IHT Tech News has an article about a new service HP created that could be used as an additional method of distributing Global Text books. It's called Cloudprint, and it's free. Basically, pdf documents are uploaded to an HP server. They can then be downloaded on demand from a cellphone and directed to a printer for printing locally. All users will need to download text is a cellphone, an access code, and a local printer. More details are available in the article. Seems to have possibilities for overcoming some of the Internet infrastructure issues in developing economies. There's lots of cellphones available there.
- Don
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Monday, August 13, 2007
Global Text Momentum Report - August 13, 2007
We have moved forward on several fronts during the last few weeks. Important developments include:
- While teaching in Paris, Rick made contact with UNESCO. July was not a good time for visiting UNESCO because many people were on vacation, but we now have a link, and we can start to build a relationship with UNESCO as a result of the initial meeting.
- We have now worked for more than a month with Drupal, the content management system (CMS) recommended by Franz Lehner, our CTO, and Michael Scholz, one of his doctoral students. Books in English and Spanish are being uploaded. Michael is very adept as solving issues that we raise very quickly and Drupal has many of the features we need. The test site is http://ocp.uni-passau.de/drupal/
- Craig Piercy, a faculty member at the University of Georgia, and one of my undergraduate students, Kendal Lewis, are working on developing cascading style sheets (CSS) for use with printing books and displaying them on the screen. We will also develop a set of style sheets for authors so that the uploading of files to Drupal is efficient.
- Craig is also going to assign his Internet Technology class, part of a Masters of Internet Technology program, the task of outlining and starting a book on Internet technology.
- Don and I, while attending the Americas Conference on Information Systems last week, met with Ted Stohr of the Stevens Institute of Technology in New Jersey. Ted has agreed to be Editor-in-Chief of the Global Text Case Collection. In addition, we will be able to seed the collection with cases from Communications of the Association for Information Systems (CAIS). We can also use tutorials from CAIS to start the Global Text Tutorials Library. Anyone want to volunteer to be Editor-in-Chief?
- Please check out the Web site for some new content:
* An article on Global Text in the August issue of the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts Manufactures, and Commerce (RSA) Journal and two podcasts on the In the News page.
* A listing of participating universities on the Community page. - Don has received commitments for completion from all chapter editors Business Fundamentals, and some chapter reviewers have been lined up. If you would like to volunteer to review a chapter, please get in touch with Don.
- We expect the first release of Information Systems to be available within four weeks.
- Don and I visited with three large corporate foundations in July and came away with some good ideas on how to frame a case for corporate sponsorships.
Monday, August 6, 2007
Telecom Billionaire Establishes Low-Cost Laptop Program for Mexican Children
That's the headline on a news story from a posting on today's Philanthropy News Digest. Here's a couple of quotes along with a link to its source, which adds some additional perspectives:
"Saying that digital education holds the key to a better future for Mexico's poor, Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim has pledged to donate 250,000 low-cost laptops to the country's children by the end of the year and as many as a million in 2008, the Associated Press reports".
"With an estimated cost of $250 to $300 per machine, Slim would have to put up as much as $300 million for a million laptops, though he expects the costs to continue to fall. His plan initially would put the laptops in schools and libraries, where they would be lent out like books, he said, before eventually being given outright to students. In addition, his companies would help set up wireless networks for students to connect to the Internet".
"Slim, whose fortune may already have surpassed that of Bill Gates, said his goal is to build about a hundred "early stimulation" preschools within four years to give poor Mexican children training in math, language, and computers to improve their opportunities later in life. "The best investment one can make," he said, "is to reduce poverty."
"Saying that digital education holds the key to a better future for Mexico's poor, Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim has pledged to donate 250,000 low-cost laptops to the country's children by the end of the year and as many as a million in 2008, the Associated Press reports".
"With an estimated cost of $250 to $300 per machine, Slim would have to put up as much as $300 million for a million laptops, though he expects the costs to continue to fall. His plan initially would put the laptops in schools and libraries, where they would be lent out like books, he said, before eventually being given outright to students. In addition, his companies would help set up wireless networks for students to connect to the Internet".
"Slim, whose fortune may already have surpassed that of Bill Gates, said his goal is to build about a hundred "early stimulation" preschools within four years to give poor Mexican children training in math, language, and computers to improve their opportunities later in life. "The best investment one can make," he said, "is to reduce poverty."
I love it.
- DonStudent Engagement in the Learning Process
One of the most important aspects of Global Text is the way that it can enhance student engagement in the learning process. Rick saw the value of this in his early experiments with having his students write the XML textbook, one of the inspirations behind Global Text.
With our two proof of concept texts, some chapter editors have had their students draft chapter topics, and soliciting contributions from students who use the texts has been part of our model from the beginning. That's why we liked this announcement from the AACSB, the accrediting body for business schools world-wide, taking a fresh look at what constitutes good faculty research. It's from today's issue of Inside Higher Education:
"AACSB International: the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business, has released for comment a report calling for the accreditation process for business schools to evaluate whether faculty research improves the learning process. The report expresses the concern that accreditors have noted the volume of research, but not whether it is making business schools better from an educational standpoint".
One of the issues we've been wrestling with is faculty incentives to contribute to Global Text, given the somewhat restrictive (and out-of-date) definitions of what constitutes "acceptable" scholarship. The AACSB reports addresses this issue in many ways, and seeks to broaden the definition of scholarship to include contributions to projects like Global Text. Here's an example taken from Recommendation #2 of the report:
"But what if AACSB went a step further to require business schools, if applicable to their mission, to demonstrate that they have faculty systems that support and reward practice-oriented or pedagogical contributions in addition to basic research published in refereed journal articles?"
Ahhhh. Music to my ears!
- Don
With our two proof of concept texts, some chapter editors have had their students draft chapter topics, and soliciting contributions from students who use the texts has been part of our model from the beginning. That's why we liked this announcement from the AACSB, the accrediting body for business schools world-wide, taking a fresh look at what constitutes good faculty research. It's from today's issue of Inside Higher Education:
"AACSB International: the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business, has released for comment a report calling for the accreditation process for business schools to evaluate whether faculty research improves the learning process. The report expresses the concern that accreditors have noted the volume of research, but not whether it is making business schools better from an educational standpoint".
One of the issues we've been wrestling with is faculty incentives to contribute to Global Text, given the somewhat restrictive (and out-of-date) definitions of what constitutes "acceptable" scholarship. The AACSB reports addresses this issue in many ways, and seeks to broaden the definition of scholarship to include contributions to projects like Global Text. Here's an example taken from Recommendation #2 of the report:
"But what if AACSB went a step further to require business schools, if applicable to their mission, to demonstrate that they have faculty systems that support and reward practice-oriented or pedagogical contributions in addition to basic research published in refereed journal articles?"
Ahhhh. Music to my ears!
- Don
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