Information Society Watch

May 8, 2008, Stephen Hoare, The Guardian

This report from Education Guardian looks at the findings of a forthcoming study that aims at informing colleges and universities in United Kingdom on ways to make computing environment friendly. The report illustrates several instances of using techniques such as grid computing and virtualisation to avoid wasteful IT practices, thereby reducing carbon footprint. Grid computing can break up a complex research project into lots of little tasks that will run on people's home computers. Virtualisation helps bring several applications onto one server, reducing energy consumption for IT, power and cooling. In the months after the publication of the study several campaigns are planned across the country, with special focus on the education sector, to spread awareness on sustainable IT practices.

December 11, 2007, Bill Thompson, BBC News International

This article dismisses criticisms by some technology journalists of projects such as One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) that aim at providing affordable technology to children in less-developed countries. It discusses the critics' argument that sending food aid to Africa is a better way to solve the continent's problems than supplying laptops.

September 2007

In the last decade, the Internet has become the ubiquitious repository of human knowledge. Harnessed properly, the net can provide a huge impetus to the world of education by providing access to this vast knowledge store.

December 2007, Glen Farrell et al., InfoDev

These reports provide snapshots of the current state of activities and issues related to ICT use in individual African countries. As ICT use in education is rapidly evolving in Africa with new developments happening daily somewhere on the continent, the reports are not exhaustive and some of the information they present may become out-dated very quickly.

2001, Ann Travers, Radical Pedagogy

In keeping with the typical pattern associated with the introduction of new technologies, many promises have been made about the positive benefits of new information technologies to society. This article focuses on such promises as they relate to the expansion of public space in western society.

December 26, 2007, The Hindu

This article examines the successes and failures of the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) programme as mass production of the laptops has finally gotten underway and countries are beginning to place their orders. In one Peruvian village, 50 primary school children who received laptops 6 months ago are demonstrating the OLPC's potential.

July 2007, Caroline Haythornthwaite, Bertram C. Bruce, Richard Andrews, Michelle M. Kazmer, Rae–Anne Montague, Christina Preston, First Monday

The authors see the need for, and the emergence of, new theories and models of and for the online learning environment, addressing learning in its ICT context, considering both formal and informal learning, individual and community learning, and new practices arising from technology use in the service of learning. This paper presents six theoretical perspectives on learning in ICT contexts, and is an invitation to others to bring theoretical models to the fore to enhance people's understanding of new learning contexts.

Anita Dighe & Usha Vyasulu Reddi, CEMCA    

This paper highlights why women's illiteracy needs to be addressed, and outlines documented experiences in using ICTs to address illiteracy. After reviewing some of the salient experiences of running literacy programmes for women in developing countries, the authors discuss the support needed from a broad array of sources and areas for meaningful use of ICT interventions in women's literacy.

May 15, 2007, Tectonic

A new project titled 'EduWiki' aims at having a wide range of information relevant to modern South African families especially focusing on their community needs. The creator of the project, Shaugn Vorster explains that modern South African families do not have the old community frameworks and this project aims to plug this gap by providing community level information.

May 4, 2007, The New York Times

A decade after laptops were promoted as a means to enhance academic performance amongst students, educational institutions across the US are discovering that there has been no significant improvement and are doing away with 'one-to-one' computing. This measure by authorities comes in the wake of increasing reports of students using their laptops for hacking, downloading porn and cheating during exams.