Dear friends,

Hope the New Year has started well for all of you!

Please remember that the next meeting of the TAD Consortium will take place

between 09.00 and 13.00 on Wednesday, 3 February 1999 at the British Council

offices in Johannesburg. An agenda will be circulated shortly, together with

directions and parking instructions.

In the meantime, I have put together a collection of snippets from the

Internet, plus the latest report on technologies from the Centre for

Lifelong Learning at Technikon SA.

Regards,

Neil Butcher

You might also be interested in Patsy's dissertation on the subject. You may

get the URL from her directly at clarke@cc.und.ac.za

Best wishes

Johannes Cronje

Welcome to the home of Alternative Internet Radio on the Web. We now feature

over 70 internet only radio stations and on demand programs webcasting

diverse music. The featured stations all provide an alternative to today's

corporate radio around the globe.

Join the RadioX mailing list from this page too.....

The NODE Learning Technologies Network has assembled a collection of papers,

articles, and guides that describe Web Authoring tools. This primer,

users understand software packages that help in the creation and/or design

of Web pages. The primer includes links to helpful hints, a glossary of

terms, guides and samples, suggestions and instructions on choosing and

using web authoring tools.

We have also added extensive resources on web authoring tools to our

comparative analyses and critical reviews as well as informal papers

describing practitioners' experiences using web authoring software packages.

As always, we welcome your feedback and comments on the annotated links

we've assembled.

This resource is brought to you by the NODE Learning Technologies Network

information and resource-sharing, collaboration and research in the field of

learning technologies for post-secondary education. Our website provides

current, comprehensive information for learners and practitioners engaged in

technologically-mediated teaching and learning.

ANNOUNCEMENTS

-----------

Hidden assets? Measuring the performance of non-governmental organisations

contributor(s): R. Riddell et al - OECD

How should we rate the performance of NGOs (non-governmental organisations)

as aid and development agencies? Do existing evaluations reflect their real

or most vital strengths and shortcomings? Research conducted on behalf of

the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) by

Finland's Ministry of Foreign Affairs probed 13 cases from around the world

in which NGOs formed the subject of evaluations. It found little consensus

on which methods for impact assessment stand out as the most revealing or

reliable. And despite growing demand from all quarters for more and better

monitoring and evaluation studies, the signs are that awareness of the true

Further information:

R. Riddell

Research Fellow ODI, London

c/o Dr. Abby Riddell

DFID-PSU

PO Box 50050

Lusaka

Zambia

Tel: 00 260 1 250903

Fax: 00 260 1 250903

Email: r.riddell@pop3.zamnet.zm

ARTICLES

-----------

Report on Selected Technologies

by Paul West

Electronic Commerce

According to some, one of the biggest incentives for crime is in the process

of being eroded by the Internet - CASH. Once the majority of money is being

transferred by electronic means, its going to be much harder to point a

firearm at you and demand that money be transferred to the assailant's

account as its all traceable. New technology now being made commercially

available is able to read your fingerprints and confirm that the correct

person is using the card or account number. Times will become tougher for

the criminal who depends on old-style cash.

It's normal practice for companies to hold profiles of their major

competitors. A new service offered by Intel and Advertising Age will deliver

the latest advertising being offered by competitor companies via small

satellite dishes. This will replace the existing services where

advertisements are provided to subscribing companies on videotape.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) met in

Ottawa, Canada recently and agreed that business should lead the way with

the development of a framework for regulating itself regarding e-commerce.

The group established an e- commerce tax scheme recommending no new taxes on

e- commerce transactions, recommending that taxation take place at the point

of consumption. Issues still to be ironed out include if the existence of a

web server in a particular location implies a permanent presence for the

purpose of taxation. This could have a major impact on the web site hosting

industry that as a matter of course host web sites for companies in other

countries.

New Technology

Finding your PC slow? IBM has developed a new computer for the US Department

of Energy, which is capable of 3,88 trillion calculations (teraflops) per

second using 5 800 processor chips. They are hoping to have a 10-teraflop

machine running by 2000 and a 100-teraflop machine by 2004.

France was quick to get the Minitel running in French businesses and homes.

These devices are now to be linked to the Internet through a deal between

France Telecom and IBM. The device, which will be Java based, will be

marketed to telecom providers in other countries.

To a lot of people, the sound of a person's voice is just not enough. A new

walkie-talkie by Kenwood transmits pictures and sound. It has a small LCD

display that displays a picture after about 30 seconds. Not a video image

yet but someone is likely to invent that too!

The much talked-about and waited-for satellite cellular phones are now on

sale. The phones are said to cost around US$3 000 and calls cost upwards

from US$1.79 per minute. Not the kind of technology to use when making

casual calls but certainly useful to those who travel to countries and

locations where conventional telecommunication is not available. The

company, Iridium is structuring deals with terrestrial cellular networks to

provide a lower- cost service in most of the world's urban centres.

Cyber-terrorism is becoming a significant threat in the work place. The

"Electronic Disturbance Theatre" is just one example of hackers being

prepared to take civil disobedience to the Internet. The group plans to

attack computers and web sites of companies they believe are responsible for

oppression. A balance will be found in time between the pressuring of

companies and the irritation of the general public.

If you are responsible in any way for a company's website, keeping track of

"linkrot" can be a major task. It is something that can drive potential

business from your site and needs to be taken care of. There are many

products on the market that will automatically check all the links on your

site and report dead links to you for further action. These products

and makes of browsers can read your site! Not everyone has the kind of

browser that the webmaster uses. If your site hopes to sell a product or

service online, make sure that enough effort (=money) goes into testing the

site and making sure it works for the customer. It does not take much to

cause someone to walk away from the online shopping experience you offer.

Education & Training

The shortage of high-tech workers has now caused the US Senate to double the

number of visas to this category of worker. The number of visas will

increase from 65_000 to 115_000 by 2001 after which it will drop again to

65_000. A South African company announced it is employing 600 programmers

from India to fulfil its needs within the country (transfers) and a further

2000 will work based in India (telecommuting). This leaves a major sector

for education and training companies to fulfil.

Training organisations that want to provide programmes appropriate to the

needs of the workplace. Apart from the technical or content requirements on

the person, the following characteristics are deemed important by ZD Net's

Annette Hamilton for highly successful people: Raw brain power; High energy;

Unflagging optimism; Leadership skills; A track record of success; Raw

talent; and an ability to imagine. You can get more on this at

Of great concern to many is the ongoing discrepancy between what girls and

boys are studying. According to Dr Haag at the American Association of

University Women's Educational Forum, girls enrol more for data-entry and

word-processing courses while boys enrol for computer-design and programming

courses. She blames this partly on gender bias in education software and

gender stereotyping in computer games.

The Foundation is trying to determine what steers women away from science

and mathematics and will release a report in 1999 that will assist in

formulating policy on US federally funded educational programmes. See

The American Association of School Administrators has come out in favour of

using technology in education saying that it is improving the student

achievement for those students in "high-risk" groups. The greatest problems

still lie with those schools in poorer areas that do not have access to new

technologies. If one looks at the achievements of some institutions in rural

areas of developing countries one should gain hope for others. It remains up

to the foresight and energy of a few individuals in every institution to

drive institutions forward with the use of technology to improve standards

We all know that old jobs are disappearing while other are appearing. One of

the new ones hardly heard of a year ago is "knowledge management". With the

volume of Internet business now said to be doubling every 100 days, many new

jobs that did not exist in 1997 and 1998 will materialise in 1999.

Meetings have to be one of the most complained-about activities in any

in which it lists a few meetings as being worthwhile: those that resolve

customer needs, those that create a new way for the company to do its work,

and those that focus on a systematic business problems. Time to review the

agendas for our meetings in 1999?

Something managers have to do all the time is problem solving. This,

however, prevents them from focussing on "the big picture". The better you

are at problem solving, the more problems people will bring you. Try to

ensure that problems are solved at the level where they occur and do not

need to be referred "upstairs" for decision-making. You may then be able to

allocate more time to acquiring new business and setting and monitoring

goals. As a manager, if your are spending your management time resolving

other people's problems, the problem may lie with yourself for not

delegating adequately.

Feedback

If you have a comment, request or suggestion on this report, please e-mail

it to Paul West at: pgwest@pgw.org.

***************************

Telematics for African Development Consortium

P.O. Box 31822

Braamfontein

2017

Johannesburg

South Africa

Tel: +27 +11 403-2813

Fax: +27 +11 403-2814

neilshel@icon.co.za

www.saide.org.za