Packaged in a special edition Forbes Magazine sent out to a select group of readers is an ad for Microsoft's Office 365 service. The twist? Sandwiched between the pages is an ultra thin router that gives users 15 days of free Internet. There's also a really thin battery that lasts 2 to 3 hours, but can be recharged by a mini USB cable that is hidden under a flap. It's interesting that the ad also gave people a reason to carry the magazine around with them, making them engage with the content more. Maybe that's one way to save the print industry?

http://www.omg-facts.com/Technology/Microsoft-Had-A-Wi-Fi-enabled-Magazine-A/57084

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Luo Gang was just 5 when he abducted from the Fuijan province in China 23 years ago, and taken almost 1000 miles away. During his absence, he says he forced himself to re-live the life he spent in his old home so he wouldn't forget.
However, being only 5 when he was taken away, he didn't remember much. In fact, the only thing he remembered about his hometown were 2 bridges. He drew a map of what he remembered and posted it to a website called "Bring Lost Babies Home."
People there helped him narrow down his search to a town that looked familiar to him. However, he used Google Maps to confirm his suspicions: That was his old hometown. He was finally reunited with his birth family, 23 years after he was taken from them.

source : http://www.omg-facts.com/Technology/Google-Maps-Helped-A-Kidnapped-Boy-Find/57190

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General Teen Social Media & Technology Stats

• 93% of teens ages 12-17 go online
• 69% of teens have their own computer
• 63% of teen internet users go online every day
• 27% of teens use their phone to get online
• 24% of teens with a game console use it to go online
• 73% of teens are on a social network
• The average teen has 201 Facebook friends
• 37% send messages to friends every day
• 8% of American teens use Twitter
• Online gaming site Roiworld surveyed 600 teens ages 13 to 17 in late April 2010 and found that teens spend two hours per day online on average, 80% of which is spent using a social network
• As many as 7.5 million Facebook users in the U.S. are under age 13 -- a violation of Facebook's user policies -- according to a new study by Consumer Reports reported by Ad Age http://adage.com/article/adagestat/stat-day-7-5-million-pre-teens-facebook/227462/

Teens and Cell Phones

• A 2010 Pew Internet Project survey found that 75% of those ages 12-17 have cell phones, up from 45% in 2004. The Pew Internet Project report also documents that many teens use their cells for an array of activities beyond texting and talking. Of the 75% of teens who have cell phones: 83% use their phones to take pictures, 64% share pictures with others, 60% play music on their phones, 46% play games on their phones
• According to comScore, as of June there were 234 million U.S. cell-phone subscribers 13 and older, and about 33% of these were smartphone owners
• According to market research firm the Yankee Group, 54 percent of 8 to 12 year olds will have cell phones within the next three years (http://cmch.tv/mentors/hotTopic.asp?id=70)

What Teens do on Social Network Sites

• 86% of social network-using teens comment on a friend's wall
• 83% comment on friends' pictures
• 66% send private messages to friends
• 58% send IM or text messages using the site
• 52% send group messages

Bullying & Sexting

• 55% of teens have given out personal info to someone they don’t know, including photos and physical descriptions
• 29% of teens have posted mean info, embarrassing photos or spread rumors about someone
• 29% have been stalked or contacted by a stranger or someone they don’t know
• 24% have had private or embarrassing info made public without their permission
• 22% have been cyberpranked
• 56% of teens say they have been the target of some type of online harassment
• 15% percent of the young people surveyed say they have sent nude photos or videos of themselves
• 21% say they've received nude photos or videos from others. About half of those involved say they felt pressured to do so
• 41% have experienced some form of digital dating abuse — including checking in multiple times a day, reading messages without permission, pressuring others to respond to messages or spreading rumors

Resources

• Social Media and Young Adults, Feb. 2010, Pew Internet & American Life Project
• Global Insights Into Family Life Online, June 2010, Norton/Symantec & StrategyOne
• Teen/Mom Internet Safety Survey, Oct. 2008, McAfee & Harris Interactive
• Facebook Parental Controls Review (http://facebook-parental-controlsreview.toptenreviews.com/30-statistics-about-teens-and-social-networking.html)
• The 2011 AP-MTV DIGITAL ABUSE STUDY (http://www.athinline.org/pdfs/MTVAP_2011_Research_Study-Exec_Summary.pdf)
• CNN (http:/www.cnn.com/2011/TECH/mobile/08/16/pew.cell.phone.report.gahran/index.html?iref=allsearch)
• PlayBeSeen.com

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Abstract Academics, teachers and learners have been using computer technologies in education since the late 60s.  This use has been with a variety of intentions and in a variety of ways.  Inherent in all use has been the implicit assumption that the new technologies offer powerful supports for teaching and learning and that they will one day play integral and important roles in all educational settings.  Since the early days, the new technologies have developed quickly and are now ubiquitous in all facets of life.  However, the place and role of technology in education appears still to be in its infancy.  This paper will seek to explore the current place of technology in education, the opportunities offered by contemporary information and computer technologies, new technologies, and future roles for the technology, teachers and learners in the digital era.
Introduction The place and role of new technologies in schools and education after 30 years of development, application and research is often the cause for disappointment among those who have studied education and appreciate the opportunities which technology affords teachers and learners.  There have been, and continue to be, many pressures on teachers and educators to embrace new technologies in their teaching.  The main pressures continue to be economic, political and social and to a lesser degree educational.  The blend of these pressures and influences throughout the years leaves us at an interesting position as we contemplate education in the new millenium.
Educators have always sought to apply new technologies when they have emerged and have often been very creative in their endeavours and activities.  From early days, the literature abounds with examples of novel uses for radio, television and video.  More recently computer technologies have become popular teaching tools for many.  But many doubt the educational value that any of this use has afforded.  Cuban (1986) provides compelling evidence of the continued failure of technology applications to impact on practice and learning in any sustained way and his work continues to hold true as we observe the applications of technologies in the years since he published this landmark viewpoint.
The educational technology literature is replete with experts arguing whether technology can influence learning or whether it is merely “the vehicle that delivers” (Clark, 1994, p 22). Inherent in this argument is the question as to whether the various media provided by the technologies carry any unique or particular attributes which significantly impact on the learning outcomes or whether they provide alternative means for expression and presentation. While some argue the minor role played by the media, others argue forcefully that the new technologies do carry new unique and powerful attributes that can be tapped by appropriate usage (eg. Kozma, 1991; Kozma, 1994).
Research into the impact of computers and technology on learning tends to show mixed results.  Early meta analyses comparing technology-based learning (eg. Kulik & Kulik, 1985; 1991) reported significant achievement gains among learners using computers compared to others in conventional settings.  But more recent writing has questioned the findings of much of this early research in terms of its generalisation to mainstream practice (eg. Stoll, 1996). Research has also demonstrated that the size and nature of the achievement gains derived from technology-supported teaching are no more, and perhaps even less, than those achieved in classrooms where such alternative strategies as teamwork, collaboration, esteem-building and self-directed learning are prominent.  Among all this, people are now beginning to question much of this early research as being inappropriate, inaccurate and misguided in both its aims and method (eg. Reeves, 1993).
The mixed messages coming from the experts and the literature describing technology do little to aid teachers and practitioners many of whom are competent and successful within conventional teaching bounds.   But outside the schools and classrooms, questions are being asked about the success of our educational systems in terms of holistic education and overall learning outcomes.  It is within this context that this paper is written, seeking to explore future directions we should consider taking.

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I. Introduction

In the beginning globalization is fully believed to be able to lead to greater economic development in the sense of greater market scale, which in turn will increase the gross national product. So people believed that poor countries or third world countries will develop faster, thus the economic gap between the rich developed countries and the third world countries will diminished.
However, facts show the contrary. It is true that the gross national product of countries will increase, but the gap between the income of the rich and poor countries is also getting wider.
The main reason for this gap is the extra-ordinary growth of information as a result of the development of communications and information technologies in northern developed countries which have full control of these technologies. This information boom enables multinational companies to compete with changes in market demands, new products and new technologies, which in turn can boost the economy of a country, increase its efficiency and win global dominance. 
On the other hand, in third world countries which are also known as southern hemisphere countries, they have difficulties to seek, to receive, to process and to produce information. The lack of appropriate information at the right time will result in low productivity, low quality research works, and waste of time to pursue information and even to do research which actually had been done by others or in other countries.

Indonesia as a third world country has a great concern over this deficiency and believe that the digital divide should be reduced so that there will be an economic recovery. The Indonesian government is determined to utilize the information technology effectively to support efforts to increase the national competitiveness. This aspiration is reflected in the Indonesian 
Presidential Decree Number 50 year 2000 about the establishment of the Coordination Team of Telemathics of Indonesia. This team consists of all the ministers in the cabinet including the Minister of Education. Its tasks are among others to define the government policy in the area of telemathics; to decide the phases and priorities of development in the area of telemathics and its uses in Indonesia; to monitor and
control the implementation of telemathics in Indonesia; and to report the development of telemathics in Indonesia to the President.

The government realizes that the success of the development and utilization of telemathics depends mostly on the infrastructure which can provide easy access, and also ensure availability of information and subjects. To meet these three provisions, a competent human resources is a necessity. That is why the preparation of qualified human resources is given priority, because it requires hard work and takes time. Meanwhile, we also know that scarcity of and low quality human resources in the area of Information and Communications Technologies can delay mastery of communication and information technology.

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WHY DO WE HAVE e-LEARNING?

Arguably this is a question that does not need to be asked! So many of our day-to-day activities are now routinely technology-based, for example elec- tronic access to cash or shopping, that for a large majority if not all of us techno-familiarity is a necessity. Many people, however, remain on the other side of the ‘digital divide’, isolated by such factors as socio-economic circumstances, disability or simply a lack of interest, perhaps through per- sonal choice or other cultural influence. Electronic purchasing and infor- mation searching is all around us, and becoming more and more pervasive. For example, the word ‘google’ has become an everyday verb used to describe electronic searching, regardless of whether Google itself is the search engine being used (see Webster’s New Millennium Dictionary , 2005). Such is the pervasiveness of technology-based activities across society that there are few governments that do not have information technology- related learning programmes as part of their national educational policies. For the most part, these promote learning about the technology, how to use it and how to benefit from it. For some 40 years now, however, since the first major developments in using computers to deliver drill and prac- tice in the 1960 and 1970s, one of the most widely acknowledged benefits has been the many uses for computers in delivering education and facili- tating learning. Whether it is learning in schools, universities or the work- place, appropriately designed e-Learning approaches to any aspect of a target curriculum can provide significant opportunities for learners to create and acquire knowledge for themselves.

e-LEARNING DEFINED
There may be as many definitions of e-Learning as there are academic papers on the subject, but broadly speaking they focus on the same set of features. Take the European e-Learning Action Plan definition as an exam- ple: ‘the use of new multimedia technologies and the Internet to improve the quality of learning by facilitating access to resources and services as well as remote exchanges and collaboration’ (COM, 2001: 2). Here we have mention of electronic technologies, as vehicles for education services and resources, and as the conduits for collaboration and communication. If we may be so bold as to focus on the essentials, however, our preferred defin- ition would view e-Learning simply as:
online access to learning resources, anywhere and anytime. New opportunities, new learning environments
e-Learning offers new opportunities for both educators and learners to enrich their teaching and learning experiences, through virtual environ- ments that support not just the delivery but also the exploration and appli- cation of information and the promotion of new knowledge. The focus for any exploration of the state-of-the art of e-Learning is therefore no more and no less than the combination and convergence of the most advanced features of digital information and communication technologies, for exam- ple, live broadcasts, mobile video and audio telecommunications, three- dimensional (3D) graphics, email, the Web and object-oriented interfaces, all of which can be designed to support, create and deliver significant edu- cational experiences and environments. Concerns about a lack of face-to- face contact have given rise in some contexts to a mix of e-Learning, which may be ‘at a distance’, and more conventional face-to-face learning in the classroom; a process entitled ‘blended learning’. e-Learning enables learn- ers to have as much choice as is practically and economically possible. e-Learning takes place in online environments that range from providing information to engaging the learner in complex interactive simulations. Managed learning environments have been developed to provide an elec- tronic solution to managing the complexity not just of the learning.

e-LEARNING: CONCEPTS AND PRACTICE
environment (resources, online tutorials, discussion groups, assignment submissions, and so on) but also of the records of the learners’ biographi- cal details, examinations and assessment profiles, and the courses they have taken. Very often the students will have access to all this information through unique personal identifiers, while those who facilitate their learn- ing (teachers, lecturers and so on), and those who administer it, will also have appropriate access privileges. Within the learning environment, the students can learn together in e-communities, for example in virtual learn- ing environments (VLEs) or multi-use object-oriented environments (MOOs – more about these later). Interaction is supported by ‘asynchro- nous’ communication tools such as email and discussion boards – where ‘asynchronous’ simply means that they are not happening in the same time frame. An email, for example, is a one-way communication that can be answered immediately or later in a one-way response when the receiver reads it. ‘Synchronous’ tools, such as chat rooms and shared whiteboards, offer the immediacy of two-way communication and are also powerful vehi- cles for the interaction that the learning environment supports. The learn- ing experience itself can be very varied, perhaps involving the student in lectures provided by video, in manipulating simulations or in interrogating an expert system. By virtue of the medium, the learning activities can be tracked and assessed using online tools which are also embedded in the environment. Information is everywhere, sometimes more accessible than at other times. For example, compare the information disseminated freely by orga- nizations through their websites with the information stored by organiza- tions which have to be forced to make it available to the citizens who ‘own’ it. Access is often through legal devices such as the Freedom of Information Acts in the UK and the USA, the Data Protection Act in the UK and the Privacy Act in the USA. Technology has allowed the creation and dissemination of information on an unprecedented scale and with unprecedented ease. Government has expanded to e-government, commerce has expanded to e-commerce – and learning has in turn expanded to e-Learning. Technological advances have extended the dimensions of the information used and provided by social institutions (government, commerce, leisure, education and so on) and have revolutionized the processes that make the information meaningful or amenable for professionals and ordinary


By : rizdanny

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