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Nairobi 2010 Conference Reoprt  Climate Change and Natural Resource Use in Eastern Africa: Impacts, Adaptation and Mitigation Report of the 3rd Scientific Conference of the Ecological Society for Eastern Africa (ESEA) and co-hosted with the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA) at Multimedia University College, Nairobi, 19 - 21 May 2010 By Nicholas Oguge, Caroline Lumosi, Teddy Odindo, Joseph Ngondi and Philista Malaki October 4, 2010 Summary While the Earth's climate has changed throughout history, the current warming trend has been of particular concern because most of it is human-induced and proceeding at a rate that is unprecedented.  One of the greatest concerns of this global warming is climate variability and change.  The risks associated with climate change add to development challenges such as food and water insecurity. Although climate change is only one of the many drivers negatively affecting biodiversity and ecosystem services, it certainly exacerbates the other factors such as land degradation and unsustainable natural resource use. There is general concern on the accelerating deterioration of the human environment and natural resources. This would widen poverty levels confronting eastern African countries and threaten gains made towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals. Thus, the Ecological Society for Eastern African organised its 3rd annual scientific conference with a theme addressing this global challenge.  The idea was to bring together researchers, policy makers and the general public together to discuss the climate change phenomena, its impacts, mitigation strategies and adaptation measures with regard to natural resource use in Eastern Africa. In order to address above issues and to reach out to a wider audience, we designed the conference strategically on three tiers:   1. Plenary talks: to provide policy information and direction, science on climate change, ecological and socio-economic effects, how to commun

When designing eLearning courses for international audiences that are some very important considerations that need to be made.

"E-Learning and Digital Media (formerly E-Learning) is a peer-reviewed international online-only journal directed towards the study and research of e-learning in its diverse aspects: pedagogical, curricular, sociological, economic, philosophical and political. A Policy statement is available. Articles accepted for publication become the copyright of the journal, unless otherwise specifically agreed. All contributions should be original and should not be under consideration elsewhere. Authors should be aware that they are writing for an international audience and should use non-discriminatory language. All submissions to the journal are peer-refereed (anonymously) so they are published in accordance with international academic standards for research publication. For those who are refereeing articles on behalf of the journal a Referee Report form is available here."

Design thinking is an act of creative problem-solving. Design thinking has a human-centred core. It uplift organizations to focus on the targeted audience, which conducts better products, services, and internal processes. While creating a solution for a business need the first question must be what's the human need behind that? The six phases of a design process: Six Steps of a design thinking process Six Steps of a design thinking process Observation: This phase is about noticing the end-user, learning, and being unlocked to creative possibilities. Here the goal is to understand the target audiences Ideation: In this phase, you start analyzing ideas with your team based on what you gathered from phase Rapid prototyping: Here you are going to rapidly put up a simple prototype of your plan. This builds it real and provides you with something to try out with the end-user. The aim of this phase is not to generate the perfect solution but to make sure the solution is on target User feedback: This is the censorious phase where without input from the end-user, you won't know if your solution is on target or not, and you won't know how to evolve your design Iteration: Once the feedback is received from the end-user, you can proceed with the changes of your design using that information. Keep repeating, testing, and combining user feedback until you've adjusted your solution Implementation: Here you have confirmed the functionality of your solution with the end-user and acquired your design just right, now it's time to get your ideas into functionality IDEO design thinking process: IDEO (https://designthinking.ideo.com/) developed a unique process which came to be known as IDEO design-thinking frame-work. IDEO Design thinking process Design thinking process by IDEO By their own admission, IDEO did not invent design thinking, but they have become known for practicing it and applying it to solving problems small and large. It's f

I'm a so-so fan of Skype. I've used it on an infrequent basis and have had more than a few dropped calls. Audio and video alike. However, it's a cheap way to make long distance calls and seems to work better over wi-fi and the video quality is improving on a regular basis. So therefore it's probably a great tool for the classroom. But how can you use Skype to do more than just make calls? Well, there's a pantload of interesting ways! Check out these fun ideas: Collaborate! Meet with other classrooms: One of the most common projects educators utilize Skype for is setting up exchanges with classrooms around the world, usually for cultural exchange purposes or working together on a common assignment. The program's official site provides some great opportunities to meet up with like-minded teachers and students sharing the same goals. Practice a foreign language: Connect with individual learners or classrooms hailing from a different native tongue can use a Skype collaboration to sharpen grammar and pronunciation skills through conversation. Peace One Day: Far beyond classroom collaborations, the Peace One Day initiative teamed up with Skype itself and educators across the globe to teach kids about the importance of ending violence, war, and other social ills. Around the World with 80 Schools: This challenge asks participating schools to hook up with 80 worldwide and report back what all they've learned about other cultures and languages. Talk about the weather: One popular Skype project sees participants from different regions make note of the weather patterns for a specified period of time, with students comparing and contrasting the results. Collaborative poetry: In this assignment, connected classrooms pen poetic pieces together and share them via video conferencing. Practice interviews: The education system frequently receives criticism for its failure to prepare students for the real world, but using Skype to help them run through mock-up

How we see ourselves, how we describe ourselves reveals a great deal about how we see 'others'. In May of this year, speaking to the audience of the International Conference on Thinking, Bruno Della Chiesa invited us to consider how we might approach the question of "who we are?". In responding to such a question, what list of affiliations do we invoke to define ourselves?