Development across boundaries

Intersting article related to core concepts of the course

I am sorry I put by mistake the same article :))

I have saved this link, I thought I have saved because I want to post it here, apparently I wanted to read it, sorry

Here is an overview about how we can gain trust within a multicultural environment. The importance of information and knowledge about other cultures and language barriers help to improve the effectiveness of multicultural team´s interaction.

thank you. I wonder what the common values are, if we are to trust each other in multicultural environment.

Thank you Anola for this article. It is very interesting and reflects a lot what is happening in companies nowadays, as well as what we went through in this Master. I follow Dora's comments when saying that this topic should be seen from someone else's point of view. It is very clear that it is only the American's point of view on how to build trust as well as how other's see it. It would be interesting to compare it, and realize that maybe we don't define the concept of 'trust' the same way depending on the culture.

Decades ago, when the Finnish school system was badly in need of reform, the goal of the program that Finland instituted, resulting in so much success today, was never excellence. It was equity.

I think we cannot just look at the education system alone to consider if it is successful. The overall environment and peoples' effort in making equality works in their country are also important. If education system is just a mean to an end to achieve high score in PISA, it is not so difficult to do so. However, what exactly is the function of an education system in society is important.

I admire Finland's intensive teacher-training and union collaboration. I think it is one of the important keys to the educational success. Of course, equity for students is very important. But, it is not enough to make the success. I would like to share a link which shows what Finland's Minister of Education says about their excellent teacher-training and union collaboration. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/justin-snider/keys-to-finnish-education_b_836802.html

"An empirical analysis of the creation, use and adoption of social computing applications IPTS exploratory research on the socio-economic impact of social computing Over the last few years, the take-up of social computing applications has been impressive. These digital applications are defined as those that enable interaction, collaboration and sharing between users. They include applications for blogging, podcasting, collaborative content (e.g. Wikipedia), social networking e.g. MySpace, Facebook, multimedia sharing (e.g. Flickr, YouTube), social tagging (e.g. Deli.cio.us) and social gaming (e.g. Second Life). The importance of social computing has been acknowledged by European policy makers. It is considered to be a potentially disruptive Information Society development, in which users play an increasingly influential role in the way products and services are shaped and used. This may have important social and economic impacts on all aspects of society. There is, however, little scientific evidence on the take-up and impact of social computing applications. The objective of this report is to provide a systematic empirical assessment of the creation, use and adoption of specific social computing application areas: blogging, podcasting, collaborative content, social networking multimedia sharing, social tagging and social gaming. In addition, the report offers a definition of social computing in order to clarify what is meant, in the face of many different angles, and points to the new area of mobile social computing. The dynamics of user participation in social computing are also discussed. Finally, extensive empirical data is presented in the Annex to this report. Research into social computing presents numerous challenges. Social computing is a moving target, with rapidly evolving technologies, markets and user behaviours, all of which have emerged and developed over just a few years. The measurement issue is a crucial, in particular in the context of policy imp

Thank you for sharing; not only does this article seem very interesting but I am also always happy to find sites that offer free articles for me to read.

"Gaia Education promotes a holistic approach to education for sustainable development by developing curricula for sustainable community design. While drawing upon best practices within ecovillages worldwide, Gaia Education works in partnership with universities, ecovillages, government and non-government agencies and the United Nations. "

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaia_hypothesis I suggest you J-M to read the critics part, where we can see a "nice" example of tension between religion and science (just to connect to some previous topic) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_ecology this is also very interesting to read when it comes to the principles of sustainable development

thank you for the link to deep ecology, "a contemporary ecological philosophy that claims to recognize the inherent worth of other beings aside from their utility. The philosophy emphasizes the interdependent nature of human and non-human life as well as the importance of the ecosystem and natural processes. It provides a foundation for the environmental, ecology and green movements and has fostered a new system of environmental ethics."

Two dozen universities now have courses where students are working on Wikipedia as part of their formal coursework. Many of those campuses have "Wikipedia ambassadors" tasked with helping professors weave writing and editing Wikipedia entries into the syllabus. Even Ferriero's office at the National Archives and Records Administration now employs a "Wikipedian in residence" in charge of fostering relationships with galleries, libraries, archives and museums.

Interesting! If it is a good piece of work,it doesn't matter whether it is judged by one professor/public. It does matter what students learn during the process and how they can improve their work further.

Phillip Clayton, California-based philosopher and theologian: "What we are hoping for is a cross-fertilization between two of the greatest forces of the human spirit - science and religion."

It´s always very interesting for me to see all the discussions about religion. Actually, it´s the first time in my life that I listening so many discussions about religion´s issues. Coming from country that is very open and tolerant toward religion and grown up in environment when we celebrate all the religion ritual without problem. ( We have 4 religion in Albania + different sects). What is happening now in all the world about religion conflicts, starts to influence a little bit, but hope to not change in Albania. Anyway that´s another issue. I wanted to say that is very interesting to have these different approaches toward the religion and also to discover this aspect of fanaticism that I never thought before. That´s I think the religion and science need to be open toward each other to minimize the fanaticism or the superiority feeling (sometime that that exist in both side, as the result of believe they own the truth ) both have.

The exploration of the relation between science and religion is indeed a "crossing-boundary" case par excellence. We have moved from modernity where the two were totally incompatible, through postmodernity where there was questioning of every absolute truth in both. What comes to my mind as a possible meeting point of dialogue between the two is the transmodernity paradigm that professor Ateljeviç presented to us: crossing boundaries between fields of research that favour a realtional consciousness of biosphere politics, love ethics and transcendence of old dichotomies. Indeed I feel that crossing the boundaries of old dichotomies in general is very challenging and Jean-Marie's posting provides a good stimulus for reflection towards this direction.

Everyone of has experienced boundaries or conflict in our work because of different perception about work´s aim, especially cause by diversity. Here is a study that shows how boundary spanning activities were used in a multinational company to overcome the barriers that diversity cause. In this article are mentioned very interesting initiatives implemented in this company to manage diversity and to stimulate knowledge sharing.

This article relates the story of Canadian students who went to India for a field placement and do social work. Grounding on Bhabha's theory of "Third Space", the authors describe the different boundaries (cultural, linguistic, cognitive and emotional) that the student had to face and could or not crossed while being in India basing their research on the different feedback given by them. The Student had to continually negotiate cultural difference which leads to inner and outer tension. This article reflects perfectly what every individual lives when going and living in another country. I think that it relates perfectly to everyone of us in this Master.

Dear Cecile, I am trying to read your article, but I cant open it. I am trying to find the options to register, but I cant find it. Can you send me the text by email. Thanks

This is typical example that shows clearly that you are never prepared enough for culture differences and to find a way how to manage them. From the students discourse, you can see that they know that they will experience culture´s shock, that they are going to encounter culture difference. They have also knowledge about Indian culture. But it´s obviously they know just the top of iceberg. I was reading what the students were saying. It´s very interesting to see their reactions. You have a group of students from the same country, the same context that react differently totally different context. The barriers of culture differences can make us more or more open to know and to share with the others or the totally opposite. Of course you need time and the example of the students is very concrete one. The students were in the process of knowing the culture, exploring it. As everything new that we encounter, we react also differently toward the unknown.

I did not have time to read it completely, but it was useful for me because I could find some good resource in its reference. BUT there is something strange in the title of this paper, and the abstract did not explain it. The problem is that it seems the paper assumes that the Nash Equilibria exists in all sorts of game!!! There are many games that do not converge to Nash Equilibria. So those games never generates Convergence to NE. I don't know if there is an explanation in the paper or not, but at least the title has this problem.

It is interesting to see how social networking has transformed the communication in office setting.

"This review surveys and divides the ethnographic corpus on digital media into three broad but overlapping categories: the cultural politics of digital media, the vernacular cultures of digital media, and the prosaics of digital media. Engaging these three categories of scholarship on digital media, I consider how ethnographers are exploring the complex relationships between the local practices and global implications of digital media, their materiality and politics, and their banal, as well as profound, presence in cultural life and modes of communication. I consider the way these media have become central to the articulation of cherished beliefs, ritual practices, and modes of being in the world; the fact that digital media culturally matters is undeniable but showing how, where, and why it matters is necessary to push against peculiarly narrow presumptions about the universality of digital experience."

relevant to Geanina's presentation on digital media

click on the first [Doc] file on page somehow i cannot have a direct link to the document, but u might find some further interesting readings on the page though

the doc is for downloading only. On the other hand, please share a link to a precise page. Publishing a google search page does not point to a particular reference leaving this decision to everyone who will vist the link.

I think we need to know more about how to deal with qualitative data.

thank you. did you have a look at it to see where it could fit in our research?

I think we need to have some software to facilitate the data analysis process. I've heard there are tools, but I do not know what are they and how to use them. It'd be great if we can have a class on these issues.

Here you find the abstract, the authors biography and the subjects discussed in a book from Daniels, H., Edwards, A., Engeström, Y.ö, Gallagher, T., Ludvigsen. You have probably seen this book already. But for those who haven't: take a look and read the abstract. I guess it is a very important book when it comes to "activity theory" and "learning across boundaries". You can find it in the Bibliotheque à Walferdange. Have fun :)

The author present the interaction of children with media tools. Understanding the concept of "Embodiment means how the nature of a living entity's cognition is shaped by the form of its physical manifestation in the world" As we saw the theory is basis in the believe that the nature of the human mind is largely determined by the form of the human body. Then, Dividing the cognition then in Spatial, Physical and finally Metaphorical. Moreover the Embodied Child were analysed by the interaction with the computer, categorizing in Input design, interface design and interaction design.

"Here we present findings from the "Religion among Academic Scientists" study, a survey (N=1,646) and initial in-depth interviews (N=150) with natural and social scientists at twenty-one elite US research universities. We examine the attitudes academic scientists at these universities have about the perceived conflict between religion and science and their personal cultural construction of the boundaries between science and religion. Using survey data, results show that field-specific differences, being in the natural or social sciences, are not significant predictors of adopting the conflict paradigm, refuting previous research. Attention to in-depth interviews reveals three mechanisms of boundary-crossing, where boundaries between religion and science are transgressed: institutional pull, boundary pioneering, and environmental push. These results contribute key mechanisms of boundary change and boundary crossing between the specific knowledge domains of science and religion to the growing sociology of culture literature on boundaries."

Werner Heisenberg. Der Teil und das Ganze: Gespräche im Umkreis der Atomphysik. (Piper, 2001) This book is written by one of the foundator and leading scientist of quantum mechanics and physics and is a very light-speaking, anecdoting story telling about Heisenberg's life, education, personal life and development. When he mentiones his awakening interest in physicsm he talks a lot about Platon and it is very interesting to read about his attitude towards religion and the principal questions of religion. It is also him we attribute the famous sentence: The first gulp from the glass of natural sciences will turn you into an atheist, but at the bottom of the glass God is waiting for you.

merci Dora, let us look at religion & science as two sources of knowledge. In my case, I would be most familiar with the Bahai Faith (www.bahai.org) and I do believe that this Faith has a new contribution in the task of transforming society.

Might be interesting in investigating development

How to use discourse analysis to study facework and markedness for immigirants