Monthly Archives: July 2009

Mapping the Arabic Blogosphere: Politics, Culture and Dissent

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The Arabic BlogosphereThe Berkman Center for Internet and Society has released the most recent of its landmark studies mapping the ideology of the global blogosphere with the study Mapping the Arabic Blogosphere: Politics, Culture, and Dissent.

This case study is part of a series of studies produced by the Internet & Democracy project. The project’s initial case studies investigated three frequently cited examples of the Internet’s influence on democracy. The first case looked at the user-generated news site OhmyNews and its impact on the 2002 elections in South Korea. The second documented the role of technology in Ukraine’s Orange Revolution. The third analyzed the network composition and content of the Iranian blogosphere. Fall 2008 saw the release of a new series of case studies, which broadened the scope of our research and examined some less well-known parts of the research landscape. In a pair of studies, we reviewed the role of networked technologies in the 2007 civic crises of Burma’s Saffron Revolution and Kenya’s post-election turmoil. In April 2009, Urs Gasser’s three-part case study examined the role of technology in Switzerland’s semi-direct democracy. This case expands on our study of foreign blogospheres with an analysis of the Arabic language blogosphere.

A summary of the report can be found at this link.
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When Computers Leave Classrooms, So Does Boredom

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There is something of a backlash against the use of technology in the classroom, and this article,  “When Computers Leave Classrooms, So Does Boredom,” from The  Chronicle of Higher Education is one example of it.

College leaders usually brag about their tech-filled “smart” classrooms, but a dean at Southern Methodist University is proudly removing computers from lecture halls. José A. Bowen, dean of the Meadows School of the Arts, has challenged his colleagues to “teach naked” — by which he means, sans machines.
More than anything else, Mr. Bowen wants to discourage professors from using PowerPoint, because they often lean on the slide-display program as a crutch rather than using it as a creative tool. Class time should be reserved for discussion, he contends, especially now that students can download lectures online and find libraries of information on the Web. When students reflect on their college years later in life, they’re going to remember challenging debates and talks with their professors. Lively interactions are what teaching is all about, he says, but those give-and-takes are discouraged by preset collections of slides.

Bowen makes good points.  It is an interesting article with a fair amount of food for thought.  For example, it is interesting, though not surprising, that in a study published in the April Issue of British Educational Research, students gave low marks to computer-assisted classroom learning activities.  Nor does it surprise me that,

“The least boring teaching methods were found to be seminars, practical sessions, and group discussions,” said the report. In other words, tech-free classrooms were the most engaging.

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The second thing to remember is that technology for technology’s sake is never the end, so  technology should never be used for its own sake.  Unless technology is the subject of the course such as it might be in a course on new media or something of that nature, then it is a tool and should attract no more attention than the chalk board.   It should serve an end.
The one thing to always keep in mind is to put pedagogy first.  Before making use of any technology or tool from a DVD player to a complex video simulation, ask yourself what it will teach students and if the technology is the most effective way to do it..  You use a specific tool for a specific purpose, so that is the rule to love by.  One should never teach with blogs just to be teaching with them or with any technology simply for purposes of teaching with that technology, but rather for purposes of teaching, full stop.
Anyway, the expderiment at SMU is an interesting one.  Read the full article to check it out.

Ugh!

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So Republican Congressman Jim DeMint from South Carolina said this in a conference call with 104 people from the group “Conservatives for Patient’s rights .”

this health care issue Is D-Day for freedom in America. If we’re able to stop Obama on this it will be his Waterloo. It will break him,” he said.

The group and others like it are attempting to stall debate and congressional voting on health care reform until after the August recess when the will on Congressional representatives is likely to be shaken by conflicting voices from constituents.
Obama responded as follows:
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This isn’t about me. This isn’t about politics. This about a health care system that is breaking America’s families, breaking America’s businesses and breaking America’s economy. And we can’t afford the politics of delay and defeat when it comes to health care. Not this time, not now. There are too many lives and livelihoods at stake.

I am with the President on this. Every day we fail to act more of the uninsured or under-insured suffer without care or go into debt paying for it. Every day more is wasted on unnecessary tests and procedures. Every day insurance companies fatten themselves off of our illness. And it is insurance companies that ration health care.
We should not stall action on this. Republicans, Democrats and those representing any other party should get around the table, negotiate and get to work.

Donkey Suits, Online Satire and Censorship in Azerbaijan

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Late last month, a group of Azeri bloggers posted their latest tongue-in-cheek opus, a video in which a donkey holds a news conference before a circle of gravely nodding journalists.  Last week in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, two of those bloggers, Mr. Hajizada, 26, and his fellow activist Emin Milli, 30, were arrested, the New York Times reports.

In Azerbaijan, as elsewhere in the region, Internet use has risen as press freedoms have dwindled. With the Azeri government buoyed by sky-high oil prices in recent years, opposition voices have all but disappeared from public life. It also has order viagra no prescription a pattern in the drug market. And cialis prices in australia made that pleasure affordable for more people. It all depends on the health conditions of the people and thus you can order whatever you desire, but it must be accurate according to your body need. viagra prescription free The victim purchase viagra of PTSD may have experienced or seen an event that induced extreme fear, shock and/or a feeling of helplessness or hopelessness. Television, once financed by competing oligarchs, has come under solid government control, and advertisers have pulled back from newspapers critical of the government. Web sites — especially those registered on foreign servers, which cannot be blocked by the government — became “the last source of information,” said Magerram Zeynalov, 27, a former newspaper reporter.

The arrests are believed to be a signal that the government is cracking down on the this outlet, as well.

Wired Campus: College Libraries Team Up With Their Local Counterparts – Chronicle.com

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Even though it’s the big colleges that typically have the largest budgets and facilities, several universities are teaming up with their local public libraries to bring better service to patrons. At the American Library Association’s annual conference this week, a session titled “Our Town, Common Ground” highlighted some of those partnerships.
According to Library Journal, Cameron University, in Lawton, Okla. calls its local public library “The Little Library That Could.” Faculty members from the university present research at the library, and since both institutions have seen their budgets shrink in recent years, they share grant funds.

via Wired Campus: College Libraries Team Up With Their Local Counterparts – Chronicle.com.

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An informed citizenry is essential to the proper functioning of a democracy, but in our society there are not many opportunities for citizens to continue gain or continue learning outside of a formal education.  In a small way, initiatives like this provides one.

A Good Article on Liz Cheney and Her Criticism of Obama on Foreign Policy

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Well this is comforting.  In my RSS feed from The Guardian I found this article by Matthew Harwood analyzing another article by Liz Cheney, daughter of the former Vice-President, criticizing recent speeches made by President Obama on US relations with the rest of the world.  Apparently Cheney has declared herself open to running for political office and it appears her philosophies are very close to those of her father.
So to the extent that familiarity is comforting and better the devil you know than the devil you don’t, we’ll have the possibility of a continuing dynasty including both the Bush girls AND the Cheneys!  Well, at least it will be progress in that the heirs to the dynasty will be women.
Cheney sees the view in simple us v. them terms, just like her father.  Harwood explains,

Her argument is as simplistic as it is ridiculous: Obama doesn’t spread the myth of American exceptionalism and thus engages in historical revisionism, which emboldens our enemies and hurts America. A high-level official in the Bush state department and a ferocious defender of her father’s legacy, Cheney sees Obama’s recent speeches in Trinidad and Tobago, Cairo and Moscow as either “an attempt to push ‘reset’ – or maybe to curry favour” with our enemies.
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According to Cheney, Obama should tell our adversaries:
“America was an unmatched force for good in the world during the cold war. The Soviets were not. The cold war ended not because the Soviets decided it should but because they were no match for the forces of freedom and the commitment of free nations to defend liberty and defeat communism.”

I won’t go on.  Harwood’s article is the thing to read.  It’s good.

International Bac chooses Epals

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International Baccalaureate has selected ePals, Inc., to implement and manage a customized hosted learning community for it’s students, teachers and other community members including administration and alumni. The International Baccalaureate is a nonprofit educational foundation with programs for students aged 3 to 19 that can be found in 2,704 schools in 138 countries. Programs aim to

help develop the intellectual, personal, emotional and social skills to live, learn and work in a rapidly globalizing world.

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Muslim and Christian Coalition to Expand Broadband Access

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The Islamic Society of North America, the National Council of Churches, the US Catholic Conference of Bishops, the United Methodists, the Presbyterian Church (PCUSA), the Lutheran (ELCA) have all joined an effort spearheaded by the United Church of Christ

to bring broadband to everyone in the US so that “our poorest communities, our rural areas, our public libraries, our public schools, and community centers” benefit from the communications revolution that the Internet hath wrought.

Known as Bringing Betty Broadband, the initiative is part of a media reform initiative called “So We Might See,”

an ecumenical, interfaith coalition that educates and advocates for media justice, both within and beyond communities of faith.

For the participants in the initiative, bringing broadband to all is a moral imperative, since the lack of access disenfranchises many and thus perpetrates and injustice.
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It’s about the “right to disseminate and receive information,” it’s a “right that helps to define ourselves as human beings and political actors,” and it’s absolutely essential for everyone in a modern society.

The So We Might See campaign has other initiatives as well. One that the Ars Technical article signals out is the Spare Kids the Ads campaign. It’s web page is the source of the image here as well as the nativity scene image in the Ars Technica article.
”

Muslim Students at a Baptist College

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I have a Google alert set up to bring me news with the keywords “Islam, education and technology.” It has, occasionally, brought me some interesting articles on the use of technology to teach American students about Islam and the Islamic world. Today the automatically generated message brought me a piece from Christianity Today: A Magazine of Evangelical Conviction bearing the title “Where Jerusalem and Mecca Meet.”
It is an article about Muslim students at Houston Baptist University, so Jerusalem in the title represents Christianity and Mecca, Islam. Never mind that Jerusalem is a deeply sacred city in the eyes of Muslims as well, not to mention Jews, or that Jerusalem has a Muslim population. In this kind of periodical, the titles are more often than not provided by editors, not the writers, so I won’t rush to blame the Gregg Chenoweth and Caleb Benoit.
It’s an odd article, though. And it is about an odd situation. But it makes an interesting read.

President Robert Sloan, the man whose ambitious plan to turn Baylor University into a premiere Christian research institution polarized the Waco campus in 2005, has brought a similar faith-and-learning vision to HBU—one that has room for Muslim students. “It keeps us from being too insular,” says Sloan, president since August 2006. “It also gives us an opportunity to learn how to witness right here, from experience.”
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A Good Month for Twitter

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Here’s a great collection of posting about Twitter. In part because of the role it played in the crisis in Iran, it is suddenly being talked about everywhere. The Social Networking Weblog has consolidated a lot of the coverage in one posting. mouthsofthesouth.com side effects viagra Kamagra Oral Jelly is one of these well-known treatments that are used when dealing with male impotency. Online stores levitra prices mouthsofthesouth.com which sell forzest are very secure resources for buying these pills at very inexpensive and cheap prices. Always remember that this condition is unavoidable and it is up to the patients to continue with intercourse as long vardenafil cost as they want. I can’t even inform you the number of people I hear from due to this very concern. generic viagra store The most interesting perspective is Iran: Just What Twitter Needed?
Of course what all this coverage of Twitter and other social networking sites is neglecting is the large number of Farsi/Persian social networking sites. But that is for another post.