How fit are your teeth? Are you lazy about brushing them? Never fear: An inventor is on the case. An electric toothbrush senses how long and how well you brush, and it lets you track your performance on your phone.

    The Kolibree toothbrush was exhibited at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week. It senses how it is moved and can send the information to an Android phone or iPhone via a Bluetooth wireless connection.

    The toothbrush will be able to teach you to brush right (don't forget the insides of the teeth!) and make sure you're brushing long enough. “It's kind of like having a dentist actually watch your brushing on a day-to-day basis,” says Thomas Serval, the French inventor.

    The toothbrush will also be able to talk to other applications on your phone, so developers could, for instance, create a game controlled by your toothbrush. You could score points for beating monsters among your teeth. “We try to make it smart but also  fun,” Several says.

    Serval says he was inspired by his experience as a father. He would come home from work and ask his kids if they had brushed their teeth. They said “yes,” but Serval would find their toothbrush heads dry. He decided he needed a brush that really told him how well his children brushed.

    The company says the Kolibree will go on sale this summer, for $99 to $199, developing on features. The U.S. is the first target market.

    Serval says that one day, it'll be possible to replace the brush on the handle with a brushing unit that also has a camera. The camera can even examine holes in your teeth while you brush.

    In 1972, a social worker named Sanjit "Bunker " Roy founded Barefoot College in Tilonia, Rajasthan. Today the college trains women from villages for six months to build and maintain solar panels and other instruments. Barefoot College also offers education to the younger generation both during the day and at its solar bridge schools that meet by lamp light at night.

    The philosophy of the Barefoot College is largely inspired by the principles of Gandhi, starting with quality beyond social classes, sex or religion. As a matter of fact, women are favorably regarded as an underserved population that is necessary to bringing villages together. Another central principle of the college is self-reliance, teaching students to support and think for themselves.

    After the colleges female students have completed their half a year of training, they return to their villages villages, where they wait for solar panel parts to arrive from the college. Once they have all the pieces they need ,they construct the panels and begin collecting solar energy. For each village, the college also provides solar lamps. Villagers can, in addition, order parts for other solar-powered devices, such as water heaters and cooking stoves. Once assembled(组装）, they and the lamps are powered by the solar panels.

    The effect on the villages is huge. Before the solar panels and lamps arrived, villagers had only candles to light their homes. This prevented adults from doing serious work at night, and it made studying difficult for children as well. As for physicians, they have difficulty treating patients and performing operations at night because they had to rely on flashlights.

    Now there is power for not only the electrical appliances that the college provides but also devices like televisions, radios and computers. For the first time, the villagers can even connect to the world through the Internet.

    US student Vanessa Tahay stands out from the other teenagers in her school. Her skin is dark, her accent is thick, and if you ask her, she will tell you these are the things she is proudest of. Tahay is a poet, and at 18 she was considered among the best in Los Angeles.

    When she is on the stage, audiences often go silent. They also laugh, shout and cry. But this doesn't come easily for someone who comes from a village that sits at the base of a huge mountain range in Central America. When she first appeared at school, she was teased by others for being short and different. She never spoke, so they called her “mouse”.

    “How do I defend myself?” Tahay thought. “I don't know how.”

    “Keep going,” her mother would tell her. “At some point, you'll learn.”

    She spent hours after school and on weekends watching the same DVDs: English without Barriers.

    Tahay's elder brother, Elmer, persuaded her to go to the after-school poetry club. In the last six years, her English teacher Laurie Kurnick has turned Cleveland Charter High School's poetry program into one of the most respected in the city. Her team draws from the likes of D.H. Laurence, Pat Mora and Kendrick Lamar to create poems about their own lives. The poems focus on many things —some funny, some painful.

    The first time Tahay read the group's poems, chills went up her spine (脊柱). “I wish I could write like that,” she thought. “I want to say something.”

She wrote her first poem about her first year in America. She called it Invisible. The day her turn came to recite in front of the team, she broke down crying. She cried for 15 minutes. “I had so much held in,” Tahay said. “I couldn't even finish it.”

    But she kept at it despite her less-than-perfect grammar, spelling and diction (措辞). Still, she wouldn't tell her friends about her poetry because she worried they would make fun of her.

    But with time, her poems changed her. “They gave me pride,” Tahay said. “They told me that I'm worth something.”

    “She had this innocence,” Kurnick said. “This willingness to be genuine and show you things you don't ever see.”

    Located on the University of Melbourne's Hawthorn campus, Hawthorn-Melbourne is one of Australia's largest and longest established English language schools.

    You can study English with Hawthorn-Melbourne if you want to: enter Australian universities or colleges, get ready for an IELTS test, expand your career options or prepare for employment, open up new travel opportunities and experience Australia.

    Hawthorn is a safe and peaceful residential suburb surrounded by nature, with plenty of shops, cafes, banks, sporting facilities and parks. All of our students can use the student rest areas and kitchen areas, as well as all of our group learning spaces, entertaining and social facilities.

    NOTE: No international student shall stay for the night outside our school.

    Some distinctive learning places for you:

    Library

    In the library, there are abundant learning resources and quiet study areas for our students.

    Resources such as DVDs, newspapers, magazines and audio for listening practice.

    Monday to Thursday                            8:00am to 5:30pm

    Friday                                        8:00am to 5:00pm

    Computer Labs

    Computer labs support foreign language characters—but only English during class time.

    We provide campus WiFi free of charge for all of our students.

    Monday to Friday                                8:00am to 6:00pm

    Saturday                                        9:00am to 6:00pm

    Independent Learning Center

    Students have 1 hour of independent learning each day.

    ILC time is an opportunity to practice and improve the language skills that you learn in class.

    Monday to Thursday                            8:00am to 5:30pm

    Friday                                        8:00am to 5:00pm

    Lecture Theater

    In the lecture theater, public lectures of various topics will be given to students.

    Qualified professors or excellent students are invited to be lecturers.

    Monday to Thursday                            8:00am to 10:30am

    Friday                                        8:00am to 10:00am

    Welcome to OUR SCHOOL!

    Call at: 041-3436-215

    E-mail: Hawthom-Melboume@yahoo.com

    The Poetry Foundation, recently named American poet Jack Prelutsky as the nation's first children's poet laureate (桂冠诗人). The group created the award as a way to increase children's love of poetry.

    As children's poet laureate, Jack Prelutsky will give two public readings in the next two years. He will also advise the Poetry Foundation about children's literature and take part in projects concerning children and poetry.

    Jack Prelutsky has been writing poetry for children for over forty years. He has written more than thirty five books of poems. His first book was called A Gopher in the Garden. It was published in 1967. His latest is called Behold the Bold Umbrellaphant and Other Poems.

    Jack Prelutsky is well known for creating new words by combining two words to create a new kind of creature. For example, he combined "radish" with "shark" to get "radishark". "Lion" and "broccoli" became "broccolion". He also created "umbrellaphant"， a mixture of the words "umbrella" and "elephant".

    Jack Prelutsky says that children like his poems because he writes about things they care about. Poetry researchers say that Jack Prelutsky's poems recognize children's feelings. An example of this is the poem My Sister Is a Werewolf which is about how it feels to be different.

    Jack Prelutsky also writes poems about American holidays. His poem It's Halloween is a very famous one about the holiday celebrated at the end of October.

    As technology develops, school students who are off class may have no fear of too much absence from class. A small robot may help those children recovering from a long-term illnesses in the hospital or at home. These children may feel isolated from their friends and classmates. The robot takes their place at school. Through the robot, the children can hear their teachers and friends. They also can take part in class from wherever they are recovering.

    Anyone who has had a long term illness knows that recovering at home can be lonely. This can be especially true of children. They may feel left out. Now these children may have a high-tech friend to feel less alone. And that friend is a robot. The robot is called AV1. AV1 goes to school for a child who is at home while recovering from a long-term illness. And the child's school friends must help. They carry the robot between classes and place the robot on the child's desk.

    A Norwegian company called No isolation created the robot. The co-founders of No Isolation are Karen Dolva and Marius Aabel. Dolva explains how the robot AV1 works. She says, from home, the child uses a tablet or phone to start the robot. Then they use the same device（设备）to control the robot's movements. At school, the robot becomes the eyes, ears and voice of the child. The child can take part in classroom activities from wherever she/he is recovering-whether at home or from a hospital bed. The robot is equipped with speakers, microphones and cameras make communicating easy.