Can pupils respect 'teacher on wheels'?

Rory Cellan-Jones checks out a new kind of robot that developers say will help teachers educate from a distance.

On show at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this year was a simple type of robot designed to allow teachers to educate from long-distance, harnessing wireless technology.
The 'Skype-enabled' telepresence robot, designed to work with most major tablets, is called MantaroBot and is made by TeleMe.
The BBC's Rory Cellan-Jones watched a demonstration by Ronda Zelezny-Green, who teaches at Royal Holloway, University College of London, and Andrew Parker, a director of Connected Experiences at the GSMA, the body which runs Mobile World Congress.

Watch the video at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-21592189

Educational Leadership Administration Doctorate

Find educational leadership administration doctorate programs. This page provides information on what is studied and where you can study such programs online.

These PhD programs (and variants such as an educational management and administration PhD programs) are designed to enhance your expertise and career potential in school and college administration.

Read more at:  http://onlineanddistancelearning.com/educational-leadership-administration-doctorate

Social media In Indian Pharma & Healthcare

'Social Media In Indian Pharma' is an awareness video covering local and global insights on how the pharmaceutical industry in India can use emerging media and technology. This video is the 1st in the series of 4 videos that will cover newer trends in terms of technology, social media, and the overall paradigm shift happening within the pharma industry.



Read more at: ICT for Education and Development

Connecting African universities to the world

The impact of the growth of fibre-optic infrastructure for universities in Africa that UbuntuNet catalyzed cannot be overstated, Song says. “It means you can be a world-class researcher and remain at an African university, and that really changes the state of play for African universities.”
Today, the majority of academics in southern and eastern Africa are moving toward enjoying the same Internet access as colleagues on other continents. They connect with the world through UbuntuNet routers in London and Amsterdam. A regional network will soon be completed that allows African universities to communicate directly with each other without being routed through Europe. -

See more at: http://www.idrc.ca/EN/Themes/Information_and_Communication/Pages/ArticleDetails.aspx?PublicationID=1116

Policy guidelines for the development and promotion of open access

UNESCO issued this publication to demystify the concept of Open Access (OA) and to provide concrete steps on putting relevant policies in place. Building capacities in Member States for Open Access is a necessary but not sufficient condition for promotion of the concept. Creating an enabling policy environment for OA is therefore a priority.
This publication will serve the needs of OA policy development at the government, institutional and funding agency level. The overall objective of thePolicy Guidelines is to promote Open Access in Member States by facilitating understanding of all relevant issues related to Open Access.
The guidelines are not prescriptive in nature, but are suggestive to facilitate knowledge-based decision-making to adopt OA policies and strengthen national research systems.

More details at: http://www.unesco.org/new/en/communication-and-information/resources/publications-and-communication-materials/publications/full-list/policy-guidelines-for-the-development-and-promotion-of-open-access/

Broadband access can help bridge educational divides, empower students

Broadband connectivity has the potential to transform education by giving teachers and students access to learning resources and technologies that will allow them to improve their skills in the context of a globalized economy, according to a United Nations report released today.
The report, Technology, Broadband and Education: Advancing the Education for All Agenda, argues that access to high-speed technologies over fixed and mobile platforms can help students acquire the digital skills required to participate in the global economy and contribute to ensure their employability once they finish their studies.

Read more at: http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=44220
 

Kenyan Boy's Invention Scares Off Lions

Lions are a constant threat to farmers around Nairobi National Park in Kenya. Cattle were their preferred late-night snack. Turere, 11 years old at the time, was charged with protecting his family’s cows, sheep and goats. He noticed that the lions stayed away when he moved around at night with a flashlight, CNN’s Teo Kermeliotis reported.
A few weeks later Turere came up with a low-cost solution that came to be known as “Lion Lights.” He attached LEDs to poles around the animals’ area and faced them outward. Turere programmed the lights to flicker intermittently, resembling a human with a flashlight. He hooked them to a switch box and powered them with a solar panel and an old car battery.

Read more at: ICT for Education and Development

Crowdsourcing ideas to co-create a smarter future

In preparation for the February 28 ICT Solutions Day, the World Bank ICT team is piloting a crowdsourcing initiative to develop innovative ICT-enabled solutions for client countries. Thanks to innovations in information and communication technologies (ICT), individuals around the world can now be active participants in the value creation process, and co-creators of smarter solutions to a range of development challenges. Co-creation means developing a product or service guided by the feedback received from a community, including end-users.

More details at: http://blogs.worldbank.org/ic4d/crowdsourcing-ideas-to-co-create-a-smarter-future

How to Learn Online and Succeed at College

How to learn online? Find out how online learning is different to classroom learning, and how you can learn more effectively.

Read more at: http://onlineanddistancelearning.com/how-to-learn-online

The Role of Crowdsourcing for Better Governance in Fragile State Contexts

This paper is meant to serve as a primer on crowdsourcing as an informational resource for development, crisis response, and post-conflict recovery, with a specific focus on governance in fragile states. Inherent in the theoretical approach is that broader, unencumbered participation in governance is an objectively positive and democratic aim, and that governments’ accountability to its citizens can be increased and poor-performance corrected, through openness and empowerment of citizens.

Read more at: http://www.scribd.com/doc/75642401/The-Role-of-Crowdsourcing-for-Better-Governance-in-Fragile-State-Contexts ;

Mobile on the move - Mobile learning publication

A showcase of IICD's mobile projects in economic development, education and health in Africa and Latin America and some of the lessons learned.

Mobile phone usage is exploding in developing countries. Africa alone had more than 500 million mobile telephone subscribers in 2011. Mobile learning or ‘m-learning’ services therefore play a growing role in IICD’s education, health and economic development programmes. This publication shows some examples of the projects with a mobile component that IICD supports.

 More details at: http://www.iicd.org/about/publications/mobile-on-the-move-mobile-learning-publication/

MPrep: Making education mobile for the world

Though Kenya has emerged as a regional powerhouse for mobile innovation, many of its future visionaries remain burdened by the structural challenges—overcrowding, underfunding, and lack of access—facing the 9 million Kenyan children in primary school.
The problem is especially daunting in rural areas, where more than two out of three current students will fail their classes, including 80 percent of girls.
In response, MPrep founder Toni Maraviglia designed the app to make it possible for teachers to deliver quality, one-on-one attention to students, and to monitor their performance in detail, even remotely—all just a text message away in a country with widespread mobile access.

Read more: ICT for Education and Development

About Online Learning: A Resource for Teachers and Students

Find out more about online learning or elearning - using audio and video-conferencing, email, chat, and completing an online degree or certificate by distance.

Teachers can find out more about how ICT is changing classroom education and the social media tools that are facilitating so many of the changes.  Students can find tips for learning online, and obtain help in finding a suitable distance learning online program or a school that offers the program they want.

Read more at:  http://onlineanddistancelearning.com/about-online-learning

OER Web Sites

Find out more about the content available on OER websites.

Any list of web sites is bound to be out of date as soon as it is published. However, for people just starting to explore OER, here is one list of important websites, adapted from a published list courtesy of the author and publisher ...

Read more at: http://onlineanddistancelearning.com/oer-websites

World Radio Day Reflections - affordable ICTs solutions make radio more relevant

The just concluded Word Radio Day saw KenTel undertake a series of trainings on practical interventions for radio mainly looking at selected Free Open Source Software’s and Social Media.
Here is a recap of the presentations; since many of the community radios or community centres/telecentres do not enjoy the benefits of broadband internet connectivity we narrowed down to options that would need limited or no access to internet to implement. KenTel is happy to note that its capacity to train and moderate sessions on Social Media was developed by The Technical Centre for Agriculture and Rural Cooperation (CTA), through the various new media trainings that CTA has been undertaking in various countries across the ACP countries. We also wish to acknowledge the training from UNITAR.

Read more at: ICT for Education and Development

Assumptions about Autism are Detrimental to All Involved

By Danica C. (originally posted at My Corner of the Pond)
Something that has been bothering me for a while is someone who visited my family a while backand spent maybe an hour or two. This person told another friend my daughter was not on spectrum. Now this person has never up till that day spent time with my daughter. As far as I know she knows nothing of kids on the high end of the spectrum. Every individual with Autism is unique. No two diagnoses are the same. Just like each person has a different personality, each person has a different level of Autism. Yet she is an expert and is now telling others that I am making up my daughters autism?
 

See it on Scoop.it, via ICT for Education and Development

How ICT tools are improving efficiency of agricultural development

Data collection and monitoring and evaluation through mobile apps is fast taking over traditional methods of collecting and using information – and the results are impressive

In a recent global discussion organised by the World Bank and e-Agriculture, experts from various fields and organisations around the world shared their experiences and discussed the ways in which they were using ICT – mobilephones, tablets, applications and software – to collect data in the field, and to perform M&E in development projects, while also working closely with rural communities and taking their feedback. The discussion has been summarised in a policy brief and outlines the benefits of using ICT for data collection. Several examples of theapps were also showcased in the discussion, among those:
 Read more at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development-professionals-network/2013/jan/24/data-collection-evaluation-technology-agriculture

ict4D: the complex mLearning challenges for specific ethnic groups

Leslie Dodson from the University of Colorado on "The mobile utitly gap and literacy challenges in oral-language communities: sms use by Berber women".
These are my live blognotes coming from UNESCO's mobile learning week enriched with tweets from Ronda (@glam_mobileleo).
Leslie used an epigraphic research approach and working in the field for 8 to 9 months.
For those interested in the number of challenges that can be encountered when diving into a mLearning project with very specific target learners... this is it!

Read more at: http://ignatiawebs.blogspot.com/2013/02/ict4d-complex-mlearning-challenges-for.html

Internet users in Kenya now at 17.38 million

http://www.ntv.co.ke

Kenya's information and communications sector appears to be on course according to the latest Julisha survey phase two findings.
The report, conducted by International Data Corporation indicates that Internet usage rose from 10.99 million to 17.38 million users for the period between 2010 and 2011. The report however recommends that skills development in the fast growing sector is still wanting and recommends more training and generation of content by application developers. NTV's Aby Agina has the latest from the tech end.

See it on Scoop.it, via ICT for Education and Development

February 18, 2013: Teaching and Learning Weekly is out

Teaching and Learning Weekly, by Adam Atodl: A free online newspaper containing a curated selection of articles, blog posts, videos and photos about development sin teaching and learning.  Of interest to both students and teachers.

Read and subscribe free at:  http://paper.li/f-1328546324

Cell phones can speed up malaria treatment in remote areas - SciDev.Net

Mobile phones can help improve malaria detection and treatment in remote rural areas, according to research carried out in Bangladesh.

Although people could report suspected malaria to field workers when they visited local communities, a slightly greater number of suspected cases were reported using mobile phones, leading the researchers to conclude that the use of mobiles had helped to increase the number of potential cases tested and treated.

Read more at: http://m.scidev.net/en/new-technologies/icts/news/cell-phones-can-speed-up-malaria-treatment-in-remote-areas.html

Saving the world through social media? How development is going digital

Maeve Shearlaw: From tracking World Bank projects to Twitter conversations with Rwanda's health minister, technology is driving innovation

Social media and mobile technologies offer a wide range of benefits for people working in development: a potentially cheap and efficient way to link citizens with their governments, the chance to monitor real-time progress on projects, and the ability to connect people from remote parts of the world to share experiences and teach best practice.
It is no surprise that there's an endless stream of development projects trying to tap into these technologies. In many cases it's still too early to tell what difference these efforts will make, but here are five that caught our eye.

Read more at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/poverty-matters/2013/jan/04/saving-world-social-media-development-digital

Rural Kenya not enjoying phone boom

The majority of people in rural Kenya have been left behind by the flourishing mobile phone industry, which has enhanced faster transaction of business through mobile money and communication, new data shows.

Read more at: http://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/news/Rural-Kenya-not-enjoying-phone-boom/-/2558/1696156/-/hgubjoz/-/index.html

On Campus and Online RN to BSN

Why does a nurse who is already registered as an RN need to take a Bachelor's degree, and do special upgrade programs exist pn;ine?
This page is about online RN to BSN programs, what's would be included in them, and where they can be studied?

Read more: On Campus and Online RN to BSN

Studying a Masters Teaching Program

This page provides details of online masters teaching programs, where they can be found, what the career and salary prospects are, and more ...

If you already have a bachelor's degree in another field, you can take a masters teaching program that satisfies licensing requirements.  In this way you obtain your teaching license and also enhance your career prospects by having the higher degree.

Read more:  http://onlineanddistancelearning.com/masters-teaching-programs

OER Challenges

Access to the Internet is spreading and so more people are able to access online education.  But a major problem has been the access to affordable content. The OER movement seeks to address this issue by making content free to use and adapt by anyone. So what are the problems?
Find out about OER challenges of quality, modularity, stability, persuading subject matter experts to cooperate, and more ...

More details at: http://onlineanddistancelearning.com/oer-challenges