Development across boundaries

This chapter describes the development of a Bahá'í international adult education program designed so that community service is both process and outcome. Particular emphasis is on the preparation of adult tutors.

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

"US researchers have discovered taking a nap while studying works even better if you dream about what you are trying to learn."

I defenitely agree with Lucas. According to me, many of us are not aware of how important getting enough sleep is for our learning and creativity. I know many people,who are saying that they are 'night-people' and prefer to study until late rather than getting up an hour early in the morning to finish work. My personal experience showed me that I am not only more creative but also faster in learning after sleeping. In a world, in which everything goes faster and faster we might need to give our brains even more time to rest than some hundred years ago. I can imagine that dreaming about the task while taking a nap helps to improve the learning after waking up. However, being able to switch off completely without 'thinking' about the task within the dream might help to even better relax.

I have never experienced dreaming about what I am trying to learn while taking a nap. If it can really boost learning and creativity, I would really like to try it. But, it is something beyond my control. In spite of that, power napping is always good. I would like to share a link which shows ten benefits of power napping. Some benefits are, for example, improving memory and learning, boosting creativity and increasing cognitive functioning, etc. http://ririanproject.com/2007/09/05/10-benefits-of-power-napping-and-how-to-do-it/

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.

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

A "cultural interpreter" is an active participant in a cross-cultural/lingual interaction, assisting the provider in understanding the beliefs and practices of the client's culture and assisting the client in understanding the dominant culture, by providing cultural as well as linguistic links. This model of interpreting service was developed out of an awareness that communication is seriously impaired by insensitivity to the role of culture in the content and manner of communication, particularly in formal interactions (Cairncross, 1989). There are certain ideas about what it means to be a good interpreter. Perfect knowledge of at least two languages, good memory and general knowledge are some of the skills people see as fundamental. However, one of the most important skills seems to be the ability to bridge the gap between two cultures, or in other words, to be aware of certain boundaries, which need to be crossed.

Award-winning reporter Anne Fadiman presents a delectable "fish soup" of a book about the encounter between a Hmong family and the American medical community. This poignant study of the clash of cultural beliefs and practices touches some fundamental issues surrounding scientific progress and humanity. I read this book for my bachelor thesis, looking at it from a more linguistic perspective. It is, however, a very good example of how difficult it can be when two different cultures collide and nobody is really aware of the other culture's customs and traditions. Not being aware of the 'others' worldview makes it difficult if not impossible to crossan existing boundary. If you're interested,I think it is a really nice book to be read.

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.

Brief little metaphorical read. Very interesting

This young lady has a very interesting view of bounderies and how to go beyond them. She instigates us to take control of our lives and fight for our dreams. Bounderies can either stop us or challenge our imagination. Up to each one of us to decide!

"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.

Might be interesting in investigating development

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.

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.

With the rise of easy-to-use Web publishing tools like blogs and social platforms, citizens no longer depend on mainstream media to spread word of activist campaigns and dissent. Thanks to social media, every protester, every citizen, has the power to be a journalist, to broadcast breaking news to all the computer-using, phone-wielding people on Earth.