Update from Organization
Francophone summit targets education.
Francophone summit targets education. Vietnam News Agency. Online September 2006. … summit of International Francophone Organisation (OIF) focused on new communications technologies and education. … Vietnamese Vice President Truong My Hoa said education was a key factor for the sustainable development of every nation. "Applying new communications technologies helps bring education to remote areas creating opportunities for people to access knowledge” … Hoa said the three-sided model of co-operation in agriculture between Viet Nam, an African country and international financiers would be considered for education projects in the Francophone community. …
Update from Country
Egypt signs 10 grant accords with US.
MENAFN.com. Online September 2006. Egyptian Minister of International Cooperation has signed some 10 grant accords at a total value of $405 million within the framework of US economic aid to her country ... focused on the health, education, infrastructure, water, sewage and economic reforms including those in the private sector. ... 12 agreements would have been signed with the US at a total value of $414.4 million covering the fields of information technology, communications, and making the current environment more favorable for investment, the minister said. …
ICT Support for Learning
Annotating the Earth
Annotating the Earth: Move over, Rand McNally: Google Earth is becoming the standard tool for organizing geographical information. Wade Roush. MIT Technology Review. Online September 2006. … new layers for Google Earth: collections of practical and educational resources related to specific places on the planet. … Icons linking to this mass of information--which is being provided by organizations such as the United Nations, the U.S. National Park Service, National Geographic, and Turn Here, a publisher of city guides--appear atop the Google Earth landscape with the click of a mouse. …geographically indexed world encyclopedia. …
Update from Industry
WiMax "A Weapon From the Future" for Telemedicine and Education in the Brazilian Jungle
WiMax "A Weapon From the Future" for Telemedicine and Education in the Brazilian Jungle. GovernmentTechnology.Net. Online September 2006. In one of the most remote inhabited places on Earth, the Amazon, Intel Corp. has created a wireless, high-speed Internet network for residents to access vast resources of medical, educational and commercial knowledge through computers. The project is part of the Intel World Ahead Program, an initiative in which Intel plans to invest more than $US 1 billion globally over the next five years to accelerate access to computers, the Internet and technology for people in developing communities. …
Informative Reading
Harvard Study: IT Matters
Harvard Study: IT Matters. Reported by Darryl K. Taft in eWeek. Published June 2006. Online September 2006. The Harvard Business School study, which will be published later in 2006, is a multi-country study that measured IT capability at more than 150 large enterprises and found that IT is a key factor in enterprise success. … IT capability directly correlates with superior revenue growth. … the study showed, based on surveys of IT executives, that there is a clear correlation between effective IT operations and growth for an enterprise
Update from India
Grassroots ICT – making a difference
(India) Grassroots ICT – making a difference. Oneworld.net. Oneline September 2006. … On the edge of the expanding wave of Internet connectivity, Punavali Kalan is located deep in the impoverished region of Bundelkhand. This tiny community of 3,800 inhabitants is an oasis where local information is exchanged, discussed, analysed and applied to community life. Though dial-up or subscriber lines do not yet reach the villagers, access to the Web is available through a VSAT at the local community knowledge center, the TARAkendra. These hybrid centers work to enhance social and economic development in rural communities while recovering costs as enterprises. The buzzing TARAkendra at Punavali Kalan is run by a dynamic duo – Rajmani and Priti Parmar. The Parmar sisters are concentrating on their business at an age when other girls are thinking about prospective grooms. … One of TARAhaat’s early franchisees, they opened the Kendra adjacent to their home. … (TARAhaat Information and Marketing Services Ltd is India’s premier social enterprise, using Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) to deliver a broad spectrum of services and products designed for the rural and peri-urban citizens of India. TARAhaat delivers its services through a network of franchised community and business centres owned by individual entrepreneurs.) … Its current products are focused on education, communication (in 11 Indian languages and English), information and e-governance. …
ICT Support
Are virtual worlds the future of the classroom?
Are virtual worlds the future of the classroom? Stefanie Olsen.ZDNET. Published June 2006. Online September 2006. … Whyvillains, the residents of an online virtual world whose population of kids has grown to about 1.6 million since its inception in 1999. … Whyville's private universe is known as a multiuser virtual environment, or MUVE, a genre of software games created to inspire children to learn about math and science, among other subjects. … Learning-based virtual worlds are growing more popular in schools and among children … Harvard University's "River City" is a MUVE that involves a society in the late 1800s that's in political and environmental disrepair--kids must figure out why residents are falling ill. … Quest Atlantis, a downloadable MUVE developed at Indiana University that focuses on an ancient culture, will be introduced to 50 new classrooms, or between 10,000 to 20,000 students…
ICT Support
Community 2.0
Community 2.0 Introducing social networking for the educational set.. Amy Poftak. Technology and Learning. Online September 2006. … Elgg. ... Part of a growing class of open-source tools that lets users create their own profiles and connect with others, Elgg offers a special twist. It's designed exclusively for learners. … "personal learning landscape platform" driven by users' intellectual interests. … Users can craft a profile detailing their likes and dislikes, upload their favorite files, create blogs, post podcasts, pipe in RSS feeds, and use key words to connect with like-minded people. … Elgg represents everything that's appealing about the Web 2.0 movement: community-oriented, user-driven, low maintenance — and wide open. …
Informative Reading
A Student & Teacher Information Code of Ethics
A Student & Teacher Information Code of Ethics. David Warlick. Tech Learning. Online September 2006. For some, classrooms are already filled with curious, eager to learn, and savvy millennials, who, while they pay attention to you, are skillfully texting their friends with cell phones under their desks -- typing with one hand. Since today's students seem to be tech-savvy but sometimes ethics-challenged, maybe we need to talk among ourselves and to them about what's appropriate in this information age. …We must include, in our very definition of what it means to be literate, a basic code of ethics -- a right and wrong for the information highway. … Downloadable MSWord file,
Informative Reading
Why do teens fail math? "It ain't the kids".
Why do teens fail math? "It ain't the kids". Lynn Thompson. Seattle Times. Online September 2006. ...High-quality teachers are the key to improving students' math skills… all students can learn if teachers are skilled, teach material in a variety of ways and have high expectations of their students. … Sarah Grim, a math teacher from Washington in the US, said it has taken her several years to master the connected mathematics curriculum or integrated math that has replaced the traditional algebra, geometry, algebra sequence in many of the region's middle and high schools. "To be truly effective at teaching, it takes five to seven years. It's like learning a foreign language." …
Update from Egypt
OK, Computer
(Egypt) OK, Computer. Sherine El-Madany. Business Today Egypt. Online August 2006. Underprivileged families can now become tech savvy through innovative IT community development projects financed and implemented by the ICT Trust Fund. …A private-public partnership has actually invented a uniquely Egyptian technology that embeds a CPU into the low, circular wooden table known as the tableyya. This high-tech piece of furniture supports four workstations complete with monitors, sound cards, keyboards and mouse. This creative approach to information technology is one of the many projects now being implemented by the ICT Trust Fund — a partnership between the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology (MCIT). …Egyptian Education Initiative (EEI) uses a public-private partnership model to improve education in the country through the effective use of information and communication technologies (ICT) …
"ICT in Education around the Globe" is Back!
Hi, folks--Welcome back from the summer which, hopefully, meant some rest and relaxation in addition to taking courses, writing next-year plans and/or budgets and/or new proposals for funding. The ICT in Education around the Globe blog will continue posting and sending to our members, with fresh content and a few goodies mined during July and August.According to you, the faithful members of the blog-email-notice group, membership has surpassed expectations as a valued service. According to my accoutant, revenue fell quite short of expectations. Since blog posting and sending notices keeps me in contact with folks all over the world involved in ICT in Education, I have decided to fire the accountant and continue to blog and offer the email-notice service for free.For the original members, I offer continued personalized attention, sending news or informative writings to you right away if they match an interest you have expressed. Please let me know if you are investigating a particular area, and I will keep that in mind as I mine and snake the web.Thank you for your support for the blog and email-notice service. You have helped me keep up with what is happening in ICT in Education around the Globe.Cheers/Ginny
