ten conclusions that might guide a country's development of a culturally
appropriate Internet policy
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Building an Internet Culture - 0 views
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Do not spend vast sums of money to buy machinery that you are going to set down on top of existing dysfunctional institutions. The Internet, for example, will not fix your schools. Perhaps the Internet can be part of a much larger and more complicated plan for fixing your schools, but simply installing an Internet connection will almost surely be a waste of money.
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Learning how to use the Internet is primarily a matter of institutional arrangements, not technical skills
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Build Internet civil society. Find those people in every sector of society that want to use the Internet for positive social purposes, introduce them to one another, and connect them to their counterparts in other countries around the world. Numerous organizations in other countries can help with this.
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Machinery does not reform society, repair institutions, build social networks, or produce a democratic culture. People must do those things, and the Internet is simply one tool among many. Find talented people and give them the tools they need. When they do great things, contribute to your society's Internet culture by publicizing their ideas.
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For children, practical experience in organizing complicated social events, for example theater productions, is more important than computer skills. The Internet can be a powerful tool for education if it is integrated into a coherent pedagogy. But someone who has experience with the social skills of organizing will immediately comprehend the purpose of the Internet, and will readily acquire the technical skills when the time comes
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Conduct extensive, structured analysis of the technical and cultural environment. Include the people whose work will actually be affected. A shared analytical process will help envision how the technology will fit into the whole way of life around it, and the technology will have a greater chance of actually being used.
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Don't distribute the technology randomly. Electronic mail is useless unless the people you want to communicate with are also online, and people will not read their e-mail unless they want to. Therefore, you should focus your effort on particular communities, starting with the communities that have a strong sense of identity, a good record of sharing information, and a collective motivation to get online.
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OATS - oats - 29 views
www.oatsoft.org
technology accessibility opensource software assistivetechnology freeware assistive source
shared by Jessica Smith on 15 Apr 10
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Open-sourcing offers great potential for AT software users. However, currently there are a number of barriers that stop its wider use within the AT community. It is generally difficult to find on the Internet and, until the OATS Project, there have been no specific websites dedicated to developing or downloading AT software. Open-source software can also be unfriendly to install, often obliging the user to download many different packages before it can be set up and used. Often it is still "under-development", poorly documented or technically demanding, something that the end user finds frustrating and irritating. To see just how complicated this can be for the lay enquirer, one need only visit the most well-known source of mainstream open-source products, Source Forge (http://sourceforge.net/). Finding OATS products here is like experiencing death by a thousand cuts! The OATS Project's repository will strip away all the technical complexity and provide via its database and search engine an efficient and intuitive way to access good quality OATS. By removing these barriers to open-source AT software, users will not only have a single point of contact for obtaining open-source software but volunteer developers will also discover a forum where they can develop ideas and write software that meets the real needs of specific end users.
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ISTE | Technology leaders: Do you have the Tech Trinity of Expertise? - 54 views
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Podcasting Business Learning: Addressing the New Learning Styles for Generation Y - 1 views
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by Stevina Evuleocha, Steve Ugbah California State University Abstract The quest for an ideal medium to deliver business content to Gen Y learners has led instructors to consider the Internet, since digital content that exists in databases can be manipulated by a range of programming services (Shim et al., 2006). Shim et al., have also asserted that web development has been hampered by bandwidth and difficulties of "back end integration," consequently, impacting the presentational aspects of data and user interfaces (Yang & Tang, 2005). Innovations in computer and software technologies appear to have ameliorated the technical difficulties, resulting in the emergence of new media such as podcasting, webcasting, videostreaming, blogging, and Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language (SMIL) technologies (Shim, 2002). These new media streams can be integrated into traditional lectures, thus enhancing the educational environment (McLaughlin, 2006), particularly for Gen Y learners. This paper discusses the efficacy of podcasting in business education, reviews the characteristics of Generation Y (Gen Y) learners, discusses learning styles and theories that support mobile learning, reviews learning styles of Gen Y learners, and discusses whether adaptations are necessary to address the updated needs of this new generation of learners in the business communication context.
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Why schools must move beyond 'one-to-one computing' | eSchool News - 114 views
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Adding a digital device to the classroom without a fundamental change in the culture of teaching and learning will not lead to significant improvement.
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The planning considerations now evolve from questions about technical capacity to a vision of limitless opportunities for learning.
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As soon as you shift from “one-to-one” to “one-to-world,” it changes the focus of staff development from technical training to understanding how to design assignments that are more empowering—and engage students in a learning community with 24-hour support.
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learning how to manage the transition from a learning ecology where paper is the dominant technology for storing and retrieving information, to a world that is all digital, all the time.
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Leaders must be given the training to: Craft a clear vision of connecting all students to the world’s learning resources. Model the actions and behaviors they wish to see in their schools. Support the design of an ongoing and embedded staff development program that focuses on pedagogy as much as technology. Move in to the role of systems analyst to ensure that digital literacy is aligned with standards. Ensure that technology is seen not as another initiative, but as integral to curriculum.
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In a one-to-world approach, the critical question is not, “What technology should we buy?” The more important questions revolve around the design of the culture of teaching and learning.
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t’s essential to craft a vision that giving every student a digital device must lead to achievements beyond what we can accomplish with paper.
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CITE Journal - Language Arts - 94 views
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Since it is through communication that we exercise our political, economic and social power, we risk contributing to the hegemonic perpetuation of class if we fail to demand equal access to newer technologies and adequately prepared teachers for all students
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They can benefit their students by developing and then teaching their students to develop expertise in evaluation of search engines and critical analysis of Web site credibility. Well-prepared teachers, with a deep and broad understanding of language, linguistics, literature, rhetoric, writing, speaking, and listening, can complement those talents by studying additional semiotic systems that don’t rely solely on alphabetic texts.
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Not only will teachers need to understand “fair use” policies, they are likely to need to integrate units on ethics back into the curriculum to complement those units on rhetoric.
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Students should be counseled not only on the risks to their physical safety, but also on the ways that the texts they are composing today, and believe they have eliminated, often have lives beyond their computers, and may reappear in the future at a most inopportune time.
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learn methods of critically analyzing the ways in which others are using multiple semiotic systems to convince them to participate, to buy, to believe, and to resist a wide range of appeals
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It also implies the process of uncovering one’s own cultural, social, political and personal (e.g. age, gender) backgrounds and understanding how these backgrounds can and often do influence one’s own ways of communicating and interacting with others in virtual and face-to-face encounters.
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nstances of anti-social behavior in online communication such as using hurtful language and discriminating among certain members of virtual communities have been reported.
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allows their members to construct and act out identities that may not necessarily be their real selves and thus lose a sense of responsibility toward others
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Professional development for teachers and teacher educators must be ongoing, stressing purposeful integration for the curriculum and content, rather than merely technical operation. It also needs to provide institutional and instructional support systems to enable teachers to learn and experiment with new technologies. Offering release time, coordinating student laptop initiative programs or providing wireless laptop carts for classroom use, locating computer labs in accessible places to each teacher, scheduling lab sessions acceptable for each teacher, and providing alternative scheduling for professional development sessions so that all teachers can attend, are a few examples of such systems. Finally, teachers and students must be provided with technical support as they work with technology. Such assistance must be reliable, on-demand, and timely for each teacher and student in each classroom.
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Such netiquette is thus not only about courtesy; more importantly, it is about tolerance and acceptance of people with diverse languages, cultures, and worldviews.
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Teachers and teacher educators must examine with students the social processes through which humans grow individually and socially, and they must expose the potentially negative consequences of one’s individual actions. In doing so, teachers and educators will be able to reinforce the concept of learning as a social process, involving negotiation, dialogue, and learning from each other, and as a thinking process, requiring self-directed learning as well as critical analysis and synthesis of information in the process of meaning-making and developing informed perceptions of the world.
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What are the Disadvantages of Online Schooling for Higher Education? - 18 views
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"hat Are the Disadvantages of Online Schooling for Higher Education? Today, online schooling for higher education is prevalent across many fields. While there are several benefits to online schooling, such as flexibility and convenience, there are also real and perceived disadvantages. Explore some of the potential drawbacks of online learning. View 10 Popular Schools » Online Schooling In 2012, about a quarter of undergraduate college students were enrolled in distance education courses as part -- if not all -- of their studies, according to a 2014 report from the National Center for Education Statistics. That same data found that 29.8% of graduate students in this country are enrolled in some or all distance learning classes as well. A 2013 report from Babson Survey Research Group and Quahog Research Group, LLC, pointed out that approximately 86.5% of higher education institutions offer distance learning classes. Clearly, online schooling is commonplace. Disadvantages: Student Perspective Despite advantages, online schooling is not the right fit for every student. Taking online courses is generally believed to require more self-discipline than completing a degree on campus, a belief that is supported by SCHEV -- the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia. Because online schooling options often allow students to complete much of the coursework at their own pace, students must be motivated to stay on schedule and manage their time accordingly. Other potential disadvantages from a student's viewpoint may include the following: Less Instructional Support Although instructors are available to students via e-mail, telephone, Web discussion boards and other online means, some students may see the lack of face-to-face interaction and one-on-one instruction as a challenge. A lack of communication or miscommunication between instructors and students may frustrate students who are struggling with course materials. That could be exacerbated by the casual nature
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Collective Knowledge ConstructionideasLAB | ideasLAB - 46 views
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What are the distinguishing features of the strategy? What pedagogical approaches are suitable? What are the defining learning activities? What does the strategy challenge educators to rethink?
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"The purpose of this white paper is to use the Collective Knowledge Construction Model to identify strategies by which knowledge construction is facilitated when learning online. And, secondly to encourage teachers, school leaders and other stakeholders to reimagine the pedagogical, technical and contextual consequences that arise from teaching and learning in technology rich environments."
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Why Schools Must Move Beyond One-to-One Computing | November Learning - 139 views
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I’m concerned that most one-to-one implementation strategies are based on the new tool as the focus of the program. Unless we break out of this limited vision that one-to-one computing is about the device, we are doomed to waste our resources.
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Then, teachers are instructed to go! But go where?
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it is a simplistic and short- sighted phrase that suggests if every student had a device and if every teacher were trained to use these devices, then student learning would rise automatically.
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Adding a digital device to the classroom without a fundamental change in the culture of teaching and learning will not lead to significant improvement.
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The planning considerations now evolve from questions about technical capacity to a vision of limitless opportunities for learning.
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As soon as you shift from “one- to-one” to “one-to-world,” it changes the focus of staff development from technical training to understanding how to design assignments that are more empowering—and engage students in a learning community with 24-hour support
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Perhaps the weakest area of the typical one-to-one computing plan is the complete absence of leadership development for the administrative team
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Support the design of an ongoing and embedded staff development program that focuses on pedagogy as much as technology.
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How can we build capacity for all of our teachers to share best practices with colleagues in their school and around the world?
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How can we give students authentic work from around the world to prepare each of them to expand their personal boundaries of what they can accomplish?
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Emerald | The loneliness of the long distance researcher - 1 views
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cross a threshold in their understanding
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virtual CoPs need to make good use of internet standard technologies and users need to possess ICT skills.
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After initial enthusiasm, where a number of co-authors introduced themselves, things fell quiet, and I myself was as guilty as anybody else in not checking the forum any more after a few weeks of inactivity
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In the online environment contributions were overwhelmingly supportive, non-hierarchical and candid.
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wiki as a framework to create a comprehensive online knowledge base which covers the entire veterinary curriculum.
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As part of the wiki, students maintain a personal profile which allows them to reflect on the experience
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How would their writing contributions – often practice based – fit in a CoW inhabited by academics writing for scholarly publications?
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. Firstly, the need to find a medium for your CoW that works, that is widely used, and with which the would-be participants are familiar and comfortabl
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Education Week: Research Shows Evolving Picture of E-Education - 0 views
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Research shows that virtual schooling can be as good as, or better than, classes taught in person in brick-and-mortar schools
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But that broad conclusion, which comes mainly from a couple of research syntheses published in 2001 and 2004, masks a lot of variation in the designs of online classes and in who takes them
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to figure out under what conditions, what scenarios, in what content areas, and with what students.”
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“Whether that’s 24-hour technical support, tutorial support, parental vigilance, or face-to-face site coordinators or mentors,”
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“You pay attention to what’s going on,” she says, “and you respond to them as individuals.”
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Tech Learning : The New Literacy - 4 views
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Curriculum 9/15/2004 By: Sara Armstrong and David Warlick Recently, Edgar Murphy of the North Carolina State Board of Education delivered a presentation to a group of technology-using educators in the Raleigh area. He stated that of all the positions he has held in his life, he was technically qualified for only the first one.
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E-learning on the rise - 28 views
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E-learning is a growing trend at community colleges, according to survey results from the National Association for Community College Entrepreneurship (NACCE) and Hewlett-Packard (HP).
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E-learning is already used at 47 percent of community colleges and is expected to increase to 55 percent within two years. The survey of 578 community college faculty was conducted by Eric Liguori, an assistant professor at California State University.
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The top five benefits of e-learning identified by respondents are: It increases access through location and time-flexible learning. More resources and information are available to students 24/7. Teachers can use a wide variety of tools and methods for teaching. It is a good supplement to face-to-face curriculum. It can lead to a richer learning experience if integrated correctly, freeing up class time for more engaging activities. This experience is often referred to as “flipping the classroom.”
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When asked about the barriers to adopting online learning, faculty cited such concerns as doubt about its capability and reliability, acceptance by students and teachers, and lack of resources, such as time and technical support.
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Twenty-three percent of respondents said the effectiveness of e-learning depends on the resources available, including the format and features of courses. For example, e-learning is best when teachers are adequately trained to use it, there is high-quality content and curriculum design, it’s used in conjunction with real-world situations and there is opportunity for student-teacher interactions, discussion boards and collaborative projects.
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“Our survey looked at how community college faculty members are using e-learning as a cost-effective means” to increase completion rates and ensure that “students walk away with credentials that are meaningful in the workplace and that they are prepared for the careers they hope to pursue, including, for many, the start of entrepreneurial endeavors,” said NACCE President and CEO Heather Van Sickle.