ONLINE RESOURCES
--- 21st Century Learning Initiative
--- Useful Internet navigation tools
--- Online educators' guides
--- Training Professionals Gateway

ANNOUNCEMENTS
--- 'Edutainment - How to make Edutainment work for you'.
--- Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) public consultation on
CIDA's Draft Policy for Private Sector Development in Developing Countries
--- Reinventing Government in the Information Age: International Practice in
IT-Enabled Public Sector Reform'

CONTACTS
--- The Health Channel - Brazil
--- Radio Kwizera - Tanzania

ARTICLES
--- Why the Internet is a poor learning environment by Roberto Verzola

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NEWS

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[from the Democracy News mailing list 5/27/99]

AFRICA: INTERNET CENSORSHIP- African countries are finally gaining

increasing access to the Internet, while authorities continue to maintain

control of the medium at the same time, says a new ARTICLE 19 report

entitled "The Right to Communicate: The Internet in Africa". According to

the report, 51 out of Africa's 54 countries have access to the Internet,

even though it is expensive and is impeded by communications barriers.

ARTICLE 19 says,"E-mail and discussion groups, in particular, have been

quickly embraced as powerful tools for sharing information and ideas."

Authorities have used various methods to control access to the Internet,

some by maintaining a monopoly on telecommunications, others by controlling

new services such as the Internet Service Providers (ISPs). Nonetheless, the

report says, "journalists and human right organizations in Africa have been

quick to embrace e-mail because of its relative speed and reliability, as

well as its ability to circumvent government censorship and control." To

obtain a copy contact: ARTICLE 19 at 33 Islington High St., London N19LH,

U.K.; tel: +44 1 71 278 9292; fax: +44 1 71 713; e-mail:

article19@gn.apc.org; Website: http://www.gn.apc.org/article19/.

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[from Computerworld Online News, 26 May 1999]

China, India among top .com, .net, .org registrants

By Matt Hamblen

China, Australia and India have moved into the top 10 foreign countries in

domain name registrations for .com., .net and .org, according to Network

Solutions Inc. (NSI) in Herndon, Va. China's and India's growth, along with

that of Korea, which placed No. 12, are partly due to declining online costs

in those countries, NSI officials said in a statement yesterday.

For example, in India, the government late last year opened channels for

privately run Internet service providers to compete in offering lower cost

dial-up Internet connections, NSI officials said.

India, China and Australia replaced the Netherlands, Hong Kong and Japan in

the top 10, moving them to the top 15, NSI said.

The U.S. still leads in domain name registrations by a wide margin,

accounting for about 73% of all registrations for the three names, NSI said.

The number of new international registrations totaled 230,000 in the first

quarter of the year, up from 168,000 in the previous quarter. The 230,000

represent growth of 135% over the 98,000 international registrations in the

first quarter of last year, NSI reported.

"Growth in international registrations proves once again that 'dot com' is

one of the few phrases understood in every language on earth," said Doug

Wolford, NSI senior vice president.

Following the U.S., the top 15 countries in .com, .net and .org

registrations are as follows:

1. Canada

2. United Kingdom

3. France

4. Germany

5. Sweden

6. Spain

7. Italy

8. China

9. Australia

10.India 11.The Netherlands

12.Korea

13. Hong Kong

14. Japan

15. Turkey

NSI didn't list the total registrations per country, except for the U.S.,

which had 4.2 million as of the end of March.

Copyright (c) 1999 Computerworld, Inc.

http://www.idg.net/go.cgi?id=127600

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PUBLIC RALLY AROUND CHILD PROTECTION PROJECT

The project initiated by The Internet Solution to collect IT equipment for

the Child Protection Unit has been hugely bolstered by an SAfm advertising

campaign. The airtime donated by the nation's biggest national

English-medium radio station resulted in a huge flood of responses from

members of the public wanting to donate old computer equipment. "About 700

responses were received in total," says SAfm marketing manager, Tony

Lankester. "We surpassed our targets by several hundred machines, since the

CPU has only about 30 branches. The response was not only tremendous, it was

personally gratifying to see our listeners rally around this cause," he

says. "We have taken the best thirty offers and passed these on to the Child

Protection Unit in Pretoria North to be followed up nationally."

According to The Internet Solution's Corporate Communications Officer,

Charles Webster, the initiative grew from a project to supply the Pretoria

North Branch of the unit with equipment. "Apart from the equipment donated

by several corporate sponsors, we have had calls from individuals and

companies offering from one to several hundred machines. We were offered so

much infrastructure we had to identify a second charity to whom we have

passed on the database of donors." The second charity is SchoolNet, a

national NGO engaged in the connection of schools in disadvantaged areas to

the Internet, the training of teachers and the application of IT for

educational purposes. Individuals or companies with machines to donate

should contact SchoolNet on (+27-11) 403-3952.

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ONLINE RESOURCES

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Taken from The TrainingZONE LearningWIRE - Issue 50

21st Century Learning Initiative

An excellent website providing information, briefings and resource material

derived from a trans-national programme of research and development intothe

nature of human learning. Whilst some of the material is academic, much is

also highly accessable in helping us to understand the learning process.

http://www.21learn.org

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A great page for useful Internet navigation tools

http://riceinfo.rice.edu/Internet/

Kind regards

Philip Uys

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IDPM at the University of Manchester now provides online educators' guides

with student synopsis and development questions for its online Development

Informatics reports, allowing them to be used as class case studies and

discussion papers, at: http://www.man.ac.uk/idpm/educdi.htm

Similar online guides and reports are also available for educators on

Information Systems for Public Sector Management at:

http://www.man.ac.uk/idpm/educisps.htm

Feedback from teachers and trainers who use these guides would be welcome.

IDPM training opportunities in computing and information systems can be

found at: http://www.man.ac.uk/idpm/topicvue.htm#is

Richard Heeks

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Taken from The TrainingZONE LearningWIRE - Issue 52

Training Professionals Gateway

I recently came across this excellent homepages website run by Mike Collins

in Cork, Ireland. We obviously think along similar lines. He has published a

wealth of information on the site, mainly by identifying and providing links

to a large library of other resource material of interest to training

professionals across the web. It's well worth a good browse around.

http://homepage.tinet.ie/~mjcollins/

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ANNOUNCEMENTS

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Taken from The Drum Beat (20) edited by Warren Feek

'Edutainment - How to make Edutainment work for you'.

Written by Garth Japhet and published by Soul City in South Africa. This is

a step-by-step guide to designing and managing an edutainment project for

social development. This practical material draws on both the Soul City

experience and a wide range of edutainment programming from around the

world. Sections include: Building a Supportive Environment through

Partnerships; Researching the topic and target audience; Choosing

edutainment media and formats; and Evaluating your edutainment project.

Designed in a work book format. Comes with a planning "poster". Contact

Garth Japhet garthj@soulcity.org.za [Interest declaration - Warren Feek from

The Communication Initiative wrote the foreword]

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The Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) is carrying a public

consultation on CIDA's Draft Policy for Private Sector Development in

Developing Countries .The consultation will take place until June 30th 1999.

Comments can be send (in french or english) to PSDP@acdi-cida.gc.ca.

The draft policy paper is available (in html and pdf format) from CIDA's web

site http://www.acdi-cida.gc.ca/index-e.htm

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If you have an interest in IT use to improve government and governance in

Africa, then the following book will be relevant:

'Reinventing Government in the Information Age: International Practice in

IT-Enabled Public Sector Reform' (Routledge 0-415-19037-1).

Chapters identifying successful and unsuccessful management approaches are

complemented by a dozen case studies from the US, UK, mainland Europe,

Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean. Cases include the application of IT

to downsizing exercises in Ghana, Uganda and Zimbabwe; and the experience of

community development and democratisation using IT in South Africa. The book

provides an educators' guide to using the cases for individual and group

training.

Further details and order/examination copy information from:

http://www.man.ac.uk/idpm/rgia.htm

Other queries to the editor: richard.heeks@man.ac.uk

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CONTACTS

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Taken from The Drum Beat (20) edited by Warren Feek

The Health Channel - Brazil - promotes long-distance education for 2.5

million health professionals and broad access to health information for the

general population. Seeks to foster debate on policies and programs in the

fields of Health and Health-Related Science and Technology. Works through:

production and broadcasting of television programs; production of theme

videos; televised debates; televised conferences; and training courses.

Partners include the Brazilian public telecommunications company Embratel, a

range of Government [Municipal, State and Federal] Councils and

Secretariats, Universities and a network of television stations. This is a

project under the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, organized through the Committee

for Public Agencies in the Struggle Against Hunger and in Defense of Life.

Contact Angelica Silva canal@dcc001.cict.fiocruz.br

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Taken from The Drum Beat (20) edited by Warren Feek

Radio Kwizera - Tanzania - was established in 1995 by the Jesuit Refugee

Service (JRS) to offer Rwandan refugees and locals a forum to dialogue,

supply accurate objective information and promote peace and reconciliation.

After the Rwandese refugees' repatriation in 1996, JRS continued Radio

Kwizera to serve the Burundian refugee population. 40 hours of broadcasts in

Kirundi, Kiswahili, English and French. Programmes range from education

health, sanitation, childrens' issues, women and gender issues, culture, and

a tracing programme. Contact jrsng@hf.habari.co.tz

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ARTICLES

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Philippine Journal

October 30, 1998

Second Opinion

Why the Internet is a poor learning environment by Roberto Verzola

I first used the Internet more than five years ago, and thus have used it

longer than most local users. I've also been working with computers since

1979, again longer than most Filipinos have. I belabor these points so the

reader may appreciate that my opinions about computers and the Internet are

based on a long period of intimate association and study, and not due to

ignorance of the technology or fear of the unknown.

I presume, on the other hand, that many of our education and school

officials have only recently become--or are not even yet--computer-literate.

I would imagine that quite a number entertain persistent doubts about the

educational value of the Internet, but they keep these doubts to themselves

for fear of ridicule. School administrators today increasingly feel

compelled to install an Internet connection--however expensive--for their

schools to draw in new enrollees. Thus, they go along with all kinds of

incredibly expensive proposals for Internet connections and Web browsing,

most of which will only make money for computer vendors and Internet service

providers (ISPs).

Is the expense justified?

Does the Internet's educational value truly justify the expense? Would

giving our children and our youth access to the Internet, as the marketing

The government seems to think so. One of its oft-stated goals, for example,

and one that is blindly echoed by officials who think they are

computer-savvy, is to provide every school with access to the Internet.

Parents are as much a victim of the Internet hype. In their desire to give

their children the best learning opportunities and the best education, they

buy the most powerful computer on the market, with the largest memory and

harddisk they can afford, and the fastest modem available. Plus, of course,

a subscription to an ISP.

Building a good learning environment...

What, in the first place, is a good educational environment?

Let us start with the University of the Philippines, arguably one of the

best universities in the country. Let us imagine ourselves in charge of

- On the Sunken Garden, let's build a huge mall.

- In front of the School of Economics, we'll set up a year-round fair.

- Behind the College of Engineering, we'll put a row of moviehouses.

- Behind the College of Law, we'll open several nightclubs.

- By the way, we'll change the rules and allow teachers to sell things to

their students.

- We'll enrich the library collection with subscriptions to Playboy, Hustler

and similar magazines.

- Beside the chapel, we'll put a whorehouse.

You get the idea...

With these changes, are we nearer an ideal educational environment? Given

these "improvements", would you want to send your children to U.P.? .. or

destroying it? You wouldn't, obviously. We have, in fact, destroyed the

learning environment.

The Internet today is such a mixed environment. There are hundreds of

thousands of educational and learning sites, that's true. But there are

probably even more sites with all manner of attractions, distractions and

temptations for students--all within a few keypresses or mouse clicks.

Because of the Internet's increasingly advertising-driven culture, these

sites are in fact easier to find than the educational ones; their numbers

are also rising faster.

Used carefully, the Internet can be helpful for doing a number of things,

I'd acknowledge. But it is definitely a very poor environment for education

and learning because it destroys the carefully-designed school learning

process. Worse, it also exerts a powerful grip on the students' psyche--in

the same way that addictive drugs can. Today, some psychologists are already

warning against the emergence of a psychological problem which is best

described as Internet addiction--when a user begins to take the virtual

world so seriously and he begins to lose touch with--or stay away from--the

real world.

Five senses or abstract symbols?

Effective education and learning needs a controlled environment, one that is

designed by instructors, professors and education experts for maximum

transfer of knowledge. If you want exposure to the real world, you go on a

field trip. Even such field trips must be carefully planned, to optimize the

learning process.

Education also means learning to work with high-level symbols. It means

going beyond the level that is directly appreciated by our five senses, the

sensory level, and thinking in more abstract terms. The Internet, however,

is moving in the opposite direction. Increasingly advertising-driven, it is

moving away from abstract symbols, towards the purely sensory level, the

level that demands the least from its users.

From pure text, it has gradually moved towards graphics, full-color,

audio-visual, and, today, live video. They are now talking of

three-dimensional video and, beyond that, of virtual reality using tactile

suits.

Television had initially promised to become a revolutionary educational tool

that would abolish mass ignorance and raise the cultural level of the

masses. Today, we call it an "idiotbox". The Internet is today rapidly

becoming the interactive television of the 21st century. An interactive

idiotbox: is that any better?

Some suggestions

If the government wants to improve the learning environment for students, as

well as the entire population, it should consider the following options:

* Expand school and public libraries. Build more of them. Let us have a

public library in every village. Adopt an aggressive program to stock up

these libraries by reprinting the best educational books and translating

them into local languages.

* Implement a continuing skills-upgrading program for teachers. A good,

highly-motivated, well-paid teacher supported with a carefully-designed

curriculum and good books will beat the Internet hands down as far as real

learning is concerned.

* Use the government-owned Channel 4, which is freely accessible to anybody

with a TV set within its range, primarily for educational purposes. This

channel has no business airing basketball games, soap operas, sitcoms and

other inanities. Forget about cable TV, which needs a monthly subscription

and which the majority could not afford.

* Acquire all kinds of documentary videos through compulsory licensing,

including the Discovery Channel series, and air them on Channel 4. Allow

other channels to rebroadcast these materials.

* Form an experimental educational internet among schools which already have

necessary networking facilities. This educational internet will only contain

material that fit a well-thought out set of criteria for educational

materials. Such an internet will be completely separate from the commercial,

worldwide Internet.

We have today so little resources that it is absolutely necessary to use

them as wisely as possible. Surely, we do not want to squander our precious

resources on extremely expensive Internet technologies that must be replaced

every three to five years.

Worse, the Internet will draw our students away from real learning.

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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

neilshel@icon.co.za

www.saide.org.za

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