Terence Armentano - eResume & ePortfolio

Today’s NY Times article titled, “For $150, Third-World Laptop Stirs a Big Debate” brings to light some extremely interesting discussion. Namely, what are the essentials for educational and economic development in third world countries? Nicholas Negroponte, an MIT computer researcher, began the $100 laptop program which aims at creating laptops for the third world for under $100. Currently there at $150 but projected to be under $100 by 2008. This might sound easy to some since Dell doesn’t seem to be to far off the mark with their own $500 laptop, however, there are different conditions to overcome for use of a laptop in the third world. For example:

• “Each machine will come with a simple mechanism for recharging itself when a standard power outlet is not available.”
• A foot pedal and hand pulled device can be used to generate electricity.
• The computers lack a hard drive but use solid state memory instead, and the processors turn off automatically when not in use.
• The software is based on the free Linux Operating system, a rival of Windows. It will also used a stripped down web browser, some simple learning programs, and Google’s gmail for email.
• A video camera lens is included on the machine for video conferencing and digital pictures.
• To include wireless network capability, they use a range of methods depending on local conditions. “In some countries, like Libya, satellite downlinks will be used. In others, like Nigeria, the existing cellular data network will provide connections, and in some places specially designed long-range Wi-Fi antennas will extend the wireless Internet to rural areas.

I am particularly excited about the fact that these computers will be able to access the internet. It says in the NY Times article, “When students take their computers home after school, each machine will stay connected wirelessly to its neighbors in a self-assembling “mesh” at ranges up to a third of a mile. In the process each computer can potentially become an Internet repeater, allowing the Internet to flow out into communities that have not previously had access to it.” In my opinion, therein lies the keys to educational and economic development. If these computers could not tap into the Internet, I would have said this was a wasted project and that the money could have been better spent elsewhere. But the fact that they can connect to the ultimate worldwide collaborative resource center that is the Internet, brings forth infinite potential for learning, transformation, and economic change. In addition to the current set up of the computer, I would recommend that, if possible, the computers given to teachers come equipped with Moodle, an open source learning management system as well as Open Office, an open source Office suite (similar to MS Office, but free). In addition the web-browsers should come equipped with pre-installed bookmarks to some of the greatest educational websites available. I’d be willing to contribute a list of sites I’ve found over the years to the project. Maybe a wiki could be established to collect these sites. In fact, this gives me an idea for a project. I’ll blog about that later.

I’ve posted in a previous blog article that Africa is becoming the largest consumer of cell phones in the world. This is awesome to hear because it represents the wireless network that is being built and that computers can tap into. I don’t know what the connection speed will be like for these computers and networks, however, making them wireless accessible is a step in the right direction. My university, Bowling Green State University, is passionate about bringing education to the third world via distance technologies and hopefully it won’t be long before students at BGSU share a classroom with not only visiting international students, but with people actually living in all parts of the world. What a rich learning environment that would be for everyone.

I blogged about the project, “We are Smarter Than Me” yesterday, in which more than a million business professionals and scholars are invited to collaborate using a massive wiki to write a book on the Best Practices in Business Management.

Since I am interested in studying the educational implications of harnessing the collective intelligence of the masses, I couldn’t resist the opportunity to get in on the ground floor and be a part of the process in this experiment… so I signed up to be a part of the team. I just finished an introductory paragraph for the book and I am curious to see how my text will be analyzed, discussed, and critiqued. Here is what I wrote…

“Life is community. From our first breath as a newborn babe and in the hands of a stranger, we experience the physical necessity of community. By the hands of a mother and father, we are nourished to health. By the hands of a family we first experience our deep desire to love and be loved. It is in community that our world makes sense and it is where we live. Take a minute from your reading and think of a favorite memory. Hold that thought… Does it involve another person or a group of people? Most likely it does because as we look at the design of life and our own wiring, it is easy to see that we are to experience it together. Not only is life linked to community, but in community is where knowledge and understanding are born. There has never been an original idea. Everything has first been passed down to us from our parents or guardians, family and friends, teachers and coaches, etc. However, once an idea is passed down to us, we can analyze, design, develop, and re-invent the idea in new and innovative ways. The more people we can share ideas with, the greater potential for new innovation and the greater potential for a better world. This is, in effect, the essence of this book.”

I often write about the power of online collaboration on this blog and often introduce tools to the community that are designed to make online collaboration richer and more effective. One publishing giant, Pearson, under its Wharton School Publishing imprint thinks quite highly of online collaboration as well.

“Starting this week, more than a million business professionals and scholars, including faculty, students, alumni, and newsletter recipients from two of the nation’s most prestigious graduate schools of business, the MIT Sloan School of Management and the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, will receive messages inviting them to collectively write and edit the book, tentatively titled We Are Smarter Than Me (http://www.wearesmarter.org/).

Pearson, MIT’s Center for Collective Intelligence, and the SEI Center for Advanced Studies in Management of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania will collaborate to produce the first community-driven “networked” book on business best practices.”

My initial thought is that scholars and professional educators typically enjoy getting credit for their work so I wonder what the level of participation will be for this bold project. As you know, wiki’s are more about the collective work of the group and minimize the individual contributions so they will have to give the participants some good reasons to contribute. Maybe they can print the names of all participants in the back of the book…I’m not sure.

To those that complain about the accuracy of wiki’s, I must say that unlike other forms of media, at least you have the ability to correct anything you believe to be erroneous. In addition, scholars and experts should be heavy contributers to Wikipedia, the largest encyclopedia in the world, ensuring credibility and exercising their academic freedom to make it better for everyone…Of course they may be critiqued by another person with a different point of view the next day.

Read more about this project here

Keeping with the theme of foreign languages and online learning, I found a website that uses blogs, rss, podcasts, and other web 2.0 technologies to teach Mandarin Chinese . As China continues to be a huge player in the global economy, businesses and schools are rushing to learn the language. Chinesepod.com is a good place to start and may be an excellent resource for Mandarin Chinese language teachers to incorporate into their classroom. See the following information from their site to learn more.

Foreign Language teachers take note of this website. A web 2.0 community site called “Cucumis” is harnessing the collective intelligence of the multi-lingual community for the purpose of translating text online. It is a way for linguists to help each other out. The way it works is that one gains points when one translates a text and you need points to submit a text to be translated. One gets promoted to expert when one accurately translates numerous amounts of text.

I could see learning activities in an online or f2f foreign language course in which students are required to earn so many points a week for doing quality translations. Any other ideas?

Here is a neat little web 2.0 tool that enables you to create and share content instantly without registration. Each document that you create contains a unique secret read/write URL and read only URL that you can share with your group, class, or online community. I am going to create a Draft with this tool and share it with all of you. Please take a second to read it, introduce yourself and your interests.

Unique read/write URL: http://www.yourdraft.com/create_page.php?key=fbT7SfOKq0osjY3n4KF84Z9UOHi1a6

Unique read only URL: http://www.yourdraft.com/show_page.php?key=nvRGmGRabE1jzB46Gi3kj1POxodtNn

Distance education and online learning continue to grow in quantity and quality around the world and in the United States. The following study/survey by the Sloan Consortium is an excellent read on the current status of online education in the United states.

Making the Grade: Online Education in the United States, 2006 represents the fourth annual report on the state of online learning in U.S. higher education. This year’s study, like those for the previous three years, is aimed at answering some of the fundamental questions about the nature and extent of online education. Supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and conducted by the Babson Survey Research Group in partnership with the College Board, the report, based on responses from over 2,200 colleges and universities, examines a number of key questions:

View the paper here:
http://www.sloan-c.org/publications/survey/survey06.asp

The Diane Rehm show features a discussion with experts on the pros and cons of online learning.

“More than a million college and graduate students are now getting degrees online. We’ll talk about the pros, cons and future of online education.”

Listen to the archived show, which took place November 13, 2006
http://www.wamu.org/programs/dr/06/11/13.php#12297

I made a previous post about a web 2.0 group collaboration tool called Thinkature. I like Thinkature’s website because one can play with the application right on the main page and decide if it is worth further exploration. ConceptShare is another application in a similar vein, but with subtle differences in design and structure that may or may not make for a better user experience. The idea is simple; share design work with your design team, subject matter expert, and/or client to bolster the feedback cycle and increase productivity and quality. Though ConceptShare is marketed to the visual communication field, I could see this tool used in a variety of group work situations. This software is not yet available to try out, but you can watch a video tour of the application below:

A couple weeks ago I wrote about a website service called Gabmail that enables users to record up to two minutes of video and send a link to their friends or colleagues to view the video. One of the developers of Gabmail, Mark, contacted me by responding to my post. In his response, Mark advised me to check out the Gabjam feature of Gabmail. A Gabjam enables the users to have a threaded video discussion. Mark pointed out that “the real power is in the threading of messages. Especially in a GabJam.” He went on to say , “I’ll post a GabJam from me to you below that you can Reply to. Once you have the link, neither of us has to actually send another email. We can just record them and when we refresh our browsers, the new videos just show up.” If you are interested in viewing our Gabjam, you can check it out here. View our Gabjam

If you have a webcam, feel free to post your own video to this gabjam and test it out.

I think this free service has some pretty neat implications for an online learning community and I wonder if they should think about about setting up this service for individual universities similar to what apple is doing with ITUNES U? I would volunteer to run a pilot test at my university. I could see a feature like gabjam as part of Facebook or MySpace as well as learning management systems like Moodle, Sakai, Blackboard, BlackCT, etc.