Fall 2010

Education Quality – Johnstone

September 22, 2010

All the articles offer varying definitions of quality of education, in reviewing these definitions are there any common themes?

While “Defining Quality in Education” dealt directly with this topic, the other articles gave a particular focus to the question and elaborated on the complexity of the issue. Taking into account the context of the articles and their focuses, some disagreements such as to whether or not to promote a national identity and a language, whether to centralize or decentralize education, or whether to increase or reduce standardized testing were noticeable. In the aggregate, the articles agreed about the need to prepare students for a more globalized world and emphasized the importance of teacher training, curriculum improvements, increased access to vocational education, improvement of school facilities, increasing communication between the different administrative levels, and promoting peace education, among other changes. While, a basic recipe may be shared, the difficulty originates in regard to properly administering limited resources. In order to be successful, policies need to be adequately contextualized.

Should we focus on educational access for all or quality of education? Why?

While access to education has increased in recent years, access to education in rural areas in some areas around the world remains limited. Increasing access to education to these children is particularly important within the current economic system. Otherwise, we may be creating a group of second (or fourth) class citizens. Education should bring down barriers and serve as a way in which individuals can develop their talents instead of a stratified system with a glass ceiling for some. As stated by Morrow and Torres (2000), some areas of the world are increasingly being geographically excluded, becoming members of a “Fourth World” (pg. 14).  Yet without increasing access to quality education, some students will be limited to climbing a restricted staircase of social advancement.

Why should a government focus on either one? While economies deal with limited resources, if a government is truly interested in long term sustainable development a greater share of the GNP should be committed to education. Methods such as those utilized by the Nueva Escuela Unitaria (NEU) in Guatemala have attempted to solve some the problems faced by a country with limited economic resources (DeJaeghere 2004). If a government is truly interested in having a competitive advantage and a favorable economy in the 21^st century, then EFA and increasing the quality of education of the educational system should both be considered priorities.

Miske (Unicef, 2000) has noted that we are still relatively uncertain about what happens in classrooms in development projects. What is a remedy to Miske’s concern?

There should be a periodic assessment of the project as well regular staff meetings, together with proactive leadership. This leadership should start within the educational ministry, or if possible with a true commitment from the country’s administration. Within the particular project, promoting solidarity and cooperation between the teachers, the students, the parents, and the community can greatly influence a program’s success.  If there are funds, exit evaluations should be conducted. If the country in question conducts standardized testing prior to the program, during the course of the program and at the end of it, this statistical data can provide an additional variable of analysis. The program should have a degree of flexibility.

What are the resource constraints that development projects face when attempting to capture what happens in classrooms?

The primary constraint is financial. Also the context may provide additional limitations as to what reforms will be acceptable to the community and which are likely to be sustainable. Even in countries with resources that can afford to monitor their teachers through enhanced technology, the use of cameras can feel invasive to an instructor, increasing uneasiness and compliance due to fear. Cameras can be useful, but only on certain cooperative environments which promote constructive criticism.

Describe a research study that you might conduct within a particular context familiar to you. How might you better understand what is happening with learners, environment, content, and processes?

My study will likely focus on the growing use of ICT in Latin America, most likely in the Dominican Republic. The study will evaluate what technologies are being utilized in classrooms throughout the island, as well as how are the teachers trained to use this technology, what hardware and what software is available for the students and teachers, what initiatives and curriculum programs are being implemented, what are their major problems and achievements. I am also interested in researching and comparing online learning culture in Latin America.

CSCI 8970 – Colloquium Series – Fall 2010 – Second Event

Robotic Sensors Networks for Environmental Monitoring

Monday, September 20, 2010

During this interesting session, Volkan Isler introduced to us what his research team at the UMN has recently been researching and implementing. Through the use of a sensor network, Isler has programmed a robotic boat to help with a carp control program by monitoring carps within a particular region through the use of wireless controllers. The boat was first developed and launched in 2008. While the original boat stayed within his via points, the boat was somewhat fragile and the boat’s router kept breaking. As a result, in 2010, the team introduced its second drone. This time, the robot has not only a sparkling and sharp look, but it was also resistant to the wake generated by nearby boats. Carps have increasingly threatened to enter the great lake system and various control alternatives are being researched. To prevent a recent invasion, the Chicago sanitary system poisoned the ship canal to prevent carps from entering the system. This project hopes to offer an alternative to unselective destructive control measures. The new boat covered 1.23 kilometers in the single trial coverage. Regarding some of the technical details, the boat’s antenna pans in steps of 15 degrees every 5 seconds, and the fishes beep every second. Despite their success, they are currently working to make the robot completely autonomous.

Another project in which Isler is involved includes using roller robots as data mules. Prof. Cavender-Bares of the University of Minnesota used a Cambell CR3000 Micrologger to collect environmental data in hopes of finding out how topical plant populations respond to climate change. The data used to be collected manually. Now, however, through the use robots as data collectors, they can cover a large area without using relay nodes. The robots have been tried at the park between 15th Ave and Como, as well as in the flats behind Coffman Union.

During the presentation, Isler engaged the audience by providing various algorithm problems such as: Given locations of sensors, what is a good order to visit them? The class went through the algorithm logic together taking into account the relationship between the distance to the node, the travelling time and how long it takes to download the data. Among the results, we saw how the minimum path is of length at least 0.48r. They are currently trying to improve the energy use by the system.

Isler also introduced us to include various polygon pursuit evasion games. He argued that no matter what three cops are enough to capture a criminal within any polygon, and if it is a polygon with no obstacles, a single pursuer is enough. He is currently exploring of what happens if the cops cannot see the robbers at all times. Another project he is working on includes a robotic videoconferencing system to record realistic setting such as when a person is playing with their pets or walking around the house. Currently, multiple robots are needed to have an image at all times. All in all, we can all agree that despite the challenges, robotic sensor networks provide an almost limitless potential for their implementation when fused with a bit of creativity.

An IPID – Reconsidering Development Proposal (LA and OCW)

September 16, 2010

Proposal:

IPID will promote web 2.0 technologies with the goal of offering quality educational material over the internet to the global community. Through improvements in technology and the increased access to information around the globe, it is possible for individuals today to access a large quantity of educational material over the internet. IPID hopes to support this movement by not only openly publishing the journal but also by offering information about interdisciplinary development research in various formats, including audio-visual and recording of forums and speeches.

Following in the footsteps of the philosophy in which the University of Minnesota was founded and its greater purpose of not only promoting the search of knowledge within its student-body but also throughout the greater Minnesota, the United States and the World. IPID believes that information should be increasingly made available for free to the general public.

As one of the greatest tools to increase the quality of life in foreign countries, through the promoting of free online material in the form of video-recording and hopefully in the future, OpenCourseWare, IPID hopes to help students worldwide to obtain access to some of the greatest minds and their ideas. Serving as a way to promote critical thinking and diverse opinions, educational videos do not hope to replace traditional education but only to enhance it. A future objective of IPID may include the promotion of educational videos and OpenCourseWare in a variety of languages or subtitles.

This year, IPID will record a number of lectures it will sponsor with a focus in Latin America and urbanization in developing countries. The rapid urbanization of Latin America and other areas of the world facilitated a resource and management crisis as the demographics of various states had to deal with an increasing number of individuals rapidly migrating to the cities in search of a job or a better standard of living at a rate that was difficult to administer.

IPID will record the lectures given by the scholars, academics and guest speakers that it will sponsor through its funding during the 2011-2012 year.

Functioning with limited resources and facing obstacles such as a rapidly growing population, it is within our social responsibility to increase access to education and improve the quality of education around the globe. In addition, we should provide individuals with the tools to help themselves.

CSCI 8970 – Colloquium Series – Fall 2010 – First Event

Discovery of Patterns in Global Earth Science Data using Data Mining

Monday, September 13, 2010

His lecture was interesting and informative, but it left us with a challenge. To truly take advantage of the data that is increasingly being gathered, more specific and encompassing algorithms need to be developed. Also, one can anticipate that with the success of the program, future more accurate and detailed satellites and imagery systems will be developed.

The lecture talked about the challenges in analyzing Eco-Climate date. During his lecture he showed comparisons of global sea surface temperatures, a 3D rendering of the globe and how “green” different locations are around the world. The satellite permits data from fires around the world to be analyzed including the extent of the damage.

He illustrated the applications of data mining. The satellite can analyze the changes in forests which account for 20% of greenhouse gas emissions (2^nd only to fossil fuel). Twenty five percent of climate change production can be provided by terrestrial carbon. The “carbon offset” notion takes root on the REDD program within the United Nations. REDD stands for Reduce Emissions from deforestation Destruction. The goal of the program is to determine where, when, ad why land cover changes occur. The program has become increasingly popular, and even made TIME’s list of 50 best inventions on 2009.

The system obtains data from forest fires, droughts, floods, logging, as well as reforestation. The system will help quantify the carbon impact of these changes, and understand their relationship. While the state of the art algorithms for land cover change detection did not scale up well to analyzing data at the global level, this satellite scans the whole surface of the earth every single day. This billion dollar a year project from NASA not only allows their scientists to analyze the data but the data has been made freely available to other scientists across the world.

Existing algorithms have problems, because currently there is too much noise on the images. As a result his group has developed an algorithm to analyze the data. He demonstrated the capability of the system by illustrating some of the global changes taking place from logging in Canada, shrinking of lakes in Africa, the impact of Katrina, reforestation in China, and Deforestation in the Amazon. Deforestation in the Amazon accounts for 50% of all humid tropical forest clearing. That amount is 4 times as much as the next country, Indonesia, which accounts for 12.8% of tropical forest clearing. Despite its high hopes, Indonesia’s attempt to increase its bio fuel industry through deforestation and planting, has proved disastrous.

After presenting data from his research, Dr. Kumar challenged the audience by encouraging the development of better algorithms, multi-resolution and multi-variate analysis, and data quality improvement. During his lecture he also provided an overview of a newer project promoting a data driven approach. NSF Expedition intends, through the collaboration of various universities, to utilize the physics based model and find what can be achieved with this model, and what can be built in top of it. The program is promoting the need to study the ecosystem as a complex environment.

Contactando a la Republica Dominicana – Proyecto

September 8, 2010

Buenas,

Mi nombre es Alfonso Sintjago. Yo soy un estudiante de doctorado en la Universidad de Minnesota en los Estados Unidos. Mi programa de estudio se enfoca en la educación comparativa e internacional en países latino americanos. Estoy comenzando el programa y aunque naci Venezuela, me gustaría hacer mi estudio en la Republica Dominicana. Mi abuelo Rinaldo Sintjago era dominicano, y junto a mi tío ellos murieron en un intentando derrocar a Trujillo como miembros del movimiento Constanza, Maimón y Estero Hondo.

http://www.museodelaresistencia.org/resistencia/testimonios/Carta_Alfonso_Sintjago.html.

Aunque solo he visitado en dos ocasiones, tengo un gran amor a la isla, y la Republica Dominicana abarca un gran espacio en mi corazón. Actualmente, tengo varios primos que viven en la Republica y me gustaría ayudar a el país como sea posible. Como estudiante en los Estados Unidos podría al hacer un estudio comparativo crear vínculos y fortalecer conexiones entre la Republica Dominicana y la Universidad de Minnesota, la cual es una universidad muy prominente en los Estados Unidos.

Tengo cinco años para realizar mi tesis de doctorado, pero pretendo apenas sea posible viajar a la Republica Dominicana para hacer más conexiones. Sería posible hasta visitar este año o durante los primeros meses del próximo año. Aparte de estar comenzando mi doctorado, tengo una maestría de la Universidad de Florida en Estudios Latinoamericanos y me gradué de la universidad originalmente en sociología y ciencias políticas. Soy bilingüe y he dado clases de español y ingles en el pasado.

Si hay alguien con el que me pueda comunicar y llamar para ver cuáles son las posibilidades de ayudar o hacer un proyecto comparativo en la Republica Dominicana sobre la educación y los TICes sería muy provechoso ponerme en contacto con ellos. Espero poder dialogar con ustedes en el futuro y visitar la Cámara TIC dentro de poco. Muchas gracias por su tiempo, los mejores deseos desde los Estados Unidos.

Alfonso Sintjago

El enfoque de mi estudio va a ser en relacion a lo TICes in la educacion en la republica dominicana, o por lo menos, esa

Webinar – Technology Innovations in Higher Education

September 6, 2010

Despite missing the actual webinar, I was able to listen this online session later through a Phoenix Online courtesy email. The webinar overviewed the changes to the online education industry over the years, where online education is moving towards, and how the University of Phoenix plans to take advantage of social networks within their education program to enhance their online platform. The speakers, Adam Honea and Michael White, contend that the proper use of technology can promote a more student centered, constructivist, personalized, social, and convenient form of education.

Here is the link to the webinar recording. The interface also allows the viewer to download the presentation slides as a pdf file. Hope you enjoy it!

—–

We heard a wide range of viewpoints on “Technology Innovations in Higher Education” from University of Phoenix leaders Bill Pepicello, President; Adam Honea, Provost; and Michael White, Chief Technology Officer.

If you would like to view a recording of the Webinar, please visit http://event.on24.com/r.htm?e=234475&s=1&k=93ED6BC452966C814B7DCF069E4CFD50. We encourage you to forward this e-mail to any colleagues who may have also missed this session.

To gain a better understanding of how University of Phoenix is supporting our communities through higher education, please visit http://www.phoenix.edu.

Best Regards,

University of Phoenix

The original event was broadcast on:
Date: Thursday, August 19, 2010
Time: 2:00 PM EDT
Duration: 60-minutes

Service Learning Conversation

September 5, 2010

In a meeting with Dr. Andrew Furco while discussing service learning, we talked about ways in which UMN could design a course together with Argentina – FLACSO in which undergraduate students could learn about the capability of youth in bringing about global change and the different programs in the world where this has taken place, analyzing both advantages and disadvantages. The class currently is conceived as a six credit course in which students could learn the theory and its history during the spring semester of 2011 at the University of Minnesota, where the students divided in groups of 3 to 4 students will partner with a local organization and help their youth members conduct a service learning project. The goal is not to help the children directly but rather have the students work side by side with the young adults and children taking part in this project and learn the capabilities for youth to bring about change. With few assessed limitations and a high level of idealism children are at times more willing to tackle issues that adults would be hesitant to be involved with.

While continuing to dialog about the subject, Dr. Furco elaborated on the capabilities of children led movements by talking about a previous child led initiative in which children at an elementary school when discussing slavery in America asked their teacher if slavery still took place in the world. Being a good teacher, she researched the topic and explained to the children how slavery was still taking place in Sudan, where at times when the parents were indebted, they would sell their children as laborers. When the young students learned about this, they decided to take action and coordinating with an NGO they collected thousands of dollars to buy the freedom of a number of child slaves in Sudan. While purchasing slaves raises some moral questions, including whether or not it alleviates the problem or perhaps exacerbates it, as slave owners may see the purchasing of slaves by NGOs as a way to generate revenue, what is unquestionable is that from a simple classroom idea, children in the United States were able to organize a movement to free children from the bondage of slavery half way across the world.

Thinking of a Service-Learning Course with Latin America

September 3, 2010

Topics

–        Defining Service-Learning

• Conceptualizing Service-Learning
• The Limits of Service-Learning
• The Possibilities of Service-Learning

–        Why Service-Learning

• Studies showing the positive aspects and downsides of service-learning.
• Impact of service-learning
• Who benefits from service-learning
• How to make a lasting impact?

–        Global Perspective

• Asia
• Europe
• Australia
• Africa

–        Hemispheric Perspective

• United States
• Canada
• Mexico
• Venezuela
• Argentina

–        Local Perspective

• Survey of local organizations that do service-learning

–        Service-learning in Argentina

• History of Education in Argentina
• Service-learning in Argentina
• Solidaridad – Past, present, future.

–        Developing a service-learning project

• Need for improvement, what social problem are they addressing?
• Bottom up development of the project by students – student centered
• Student run and the need to link the program goals to the curriculum.
• The need for linkages and the influence of other institutions and community organizations for the success of a service-learning project.

–        Differences and similarities between service at different age levels

• Primary school
• Secondary school
• Higher Education

–        History of Latin America

• Colonial Period
• Independence
• Relationship with the United States
• ISI
• Neoliberal Policies
• Leftist Wave – Present

–        The growing influence of technology in society and education and its possible applications to service-learning

• Overview the digital divide
• Globalization and its implications with education and technology.

–        Service-learning at the classroom

• Volunteer at a Hispanic or immigrant group in Minneapolis
  • List of programs
• Worldwide growth in the study of the English language – an opportunity to help Argentineans with their English through Skype and related programs. (Eluminate, Livemocha)

–        Preparations for visiting Argentina

• Logistics of the trip
• Context – differences between doing service-learning in your own country or another

–        The Future of Service-Learning

Assignments

–        Critical Reflexion assignments from service-learning hours

–        Guest speakers (from Mano a Mano, Clues, Centro and other Hispanic related NGOs in the community)

–        Reading quizzes

–        Audio-visuals, video clips, power points, documentaries

–        Class blog – Forum style, sourcing documents.

Service learning at the U – Partner organizations with strong Latino linkages.

September 3, 2010

Casa de Esperanza: Mobilizes Latino communities to end domestic violence and to eliminate violence against women and children.

Mano a Mano: Creates partnerships with impoverished Bolivian communities to improve their health and increase their economic well-being by building clinics, schools, and housing.

Centro: Serves the Latino and Chicano community to minimize and eliminate barriers for self-sufficiency. Offers support programs in education, health, culture, and wellness.

Comunidades Latinas Unidas En Servicio (CLUES): Provides linguistically and culturally appropriate services for the Chicano/Latino community, including mental health, chemical health, employment, education, and elder wellness.

La Conexion: Empowers the Latino community throughout the Twin Cities by providing and connecting participants with resources and educational, economic and community engagement opportunities.

La Escuelita: Works to create and implement developmental strategies that help increase Latino youths’ academic success through their after school, summer academic enrichment, and leadership development programs.

La Oportunidad: Provides bilingual and bicultural family-centered educational and supportive programs to help Latino children, youth, and adults achieve greater capacity, develop practical skills, nurture healthy relationships, and build a stronger community.

Linea Legal Latina: Provide efficient advice and referrals to Spanish-speaking individuals who have little or no access to legal advice.