seem to think it is a pity we aren't, because it would make it easier to use their methods.

    In my personal opinion, no one can ever learn to speak English or any other language unless he is interested in it. Human beings, unlike parrots and chimpanzees, do not like making noises unless they understand what the noises mean and can relate them to their own lives. It is worth remembering that language is a means of communication. What they listen to and read cannot be a formula. It must be real.

    There is another relevant point worth mentioning here. We need other people to talk to and listen to when we communicate. They can work with us and practice the unfamiliar forms with us in real situations, talking to each other about real life language.

    An Israeli law banning too skinny models went into effect with the start of 2013. The law, approved last March in Israel, requires models to prove they have maintained a Body Mass Index (BMI) of at least 18.5 for three months before a fashion show. That means a woman who is 68 inches tall can weigh no less than 119 pounds.

    "This law is another step in the war against eating disorders," said physician Adatto. "Underweight models," he explained, "can no longer serve as role models for innocent young people who copy their false image of being skinny."

    But some critics in this country say it is misguided, focusing on weight instead of health. They also say the Israeli ban is bound to fail because of the strong power of the fashion industry. "I think it's an approach that isn't going to work." said eating disorder expert Susan Ice, who worked with an organization which creates a healthy working environment for models.

    But Adatto told the reporter that he began to concern the issue after meeting an ambitious model who looked like she needed to be hospitalized. He said. "I realized that only legislation(立法) can change the situation. There was no time to waste; so many girls were dieting to death."

    However, the efforts to regulate models' weight in Spain and Italy have not resulted in significant changes in part because of difficulties in determining reliable methods of measuring weight and health.

    Still, folks including Ice say there's no denying that images from Hollywood and the fashion industry can be difficult for young women to deal with. "Certainly I don't believe the modeling industry has caused the rise in eating disorders, but it makes it harder," she says. "It's a difficult recovery environment, worshiping thinness as the beauty ideal."

    Nowadays, parents worry a lot because their children spend hours and hours in front of the TV screen. Because this doesn't happen to only one specific family, many experts warn us that there can be some serious effects of children watching violence on television.

    Children who become addicted(上瘾的) to TV sit down and turn on the TV as soon as they get home. Although they have lots of homework, they become absorbed in TV programs.

    Since they spend tons of time watching TV, they have less time to enjoy real life activities such as playing with friends, playing outdoor sports, or enjoying other kinds of entertainment.

    There are too many violent scenes on TV. Some experts say there are 25 acts of violence per hour on TV. In addition, there are many experiments by psychologists which show how TV violence influences children. Finally, people worry that children tend to imitate what they watch on TV and may start to behave more violently.

    What should be done? First of all, the government should regulate TV violence. It should also encourage people to invent and develop new technology which can block violent scenes from the programs children watch. For example, with a rating system(分级制度) and the V-chip, unfit scenes of violence and sex can be blocked out. Second, parents should monitor what their children watch. At the same time, they should make their children interested in real life activities. Then when the children start to spend more time playing with friends or reading books, parents can stop their monitoring.

    It is a fact that there is more violence on TV today than there was ten years ago. Moreover, violent incidents occur more frequently in real life. It's time to realize how harmful watching TV violence is, and it's time to keep our children from watching violence.

    When Mackenzie Foy got the call from film director Lasse Halls telling her that she'd landed the role of Clara in the newDisney film The Nutcracker and the Fоur Rеаlmѕ, she said "yes immediately. "I was just excited to go on a new adventure," Foy told the Evening Standard. Indeed, when many actors and actresses choose to appear in films simply for the fame and exposure, Foy, the17-year-old US actress, does it for the "adventure".

    It's true that every movie Foy has ever been in is an adventure. In The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn for example, the then 11-year-old Foy plays a half-human-half-vampire girl who has a superpower. In Interstellar, then 14, plays the daughter of a scientist who travels across the universe to try to find ways to save human beings from destruction. And now, in The Nutcracker and the Four Realms, which will be released in Chinese cinemas on November 2, Clara is going on yet another exciting journey. This time, she allows a doll that her parents give her as a Christmas gift into a strange world.

    Foy likes excitement in real life, too. In fact, she has a first-degree black belt in tae kwon do( MY y ilÏ)."I am dying to do an action movie," she told VanityFair. "I can do my own stunts." And not happy with simply being in front of the camera, Foy dreams of trying something new one day. I want to be a director once I finish high school," she told the Evening Standard. "I want to make films that will make people end up looking at the world in a different way, so that they will feel inspired and learn something new."

    FaceApp has taken the world by storm, giving users the chance to see themselves age through its algorithm. 12.7 million people—some three million more than the population of New York City—reportedly downloaded it in one seven-day period last month.

    Although the Russian app has become known for its privacy issues, the more interesting lesson of our FaceApp fling (尽情玩乐)is what it tells us about our society—and our future lives. It turns out we are more interested in aging than we realized. I'm surprised by this. Most younger people are in denial (否认)about old age, doing almost nothing to prepare for it. We rarely have a chance to plan for the future, with increasing time and financial pressures. Those pressures bring sacrifices that we may not always want to make: we can no longer afford to spend the time or the money needed to look after our elderly parents.

    As a family doctor, I can see the loneliness epidemic developing. Elderly patients come to see me with no particular illness, no clear medical issue. After a few minutes of the consultation, I understand why: they're not sick, and often they don't feel sick. They just need someone—anyone-to talk to.

    Although loneliness has no medical classification, the health effects are real: the result of loneliness and isolation can be as harmful to our health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day, and is more damaging than obesity. But loneliness does not come with nearly enough health warnings.

    So what next? Since 1980, we are living on average 10 years longer. At the same time, people are having fewer and fewer children, and they are having them much later in life. The snake of a world class health service is eating its own tail; its care is prolonging (延长) people's lives, but as the ratio of pensioners(退休人员)to working -age people increases, there are fewer taxpayers to fund that very health service.

    Into this void have stepped NGOs, charities and volunteers. But in the long term, the only way to truly help the oldest meters of our society is to go back to the traditional values of intergenerational(两代间的) cooperation—often under same roof. Ultimately, we will need to evolve towards a culture where elderly care is treated the same as childcare, where employers recognize the duty of someone with an elderly parent the same way they recognize those of someone with a newborn child.