ONLINE RESOURCES
--- Depletion of Uganda's Wetlands
--- Websites and discussion forums on HIV
--- URLs associated with Creative-Radio...
--- Comprehensive page on Y2K problem in Uganda
--- Ethiopian Parliament Gets its own home Page

PRINTED AND OTHER RESOURCES
--- SAIDE Resource Centre : Selected Analytics on Adult Education and Training, Development, Distance, Open and Flexible Learning, Teacher Training, and Technology Enhanced Learning

ARTICLES
--- Third World struggles to get into the world wide web by Nicole Volpe
--- Bhutan and Fiji: The Elusive Influences of Television by Steve Talbot
--- Africa and the Internet by Kelechi Obasi

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

NEWS

-----------

Firm Markets Y2K Solution www.y2kuganda.go.ug

The Monitor (Kampala) www.africanews.com/monitor

August 18, 1999 By Julius Mucunguzi

Kampala - A Ugandan computer company, Latest Technology International

Limited (LTI) located in Kabalagala has introduced a Year 2000 solution that

will make old and new computers including 286's, 386's up to Pentiums Years

2000 (Y2K) compliant. According to the company's Chief Executive Officer

Kakembo-Ntambi, the move is aimed at saving the computers from being

rendered useless by millenium date changes.

Kakembo, in an August 11 press release said that LTI "offers the Millenium

BIOS Board (MBB) that sits inside a computer and permanently corrects the

Y2K roll-over dates." "The MBB is designed by Fernlink 2000, and costs $130

per computer," Kakembo said.

He said that the MBB is desirable because of its ability to work without a

hard disk and being virus proof. He said that the MBB is also independent of

Operating Systems(OS) reasoning that it installs itself before the OS is

loaded and that it can't be deleted like software fixes. LTI was registered

by the Uganda National Y2K task Force as a Y2K Solutions Provider.

Kakembo said that the MBB works immediately the computer is switched on by

installing an extension to the BIOS that allows the system to correctly

roll- over at mid night on December 31, 1999.

"As long as it is still installed, the MBB checks the crucial clocks and

makes sure the date is correct."

ANNOUNCEMENTS/REQUESTS

-----------

Latest Update

Currently we have participants from New Zealand, America, South Africa and

Australia.

Learn-IT World Conference: Indigenous Perspectives of Learning Online

September 10th - September 16th 1999

Hosted by: School of Education, James Cook University, Australia. Sponsored

by: Telstra Australia.

Four topics will be available through a WebBoard discussion forum that

allows for synchronous and asynchronous discussion. We will post one paper

in each topic area contributed by the following key speakers to act as a

stimulus for discussion.

Topic 1:Indigenous Perceptions of Learning Online (Adrian Miller, Macquarie

University, and John Page, Open Learning Australia)

Topic 2:Pedagogical Implications of Indigenous Online Learning (negotiating

with First Nation peoples in USA)

Topic 3:The Nuts and Bolts of Learning with the Internet in Indigenous

Contexts (Nola Campbell, Waikato University)

Topic 4:Indigenous Students Learning Online: An Empowerment Tool? (Cathryn

McConaghy)

The WebBoard Conference Discussion site will be made available 3rd September

along with the LearnIT Web site.

We look forward to your participation at the conference.

ONLINE RESOURCES

-----------

This is to inform you that NAMILYANGO COLLEGE has been carrying out a

research on "DEPLETION OF UGANDA'S WETLANDS". For details, visit our

----------------------------------------

Below are some websites and discussion forums where you can obtain a wide

range of info on HIV:

1. af-aids@hivnet.ch (add the word'join' to the subject line) The discussion

is usually around social/political issues related to HIV.

- This is a directory of HIV/AIDS web

sites re South Africa

URLs associated with Creative-Radio...

----------------------------------------

----------------------------------------

The Ethiopian Parliament Gets its own home Page (www.ethiopar.net)

The home page gives access to information regarding the structures, powers

and functions of the two Houses, i.e. The House of Peoples' Representatives

and The House of the Federation and their respective committees. Also

provides informartion regarding the joint session of the Parliament and the

legislative process in the House of Peoples' Representatives.

All draft bills presented to and bills adopted will also be exhibited for

public consumption.

Further more, you will have access to the list of members of the Houses,

Committees, rules of procedures of both Houses and their Committees and

other relevant information. and the day to day schedules of various

activities of the two Houses. It also provides you with information about

the day's agenda, minutes of the parliamentary sessions, news and press

releases.

PRINTED AND OTHER RESOURCES

-----------

SAIDE Resource Centre : Selected Analytics - www.saide.org.za

All of these - and other - resources are available at SAIDE's resource

centre (open weekdays from 8.30 - 16.30). Contact Thenji Mlabatheki at 011

403-2813 for visiting details.

---

Adult Education and Training

---

Access to Vocational Guidance for People at Risk of Social Exclusion by

Pamela M Clayton. Glasgow : University of Glasgow, 1999.

Social exclusion is a problem of which the main victims are the socially

excluded themselves. The main result of social exclusion is poverty, and a

major cause of poverty is disadvantage on the labour market. The groups the

authors focus on are people living in rural areas or in areas of

deprivation; people with physical, psychological or learning disabilities;

those whose employment status is insecure and/or who are in low-paid

unskilled jobs, with a particular focus on women; homeless people;

ex-offenders; ethnic minorities, migrants, refugees, asylum-seekers and

travellers; older workers; and the long-term unemployed. All these groups

might benefit from adult vocational information, advice or guidance, whether

the outcomes are education/training, employment or a restoration of

confidence and self-esteem. There is however, a paucity of such guidance in

the countries surveyed. Even where good guidance services exist, there are

often access problems: those who could most benefit from the service are

least likely to use it. Nevertheless there are guidance agencies which

exemplify good practice and creative ideas in enhancing access to their

services. The authors present 44 case studies of such services.

---

Development

---

The Development of Capacity by Allan Kaplan. Switzerland : United Nations

Non-Governmental Liaison Service, 1999.

In this booklet the author presents a critique of current development

practice and a vision of development and capacity building "as it should

be". Drawing upon his practical experience in the field of organizational

development, and on the insights provided by the "new sciences", the text

challenges development practitioners, whether they be NGOs, the multilateral

system or bilateral donors, to deeply rethink their development practice and

to consciously build a shared, new paradigm which opens up opportunities for

new forms of development relationships and, in particular, approaches to

building organizational capacity.

---

Distance, Open and Flexible Learning

---

CAPE - A Community of Agile Partners in Education by Galen C.Godby and

Gerald Richter. In: Open Learning Today, Issue 49 May/June 1999.

The goal of CAPE is to find new ways to expand intellectual resources

through technology and to develop strategies to increase the competitive

edge of small and medium sized institutions through cooperation and resource

sharing. This goal brings with it many messages that seem highly appropriate

for all involved with open and flexible learning in the UK whether it is

with partnerships and resource sharing or through networked learning centres

and learning consortia. The messages from CAPE can apply to small learning

centres operating within large organizations as well as to larger

institutions. In the first of a two part article, the authors introduce the

concept of agility in education and training and their first steps towards

using technology to drive this concept forward.

---

Convergence of Distance and Conventional Education: Patterns of Flexibility

for the Individual Learner: Collected Conference Papers, September 1997

edited by Alan Tait. Cambridge : Open University.

The topic of the conference "Convergence" refers to the breaking down of the

barriers between open and distance learning, which has worked separately to

a considerable extent in the UK as well as elsewhere from so-called

conventional education. However two main streams of development have come to

challenge this: firstly the increasing use of distance education methods to

accompany conventional methods, known in Australia as the dual-mode model

but increasingly becoming a multi-mode model (i.e. the availability of the

same course from a menu of conventional/distance, part and full-time,

independent and supported modes), along with the revolution in teaching and

learning being driven by the new technologies throughout all education.

These developments mean that the old separation between distance and

conventional education is no longer visible so sharply, if at all, in a

number of institutions.

---

Performance Indicators and University Distance Education Providers by Doug

Shale and Jean Gomes. In: Journal of Distance Education, vol.13, no.1,

Spring 1998. Higher education systems throughout the world are coming under

increasing public and governmental scrutiny with respect to what they do,

how well they do it, and at what cost. Distance education has always been

especially accountable because it has generally been viewed as outside the

mainstream of university education. However, identifying performance

measures is even more problematic for distance education than for

conventional education. This is due partly to the many different forms

distance education can take and partly to the unique processes used for

organizing and delivering education at a distance. Many of the metrics used

for measuring traditional education do not transfer well to distance

education practices. The experiences of two university distance education

providers involved in system-wide performance measurement are used to

illustrate this claim and to serve as a vehicle for reviewing major

measurement issues faced by distance education. The authors include a

discussion of the kinds of indicators they think would be more appropriate

and effective.

Teacher Training

---

Getting Learning Right: Report of the President's Education Initiative

Research Project edited by Nick Taylor and Penny Vinjevold. Johannesburg :

JET, 1999.

This research was commissioned by the Teacher Development Centre on behalf

of the Department of Education, under the auspices of the President's

Education Initiative. The purpose was to provide a scientific basis for the

future planning and delivery of educator development and support programmes.

The research findings are informative, and will help to construct an agenda

for the future. Coupled with other related initiatives of the Teacher

Development Centre, specifically the investigation into the content and

delivery mechanisms of current educator development and support programmes,

the research report provides a body of knowledge which will serve as a

useful basis for the development of policy on teachers.

---

Technology Enhanced Learning

---

WWW-based Environments for Collaborative Group Work by Betty Collis. In:

Education and Information Technologies. Vol.3, no.3/4 Dec 1998.

Since 1994, the author has been involved in the design and use of a series

of WWW-based environments to support collaborative group work for students

in a technical university in The Netherlands. These environments, and the

course re-design that accompanies each new environment, began in April 1994

and continue to the present (March 1998). What are the major issues emerging

from this stream of experiences? What are the major lessons that have been

learned about the design and deployment of WWW-based environments to support

collaborative lerning in project groups in higher education? How has HCI

(human-computer interaction) research informed the author's work? These

questions will be addressed in this paper. One conclusion is that HCI

reserch needs to become more focused on supporting HHD (human-human

dialogue) than on human-computer interaction in order to better support

collaborative learning in higher education.

---

Design of learner centred tools for continuous training in SMEs by Paola

Forcheri, Maria Teresa Molfino and Alfonso Quarati. In: Education and

Information Technologies. Vol.3, no.3/4 Dec 1998.

Multimedia and networked educational tools may provide an effective answer

to the training needs of small-medium (SMEs). In accordance with this idea,

the authors are developing a project which focuses on the use of educational

technology for continuous training in informatics and its applications in

office automation. The target is women employed in SMEs. The attitude of the

target towards innovation makes the design of effective tools a particularly

delicate problem; thus, careful design of the interface is particularly

important to make these kinds of tools productive. A series of interviews

were carried out with employees, aimed at deriving a core of common needs

and difficulties. The results of the interviews have been used to build a

learner centred interface based on experimental pedagogical assumptions.

---

Design for a hypermedia-based learning environment by Ossi Nykanen and

Martti Ala-Rantala. In: Education and Information Technologies. Vol.3,

no.3/4 Dec 1998.

This paper presents ideas and a design for a Hypermedia based Learning

Environment (HBLE). As the system is in the implementation phase, the

authors are able to present some implementation techniques, problems and

solutions. HBLE offers tools and methods for course development, teaching,

maintenance, and different learner-centred study strategies. The system also

has information acquisition functionality for research purposes. The authors

study structuring the learning material and how to adapt it for individual

students. As collaboration is an important aspect of the learning process,

the system also includes tools and research instruments for collaborative

activities between the actors in the learning process. The concrete outcomes

of the project are a platform for Web-based courses and experimental

courseware.

ARTICLES

-----------

Third World struggles to get into the world wide web

Nicole Volpe

NEW YORK 17 AUGUST

IN theory, the Internet's ability to bypass borders and inter-weave world

cultures was going to shrink the globe.

In reality, Third World countries, faced with poverty, illiteracy, politics

and lack of adequate communication infrastructure are having to show

remarkable dexterity to eke out a place on the Internet. The hard, and

perhaps unsurprising, truth is that despite some amazing end-runs by poorer

countries, experts say the gap between plugged-in and shut-out is widening

every bit as fast as the gap between rich and poor.

With only two per cent of the global population on line, according to United

Nations figures, the Internet in 1999 is still more of a golden thread

connecting the most privileged global classes than a true World Wide Web.

"You'll find people in developing countries doing incredible things with

their fingernails, scratching out access," said Raul Zambrano, information

technology specialist for the UN development project. "But while this is

wonderful, the gap between the haves and have-nots is widening."

The efforts by Third World countries, however, go largely unnoticed. Most

analysts who cover technology in the United States do not cover places like

Goma, a city in the Democratic Republic of Congo that relies on Uganda for

its link to the Net.

Nor do many watch Haiti, the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere, a

country that has less than one phone line for every 100 people. Electricity

is only available in urban areas, and then for only a couple of hours per

day. The average per capita income is $250 per year.

Yet the first site to be entirely written in Haitian Creole came online

earlier this month, built in an office in downtown Port-au-Prince that has

had to turn to solar power to fuel its operations. "We have to use solar

power and batteries and generators because there is no electricity most of

little creative."

The site features discussion groups, Voodoo links and surveys Although the

site is in Creole, it can be switched to English. New York-based

Orientation.com is trying to form a network of such Web sites for

underserved nations, on the view that eventually, profits will come from

even these markets.

"Eventually, the Internet is going to become more important in these

countries, and it is an advantage to be one of the first ones to be

involved," said Phil Ingram, international marketing manager for

Orientation.com.

Having Web sites on the Internet is only half the battle. The real challenge

is to provide access nationally in a country with very little

infrastructure, said Mr Talleyrand. "The telephone company here in Haiti

sees Internet service providers as competition," he said. "They keep cutting

their phone lines," he added.

Some Haitians are now using wireless connections and radio modems to connect

to the service providers, also known as ISPs.

"It's amazing, the things they do down there is like something out of

MacGyver," said Mr Ingram, referring to an American television show about an

Bhutan and Fiji: The Elusive Influences of Television

by Steve Talbot

At the beginning of June the tiny Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan officially

introduced television. The programming began with broadcast of the

celebration surrounding the twenty-fifth anniversary of the king's coronation.

Bhutan has long defended its culture against outside influence. For example,

a tourist tax limited the number of tourists last year to six thousand. With

an overall population of seven hundred thousand, Bhutan has only nine

thousand phone lines. It has no traffic lights. It is, the *Boston Globe*

says, "a place with negligible crime, no lawyers, and five thousand

underemployed soldiers".

According to the first Bhutanese news anchor, the country is "trying to take

the best from the West and also the cream of Bhutan culture - the middle

path". Despite worries about the severity of television's challenge, many

people are optimistic. In a local governor's words, "we are so deeply rooted

in our culture and religion that I think what is bad or good can easily be

seen by any humble person". And a farmer remarks that it would be good to

have this television. People should have a positive attitude to whatever

they see. Forget what's bad and just take the good. Even if someone doesn't

know how to steal and sees it on television, that doesn't mean they will

pick up that habit.

True enough, and important to keep in mind. But television and the

associated communication infrastructure take their place within a whole

pattern of societal development, and they tend to nudge this pattern in

certain directions. The question, then, is whether this overall shift

contributes to the various forms of social breakdown that lead to

stealing -- and whether there's any effective way to work against such a

development.

Meanwhile, a widely reported study by researchers at the Harvard Medical

School documents some changes in Fiji associated with the 1995 introduction

of television. These changes have to do with young women's eating habits and

ideals of beauty.

It is traditional in Fiji to compliment someone by saying "you've gained

weight". As a *New York Times* story puts it: "Skinny legs" is a major

insult. And "going thin", the Fijian term for losing a noticeable amount of

weight, is considered a worrisome condition.

But in just the three years from 1995 to 1998, according to the Harvard

study, the number of secondary school girls reporting that they had induced

vomiting to control weight rose from three percent to twenty-nine percent.

In a country where dieting was hardly known and calories were a foreign

concept, it now appears that more teenage girls go on diets than in America.

"Young girls", writes the *Times* reporter, Erica Goode, "dream of looking

not like their mothers and aunts, but like the wasp-waisted stars of

`Melrose Place' and `Beverly Hills 90210'".

One girl said that her friends "change their mood, their hairstyles, so that

they can be like those characters". "So in order to be like them, I have to

work on myself, exercising, and my eating habits should change."

In a comment the Bhutanese might want to reflect upon, one of the Harvard

researchers remembered that "What we noticed in 1995 is that people had a

sort of curiosity, but it was a dismissive curiosity, like watching

something that seemed ridiculous. But over the years they have come to

accept it as a form of entertainment. Our pervasive forms of entertainment

change the picture, the overall cultural pattern, of our lives. It could

hardly be otherwise.

(Bhutan news report from *Boston Globe Online*, June 3, 1999. Fiji report

from *New York Times*, May 20, 1999.)

By Kelechi Obasi

Lagos (The News, August 23, 1999) - Many countries are still not catching up

with the many benefits of the internet. Africa and other developing

countries are holding the short end of the stick in the race toward the new

age technology that abounds on the information super highway.

Third world nations, that have been bedevilled by poverty, illiteracy,

political instability and inadequate telephone services are disproving the

theory that the internet would make the world a global village, and in spite

of the spurts and bursts of technological know-how in some of these

countries, experts on the industry have likened the gap between and those

hooked onto the worldwide web to the ever growing gap between the rich and

the poor. According to the United Nations only two per cent of the global

population is plugged in, thereby making the internet an exclusive club of

the privileged global classes. In Nigeria, out of a population of over 100

million there are only about 1,000 internet subscribers. In all Africa there

are only about 1.5 million users online, based on a report by Freedom Forum.

Kola Owolabi, a Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP), blamed the

negligible presence of Africa on the worldwide web on governments all over

the continent. "When the leadership places little emphasis on communication,

there is no way people can get access to information. There are no

sufficient telephone lines, and power supply is epileptic, the socio-

economic factors are not even favourable, so how can people earning a

minimum wage of N3,000 afford to plug onto the internet? The government has

put the cost of communication at a premium, thereby making it a status

symbol, so much that it is seen as being a prerogative of the rich," he

said. In Africa, there are just about 14 million telephone lines.In spite of

these shortcomings, the so-called third world countries are making something

out of not very much. According to Raul Zambrano, Information Technology

Specialist for the U.N. Development Project, "you'll find people in

developing countries doing incredible things with their fingernails,

scratching out access." In Haiti, the poorest nation in the western

hemisphere, where the average per capital income is $250 a year, the first

site to be written in Haitian Creole came online just this month. However,

having web sites on the internet is not the issue, the real battle for most

developing parts of the world, is to provide access nationally in countries

with either non-existent or deplorably inefficient infrastructure (ISP) in

many of these countries and they are faced with bitter rivalry from either

the major telephone company, or have to contend with a populace that has

more on its mind than the internet. Those who are hell-bent on jumping on

the information superhighway have devised ingenious means to beat stifling

communications regulations in their environments. Some Haitians now use

wireless connections and radio modems to hook onto the ISP. In Goma, a city

in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and in Nigeria people send E-mails

through personal computers and high frequency radio modems. While in Goma,

users access the internet through Bushnet, an ISP based in Uganda. In

Nigeria, users log on to the worldwide web, through Hyperia.

The advantages of using the internet are legion and range from domestic to

political and national interest. In Nigeria, two presidency contenders

launched campaign web site before elections. In Singapore, the internet is

to be put to use for the 2000 census. In 1989, the internet played a

prominent role when it was used by pro-democracy students in Beijing, China,

and in preventing a putsch against Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev in 1991,

although in many countries such as Syria, China, Singapore and Saudi Arabia

restrictions are still placed on its use and access. Many have argued

however, on the need for the internet culture in Africa and other

underdeveloped nations, when there is so much widespread impoverishment,

bad roads, and poor infrastructure and public utilities. But representatives

of many internet websites say they are trying to form a network of many

websites for developing countries, with a view to linking them up and also

to make some profit. "Eventually, the internet is going to become more

important in these countries, and it is an advantage to be one of the first

ones to be involved," they believe.

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

***************************
 ***Back to Contents***
For Browsers that don't support frames:
BACK to TAD archive index