Re: [DDN] E-Learning in Africa Conference (Nairobi May 2007)
Janet Feldman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Here's an excellent opportunity which some will hopefully take advantage > of, both conference attendance and participation! Happy New Year, and > here's hoping it will "compute"! Janet (Feldman, [EMAIL PROTECTED]) > http://www.elearning-africa.com/ I was planning to submit a proposal for a talk on elearning in the field of computer programming and software development, but I changed my mind when I saw that proposals will be accepted only in "MS Word or RTF format". It seems that these conference organizers have not yet understood that their exclusive reliance on Microsoft's proprietary formats is sending a completely wrong message which is totally the opposite of what needs to happen to truly empower and equip Africa for the information age. Greetings, Norbert. -- Norbert Bollow <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>http://Norbert.ch President of the Swiss Internet User Group SIUG http://SIUG.ch ___ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@digitaldivide.net http://digitaldivide.net/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
Re: [DDN] E-Learning in Africa Conference (Nairobi May 2007)
ocess knowledge and in which African Christians will be more open to accepting this process knowledge which resonates with their Christian culture. As a first result of my work in this area I will present a proposal for a pair of software licenses designed to faciliate a collaborative community similar to what is achived by "free software" / "open source" licenses (in such communities eLearning happens naturally), but which are in addition designed to implement the Biblical principle that workers should be rewarded for the work they do. -- Norbert Bollow <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>http://Norbert.ch President of the Swiss Internet User Group SIUG http://SIUG.ch ___ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@digitaldivide.net http://digitaldivide.net/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
[DDN] socially constructed knowledge (was Re: A Stand Against..)
Andrew Pleasant <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > If we - in the big cultural social global sense - taught students the > skills necessary to navigate and understand the concept of socially > constructed knowledge, this discussion could take an entirely > different form - but i don't think that happens. YES! - I agree that this is an extremely important point. Does anyone here know what is the current status with regard to literature on how to appropriately interact with socially constructed knowledge? Is there already good "textbook" style teaching/learning literature? Also, what's the status of scientific research into this topic area? Greetings, Norbert. -- Norbert Bollow <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>http://Norbert.ch President of the Swiss Internet User Group SIUG http://SIUG.ch ___ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@digitaldivide.net http://digitaldivide.net/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
Re: [DDN] [SIUG-discuss] Internet video player with switchable multilingual subtitles and inserted smaller window for Sign Language version
Claude Almansi <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > "A Flash player with Smil support to meet GL 1.2, SC 1.2.5" > <http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-gl/2007AprJun/0080.html>, > Wed, 2 May 2007 > > where he gives an accurate technical description of the player, an > example of which can be seen in > <http://www.webmultimediale.org/SC_1.2.5/> > > >From my non techie beta-tester's viewpoint: > > - Using a SMIL file (1) as a hub/cogwheel to synchronize the various > other involved files (video, audio, captioning text files) means that > you don't have to have a video editing software to insert the > subtitles in the video: they stay put in the lower part of the player. > (1) Re SMIL, see > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synchronized_Multimedia_Integration_Language That sounds like a very, very cool concept!!! I wonder though what it would take to get a multimedia player of this type which avoids the proprietary lock-in to Macromedia Flash? Greetings, Norbert. -- Norbert Bollow <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>http://Norbert.ch President of the Swiss Internet User Group SIUG http://SIUG.ch ___ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@digitaldivide.net http://digitaldivide.net/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
Re: [DDN] I make no profit, therefore I suck
Taran Rampersad <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Non-profits require funding at market prices and spend WAY too much > time doing so. Well said. Totally-profit-oriented businesses and totally-non-business-oriented non-profits both have a strong tendency to generate unacceptably high social costs in whatever domain is neglected by the metric that the particular organization is using for measuring its success. In my view the only solution to this dilemma is to push for the adoption of metrics of success that involve honestly measuring all significant costs and benefits of an organization's business and philanthropic activities. The first step towards this is to research what the significant costs and benefits of various types of business and philanthropic activities are, and to develop ways in which these costs and benefits can be measured in a reasonbly reliably manner without too much additonal cost from the introduction of the measurements. Then precise units and methods of measurement for these costs and benefits need to be standardized. Without standardization, accurate communication about the numeric quantities representing these costs and benefits is impossible except among experts who understand the details of the various measurement processes. When all that is done, consumers of goods and services of all kinds can vote with their vallets by preferring those commercial offerings that have strong positive side effects and which effectively manage to avoid significant negative side effects. To the extent that consumers don't collectively decide just for moral reasons to provide sufficient incentives for businesses to truly work for the common good as well as for their profits, governments can provide additional e.g. tax-based incentives (in addition to of course being significant consumers of goods and services themselves, so they have a lot of influence on the market already with their buying decisions, which I hope that at least some governments will learn to make in morally responsible ways.) Greetings, Norbert. -- Norbert Bollow <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>http://Norbert.ch President of the Swiss Internet User Group SIUG http://SIUG.ch ___ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@digitaldivide.net http://digitaldivide.net/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
Re: [DDN] Technological initiatives for social empowerment
Leo Burd <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > The thesis document and the video of the defense can be found at > http://www.media.mit.edu/~leob/thesis/ Wow. I'm very impressed, and will look into using your analytic framework of "approach", "setting", "empowerment", "climate" and "system" variables in the context of the ongoing analysis and reflection of an informatics empowerment initiative that I'm trying to start here in Switzerland (and that I might try to export to Africa if I succeed in getting it going with good results here). Apart from this point on scientific methodology, what I take away from reading this thesis also includes some great quotes: "People need people. To become empowered and do things that are personally relevant, human beings need access to other human beings, people who inspire them, open doors, and hold their hands until they are able to stand up and walk by themselves." (p. 7) "The way I started seeing it, young people usually have the time, the will, the energy, the basic skills, and the right to participate and help improve the quality of life in the places where they live. What they lack is appropriate space, support and recognition." (p. 20) "The development of youth-led, community-oriented projects requires a large amount of adult support. Without friendly adults to help them frame ideas, plan activities over time, make connections or go to distant places, there is little that young people can do on their own. Unfortunately, the youth technology centers that we worked with did not seem to have the necessary infrastructure to support young people in the implementation of their projects. As a minimum, they would need either more personnel or a different kind of internal organization." (p. 93) Greetings, Norbert. -- Norbert Bollow <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>http://Norbert.ch President of the Swiss Internet User Group SIUG http://SIUG.ch ___ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@digitaldivide.net http://digitaldivide.net/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
Re: [DDN] I make no profit, therefore I suck
Taran Rampersad <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Again, I could not disagree more. Nonprofits exist because it's felt > > by many that the mission-based approach is the best way to address > > certain issues or provide certain services. > Is there an implicit statement there that governments are not > mission-based? Perhaps you and I agree more than you think; I did > involve governments in the quoted statement. While I didn't intend to > discuss mission-based vs. profit based, it is implicit in what I wrote. > Unless, of course, someone thinks governments are for profit entities. I > know some politicians are, but let's not confuse government and politics > further than politicians and the media already do. I would suggest that an organization can be either primarily profit-oriented or primarily mission-oriented or primarily governance-oriented. It's possible to have constraints or secondary goals in another of these domains: For example, many national airlines are run as primarily profit-oriented businesses but subject to contraints designed to ensure that the airline cannot blatantly act against certain national interests. Or it is possible for a primarily mission-oriented organization to be subject to the constraints that it should try to be profitable as a business and also pay decent salaraies to all employees. Greetings, Norbert. -- Norbert Bollow <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>http://Norbert.ch President of the Swiss Internet User Group SIUG http://SIUG.ch ___ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@digitaldivide.net http://digitaldivide.net/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
Re: [DDN] Fwd: Web 2.0 leaves out people with disabilities
Claude Almansi <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Actually I became curious about digital things (from being previously > an arrant luddite) when I saw how 2 well directed e-mails managed to > convince the borough of Lugano (CH) to remove architectural barriers > against people in wheelchairs they had steadfastly been heaping at a > museum in the former years, against the law and in spite of the formal > protests of the disabled people's federation FTIA. I think this is a very important point: Sometimes it takes only a very small amount of (wisely-directed) effort to achieve victories of local significance. This is particularly significant given that such relatively small, local victories are an essential precondition for having any hope of any large-scale trend-setting breakthroughs. For example, I would suggest that in any and all informatics projects (not only web development, but also of purely internal informatics systems) the question should be raised whether accessibility concerns are taken into consideration, and if not, why not. Greetings, Norbert -- Norbert Bollow <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Informatics Management and Consulting for Adaptability and Benefit/Cost Optimization in Harmony with Human Rights and Needs ___ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@digitaldivide.net http://digitaldivide.net/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
Re: [DDN] Fwd: Web 2.0 leaves out people with disabilities
Xavier Leonard <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > many web 2.0 technologies employ xml >> xml evolved from sgml >> > one Charles Goldfarb's main motivations for developing sgml was to > make books more accessible to people with visual disabilities. If this information is accurate, I'd be very interested in having a quotable source for this... > a little more about this (very little, unfortunately) can be found in > this Goldfarb bio: http://www.sgmlsource.com/press/CGbioFull.htm Alas, this document does not contain the assertion about accessibilty work being one of the driving motivations in the development of SGML. (It only mentions making "more information accessible to people with reading disabilities" as an _effect_ of "the widespread deployment of markup languages".) Based on the interviews on the same site, I'm coming to the conclusion that while work on an SGML-based accessibility project turned out to be from Goldfarb's personal perspective "the most rewarding markup project" that he had ever been involved in [1], this application area was not in fact the original motivation for the development of GML and SGML. At least, when asked about the original motivations for these developments, he didn't mention accessibility aspects: In [2]: Q: Dr. Goldfarb, you led the project at IBM that invented SGML's precursor, GML. It's said that necessity is the mother of invention. What specific problem were you trying to solve? A: We were trying to do an automated law-office application. I had been a lawyer (in fact, I still am). Lawyers must do research on existing case law, decisions of court, and so on, to find out which ones are applicable to a given situation, find out what the previous legal rulings have been, and then merge that with text that the lawyer has written himself. Eventually, if it's, say, a brief for the court, [he must] then compose it and print it. At the time, which was 1969 or 1970, there weren't any systems available that did these three things. So in order to get the systems to share the data we had to come up with a way to represent it that was independent of any of those applications. In [3]: Q: How did you get started with SGML? A: After Ed Mosher and Ray Lorie and I completed our GML project, I decided to pursue some of the ideas further. I felt that a DTD could be created in a form that computers could read, and therefore be able to validate markup without actually processing the document. I proved it in 1974, so I consider that the start of SGML. Of course, it took another decade -- and hundreds of talented people -- to develop it into an International Standard. [1] http://www.sgmlsource.com/press/Losi.htm [2] http://www.sgmlsource.com/press/Floyd1.htm [3] http://www.sgmlsource.com/press/Kennedy.htm Greetings, Norbert -- Norbert Bollow <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Informatics Management and Consulting for Adaptability and Benefit/Cost Optimization in Harmony with Human Rights and Needs ___ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@digitaldivide.net http://digitaldivide.net/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
[DDN] universal design (was: Web 2.0 leaves out people..)
Claude Almansi <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > About universal design: an interesting collaboration between advocates > of universal design for both real-life and online accessibility has > started in Italy in the last week [..] > "some analogies can be seen, if you have been dealing with these > issues for some years, be it on the Web or in the physical world: > there are analogies between architectural and digital obstacles. There > are also analogies in the ways problems get solved, and in the defects > in these attempts to solve problems. One immediately obvious example > is the fact that the best, most efficient way to produce a work -- be > it a Web video or site, or be it a bridge or a work of architecture -- > a work that is is harmonious, complete and doesn't discriminate > anyone. > This way is accessible planning, i.e. a planning that keeps > accessibility in mind and respects the principles of "Design for all". > (...) this analogy between both worlds is confirmed by the fact that > an a posteriori adaptation, as the "egg-way" (6) in the case of > Calatrava's bridge, produces two parallel worlds but does not unite > them -- just as with parallel Web sites made to offer an alternative > path for people with disabilities. How often have we chanced upon > alternative Web sites that ask the user: "Are you are you non-disabled > or non-seeing?", and if the person answers: "I'm non-seeing", she or > he gets invited to a different viewing, to a different path from the > one used by seeing people." Hmmm... there are also other forms of discrimination against minorities which involve closely related economic mechanisms: - discrimination against developers and users of minority computer operating systems through use of patented or otherwise restricted proprietary data formats - discrimination against people who for whatever reason want or need to avoid indiscriminately leaking personal information over the internet - discrimination against people who for whatever reason have only slow and/or expensive access to the internet, or who are only able to conveneinetly access the internet via a device with a very small screen, such as a mobile phone. (In absolute numbers, this is probably currently actually a majority, but from the perspective of many websites, this is a very small minority of their users, therefore the same economic mechanisms apply.) Claude, is the "universal design" collaboration which you describe defined so generally as to also encompass these aspects of universality of design which are not directly related to disabilities? If yes, I think I'll probably be looking into whether there'd be some mutually beneficial way in which I could join in into that "universal design" alliance... and if not, I'd be interested in discussing whether it would make sense to attempt to initiate a more broadly defined alliance. Greetings, Norbert. -- Norbert Bollow <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Informatics Management and Consulting for Adaptability and Benefit/Cost Optimization in Harmony with Human Rights and Needs ___ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@digitaldivide.net http://digitaldivide.net/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
Re: [DDN] universal design (was: Web 2.0 leaves out people..)
Claude Almansi <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Norbert, I am no way a specialist of universal design - I don't > design, let alone universally - so I hope others will answer your > question as to its use for fighting the discriminations you list > below. Claude, thanks a lot for sharing these valuable thoughts and reminding me that "universal design" is a term with an already pretty fixed meaning (which alas happens to be much less broad than I would have liked it to be, despite the adjective "universal" being part of the term). I suppose what I'm looking for is a broader alliance encompassing more concerns than juts the areas of concern which are being addressed by what is (at least currently) understood as being "universal design". The kind of broader alliance that I have in mind could perhaps be called "universal freedom design alliance": In addition to the concerns addressed by what is currently called "universal design", topics of concern would also encompass "electronic freedom" topics including privacy topics, freedom to use encryption, freedom to use software that you can be freely modified without being as a consequence locked out from impottant information sources, etc. Greetings, Norbert. -- Norbert Bollow <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Informatics Management and Consulting for Adaptability and Benefit/Cost Optimization in Harmony with Human Rights and Needs ___ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@digitaldivide.net http://digitaldivide.net/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
Re: [DDN] PhD research on OLPC
Taran Rampersad <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > "In October, Shenzhen China-based HiVision will ship a MIPs-based Linux > mini-notebook for $98. The company is currently offering a similar > machine for $120, according to a video blog report from the > /Internationale Funkausstellunga/ (IFA) consumer electronics show in > Berlin this week > > ...The NB0700 pictured at right offers 512MB DDR2, a 30GB hard drive, > and a 7-inch 800x480 backlit display. Other features include an Ethernet > port, 802.11 b/g WiFi, two USB 2.0 ports, an SD card reader, microphone > and speakers, and VGA output. The NB0700 is said to offer three hours of > battery life and weighs just under two pounds (900 grams). The site does > not specify what type of Linux is used..." While I find it very cool to see inexpensive GNU/Linux based devices with PC-like functionality becoming available, I wonder whether the question about the working conditions of the workers who produce these devices should not also be prominently raised, researched and discussed. Are their human rights being respected? Greetings, Norbert. -- Norbert Bollow <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Informatics Management and Consulting for Adaptability and Benefit/Cost Optimization in Harmony with Human Rights and Needs ___ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@digitaldivide.net http://digitaldivide.net/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
Re: [DDN] PhD research on OLPC
Taran Rampersad <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > And what about the end users of these devices - are their human rights > being respected? Are people given a democratic choice of technology, or > is a well marketed device purchased by a government and then crammed > down their throats when they might have preferred the same money to go > to something else (like running water, electricity, et al)? I agree - that's definitely a very valid point. > Human rights probably shouldn't be subjective, but I may be too much of > an idealist. We can't talk about Human Rights over There without talking > about Human Rights in other places. A sobering way to look at it is to > consider the person with the least rights on the planet defines what the > reality of Human Rights are. Yes, sure, but at the same time, it makes sense with respect to any given project to limit attention to what can conceivably be affected (positively or negatively) by that project. I'm thinking of this in the context of generalizing the idea of "universal design" to something that I suggested could be called "universal freedom design" -- a methodology of project design that would in addition to "accessibility" concerns also take various "freedom" concerns appropriately into consideration. Let's consider for a moment the quotation from the "High Tech No Rights?" roundatable http://www.archive.org/details/hightechnorights_geneva which Claude Almansi gave in her recent posting: "Despite the positive inputs from more progressive brands beginning early 2007, long-term problems still persisted in their Chinese supplier factories. They include substandard wages, excessive work hours, poor occupational health and safety, no rights to employment contracts and resignation, and no communication of corporate codes of conduct to workers." I would suggest that this sounds very much like a modern form of slavery. In my opinion, silently accepting this kind of situation is very clearly totally unacceptable when one is at the same time making use of technical equipment from these sources. I would say that this is a matter of principle which is totally independent of whether there are others on the planet who are even worse off... In other words, I would suggest to interpret "human rights" as an obligation to insist that one's (direct and indirect) trade partners should verifiably adhere to resonable standards of conduct in how they treat people. If this is done, Taran's sobering point still applies, but at least we'd no longer be guilty of contributing to making some aspects of the overall problem worse. Greetings, Norbert. -- Norbert Bollow <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Informatics Management and Consulting for Adaptability and Benefit/Cost Optimization in Harmony with Human Rights and Needs ___ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@digitaldivide.net http://digitaldivide.net/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
Re: [DDN] Verizon Wireless announcement re. shutting down SMTP service
Christian Stalberg wrote: > Verizon Wireless has announced that it intends to cease providing SMTP > service to its broadband customers ffective August 29, 2009. For those of us > who live in rural areas, Verizon Wireless broadband service is the only ISP > service available. To lose SMTP service - which is primary to all ISPs - > will cause me and others in rural areas irrepairable harm. In view of the open architectural principles of the internet, it is quite impossible for your provider's unwillingness to provide some specific add-on service to be worse than a mere inconvenience. In this particular case, it isn't even particularly difficult to work around the issue. You're welcome to contact me off-list if you're interested in learning how. Greetings, Norbert -- siug.ch -- Swiss Internet User Group, an initiative of /ch/open adaptux.com -- Empowering adaptation of IT to your business processes ___ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@digitaldivide.net http://digitaldivide.net/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to digitaldivide-requ...@digitaldivide.net with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
