TAD Consortium February 1999 Information Update 1
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CONTENTS
NEWS
Internet user statistics
ONLINE RESOURCES
Free tutorials in HTML and Web page design
Information
Management, IT and Government Transformation: Innovative
Approaches in the new South Africa by Michael Kahn & Russell Swanborough
English Language 2.0: An Introduction to
Basics
Teleworking Resources: Ursula Huws
CONTACTS
Africa Alive!
NetWise
ARTICLES
"The China Daily" survey
In Congo, the Net Precedes Phone: Reuters
Linking Education Spending and
Performance
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Latest statistics on the number of Internet users worldwide:
Africa: 1.14 million
Asia/Pacific: 26.55 million
Europe: 33.39 million
Middle East: 0.78 million
Canada and USA: 87 million
South America: 4.5 million
Source: NUA INTERNET SURVEYS
TO CONTENTS-----------
There are lots of free tutorials available in HTML and Web page design. Many
of them either point you back to the [rather dry] lists of HTML standards
which reside at http://www.w3c.org or they offer very simpleillustrations of the basic <P>, <HR>, and <BR> tags - which you can learn in
five minutes.
Joe Barta's HTML tutorial is a terrific collection of easy-step guides in
page design. He does cover the basics - but also goes on to deal with
tables, forms, and frames. Every point is spelled out very clearly, he shows
you how to code the pages, and there are lots of screen shots to show you
how it *should*look when you've followed his example.
You won't need any special design tools, such as Front Page because he shows
you how to write using the simplest tool of all - which we all [well, almost
all] possess - Windows Notepad.
He's also unashamedly pro-Netscape, and won't guarantee that any of his tips
will work in Internet Explorer. But these two small reservations aside, it
is an excellent - and remember, completely free - guide to web site design.
It even includes two really useful features - a font viewer and a colour
picker. The font viewer reveals on screen the fonts you have installed on
your system, and the colour picker shows you a chart of the famous
'browser-safe' colours, as well as their hexadecimal 'numbers'.
It's a 1.3MB download - but worth every moment of the wait.
I got my copy from the UK Demon site, which is a rather long URL. You can
COPY and PASTE this into your browser, but make sure it's all on one line.
http://ftp.demon.co.uk/pub/mirrors/simtelnet/win95/html/wt300z.zip
Alternatively, go to any search engine and send out a request for the file
name itself wt300z.zip
...and if you need help with downloading and unzipping, there are full
instructions at our site –
http://www.mantex.co.uk/download
TO CONTENTS"Information Management, IT and Government Transformation: Innovative
Approaches in the new South Africa"
by Michael Kahn & Russell Swanborough
This new online paper is available for viewing or downloading from the
'Information Systems for Public Sector Management' series of IDPM,
University of Manchester, UK.
Other papers in the series cover issues of information age reform, IT
management centralisation/decentralisation, public sector MIS, and IT and
public corruption. All at:
http://www.man.ac.uk/idpm/idpm_dp.htm#isps_wp
Details of informatics training for public managers provided by the
University of Manchester are at:
http://www.man.ac.uk/idpm/topicvue.htm#is
TO CONTENTSAn Introduction to Basics
This is the latest version of a computer-based learning program which covers
all the elements of
English Language in its spoken and written form.
There is a definition and illustration of each topic, examples are shown in
context, and there
are interactive exercises to check that you have understood the issue.
The program was developed at Manchester University, and has gone through a
major interface revamp for its second issue. Technical spec is a light
requirement of 3MB disk space and 4MB memory, and it comes with its own
off-line HTML reader.
Full details and demo version available at –http://www.mantex.co.uk/software.htm TO CONTENTSProvided by Usrula Huws (copyright 1999)
Here are the URLs of a couple of the web-sites which have the most complete
lists of links related to teleworking.
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Africa Alive! - 8 African countries
- an initiative to improve reproductive
health and reduce the spread of HIV/AIDS amongst youth through synergistic
partnerships. 48 representatives from Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa,
Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe met in Harare, Zimbabwe (November
16-19, 1998) for the first Stakeholders' Meeting to endorse and plan the
initiative. Contact Anne Akia Fiedler
strtalk@imul.com/strtalk@swiftuganda.com
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NetWise is a new project of the Desert
Research Foundation of Namibia. The
DRFN has been selected by SADC - ELMS as the focal point for training in the
regions efforts to comply with the Convention to Combat Desertification.
NetWise is network which aims to enhance wise management of arid lands,
encourage wise use of knowledge, and facilitate access to training and
research opportunities; using the internet to achieve improved capacity to
manage natural resources within southern Africa - net- wise. NetWise will be
centered around a directory which will be accessible through the internet
and will be available on CD - ROM at institutions within the region. NetWise
is open to any organisation within the SADC region, be it government, NGO,
university, private, etc. There is no fee to either access the directory or
to be represented on the directory. Please contact us at:
netwise@drfn.org.na or visit us at our website at
www.netwise.drfn.org.na
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In late January, "The China Daily" released the results of a survey theyIn Congo, the Net Precedes Phone
Reuters
Wired News
GOMA, Congo -- Long-isolated from the world's information revolution,
residents of this rebel-held town in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
are surfing the outskirts of cyberspace on radio waves.
With no telephone lines in place and none planned, access to the Internet is
limited and largely a luxury, available only to those with expensive
satellite phones. But the Ugandan-based Internet provider Bushnet has set up
shop in Goma with a desktop computer and a high-frequency radio modem,
allowing users to bounce e-mail messages around the world via a server in
the Ugandan capital Kampala.
Bushnet -- which charges US$2 to $3 per page of text -- already has more
than 210 subscribers in Goma, but its potential for market growth is
limited. Local salaries average around $30 a month, and most people live a
hand-to-mouth existence in a labyrinth of small wooden cabins.
And high prices are not the only problem: For most people, the Internet
itself is still a foreign concept.
"The average person in Goma has never touched a telephone," Bushnet
representative Taty Kaliba said. "So when you start talking about the
Internet, when you start talking about surfing and chat rooms, they are lost."The telecom and transportation infrastructure in the Congo suffered decades
of neglect under dictator Mobutu Sese Seko, who ruled the nation for 32
years before being swept from power by Laurent Kabila in 1997.
In Goma, a lakeside town with a population of several hundred thousand, few
people can remember exactly when -- or even if -- telephone lines were ever
installed. A private analog cellular phone network stepped in to fill the
void several years ago and now has around 700 subscribers, officials said.
"Communication was never a favorite of Mobutu. He left things to decay
because he didn't want people to communicate easily," Kaliba said.
Keeping a tight grip over telecommunications technology has been a favorite
tactic of dictators -- and rebels -- to control local populations.
Bushnet's Goma office first opened last May, but was closed soon afterwards
by rebels who took up arms to oust Kabila in early August, supported by
Rwanda and Uganda.
The rebels confiscated radios and satellite phones belonging to aid agencies
and shut down international mobile phone links. Bushnet only reopened its
doors in November when the equipment was returned.
http://www.wired.com/news/print_version/email/explode-infobeat/business/story/17507.html?wnpg=allCopyright© 1999 Reuters Limited.
For more information on Bushnet
see their web site: http://www.bushnet.net.
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CONTENTS
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LINKING EDUCATION SPENDING AND PERFORMANCE
Does increased funding result in improved student performance? Policymakers
disagree on the issue. Last week during his State of the Union Address,
President Bill Clinton released a five-point plan to hold school districts
accountable in order to receive federal funding. In the meantime, a report
this week by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) finds no
correlation between increased spending and pupil performance.
In his speech, President Clinton proposed that schools should be required to
address five issues to receive federal funds, including stipulations that
districts end social promotions of students not academically prepared to
move to the next grade level; turn around or close their worst-performing
schools; take steps to ensure high teacher quality; issue school and
district report cards; and adopt and implement "sensible" discipline
policies so all children can learn (*Education Week*, January 27, 1999). For
the text of the State of the Union address, visit http://www.whitehouse.gov.
In contrast to the President's Address, ALEC--the nation's largest
bipartisan membership association of state legislators--released the fifth
edition of its "Report Card on American Education: A State-by-State
Analysis." The study covers the years 1976-1998, and grades each state using
more than 100 measures of educational resources and achievement.
Among its major findings, the report asserts that there is no statistically
evident correlation between educational performance and a) expenditures per
pupil and b) teacher salaries. The report also finds that while spending for
public schools increased by 51% (inflation adjusted) between 1976 and 1998,
academic performance declined or stagnated. To read a copy of the report
visit http://www.ALEC.org.
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Telematics for African Development Consortium
P.O. Box 31822
Braamfontein
2017
Johannesburg
South Africa
Tel: +27 +11 403-2813
Fax: +27 +11 403-2814
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