FUNDS - Higher Education Funds
QUESTION - Interaction, Accommodating Different Cultures
RESEARCH - To Get the News, We Overlook Pictures
ED - U of Pittsburgh Sets Pace on Digital Certificates
BIZ/ED - UVA Works With Dept. of Justice to Combat Cyber Crime
NEW TECH - Download Scents
RESOURCES - Eduport Online, Math Goodies
FYI - News, Institutes, Conferences and Events

NEXT DESIEN ISSUE - May, 2000 FOCUS - "Designing for Online Learning" - Martha Mealy of Learning Innovations

HIGHER EDUCATION FUNDS

The Foundation for Independent Higher Education (http://www.fihe.org/) and ATT (http://www.att.com/) invite FIHE-affiliated institutions to apply for ATT Learning Network Teaching and Technology grants of up to $50,000 to support collaborative projects that use technology to enhance teaching and learning, increase efficiency and lower costs. Grants will be awarded to projects aimed at sharing intellectual resources, strengthening institutional capacity and preparing students for the technology-based workplace of tomorrow. Each project should designate a FIHE-affiliated college or state fund as lead institution. The lead institution should complete the application form and submit it with the documentation outlined on the Application Checklist. Visit the FIHE Web site for additional information and application guidelines: http://www.educause.edu/.

Contact: The Foundation for Independent Higher Education
Eleven South LaSalle Street, Suite 1730
Chicago, IL 60603
Tel: (312) 849-9400
E-mail: fihe@fihe.org.

 

QUESTION
INTERACTION, ACCOMMODATING DIFFERENT CULTURES - Karen Mantyla, the author of the April FOCUS article on the importance of interaction in distance learning, has a question she'd like to pose to DESIEN subscribers.

"In the need for regionalization for distance learning courses around the world, what would a designer do, as it relates to interactivity, to accommodate the different cultures and learning environments in different countries? For example, in Japan, a student is brought up from birth to take notes and not participate. What then? What research are you aware of that has been done in this area? Do you know of any specific courses that have been regionalized for global use?" Karen Mantyla

Email your comments to: lehman@ics.uwex.edu and I'll pull the information together for the next full newsletter. Rosemary Lehman

 

RESEARCH
(The full study of the research cited below can be found at http://www.poynter.org/eyetrack2000/index.htm. This research has enormous implications for not only on-line journalism but e-commerce and education.)

TO GET THE NEWS, WE OVERLOOK PICTURES - Issue: Internet/Journalism. A A joint study by Stanford University and the Poynter Institute on the way people read news online found that readers look at text before they look at photos or graphics. This is contrary to how people read newspapers - looking at pictures and graphics before looking at text. According to the study, people read 92% of the text on Web pages, but they looked at only 22% of the graphics on the same pages. "We were very puzzled," said Marion Lewenstein, Stanford professor emeritus of communication and the project's main investigator "my own personal opinion about graphics is they don't give you a lot of information and people are after information." The study also found that readers prefer general news over specialized news. In fact, 25% of the news they read was national, 22% was local, 16% was specialized, 10% was based on hometown news and only 2% was customized. [SOURCE: USAToday (3D), AUTHOR: Janet Kornblum] (http://www.usatoday.com/usatonline/20000509/2241859s.htm)

(c)Benton Foundation 2000.)

 

ED
U OF PITTSBURGH SETS PACE ON DIGITAL CERTIFICATES - The University of Pittsburgh is taking the lead in employing digital certificates to secure e-commerce transactions. The university has already given out roughly 2,000 digital certificates to students and staff so they can purchase goods at the school's online store, and in the near future the university expects to conduct its legal business and transfer electronic funds using digital certificates. Digital certificates contain small amounts of code that prove the identity of a person, as well as a public and private cryptographic key. The university plans to expand the use of digital certificates to online transactions conducted in the confines of the university network. This fall the school will unveil a new automated system that contains a centralized database of student and employee computer accounts, linked to the university's enrollment and payment databases. The system will create and manage new computer accounts and digital certificates for employees and staff, and will automatically delete them when the account holders are no longer at the university. The university also expects soon to begin providing smart-card ID's with digital certificates to students.
(Chronicle of Higher Education, 28 Apr 00 - Edupage 1 May 00, Edupage at: http://www.educause.edu/pub/edupage/edupage.html).

 

BIZ/ED
UVA WORKS WITH DEPT. OF JUSTICE TO COMBAT CYBER CRIME

As more businesses offer services on the WWW, computer-related crime is one of the fastest growing areas of criminal activity. Using a $100,000 grant from the US Dept. of Justice, the University of Virginia Division of Continuing Education has designed a CD-ROM to teach law enforcement officials about the Internet and how to search/seize digital evidence...UVA's CE staff wrote, designed, acted in, animated, filmed and produced the CD-ROM, "Fighting Cyber Crime: A New Battleground" prototype. It incorporates a "Netchase" game (a virtual interactive training module), expert commentary (by experienced FBI agents and law professors), online resources via internet hot-links and original content for background readings.
(infocus - a Newsletter of UCEA, Apr 00 vol. 5 #4)

 

NEW TECH
DOWNLOAD SCENTS

You'll soon be able to download both smells and tastes directly from the Internet, using a TriSenx device - for a price. The price - $398. TriSenx uses a combination of water-based chemicals to create the smells and tastes that are then printed on fiber card-stock paper. By clicking on an image, which is digitally programmed with a scent, the user can both smell and lick. Both perfume manufacturers and food companies have expressed an interest in the product. If the product price falls low enough, computer companies may bundle it with their computers. Meanwhile, Digi Scents and AromaJet.com are planning to offer competition.
(Wall Street Journal, 1 May 00)

 

RESOURCES

EDUPORT ONLINE - The online Eduport Kiosk has just released its Spring 2000 Issue. The portal focuses on: e-learning, training and professional development. For a look, go to: http://www.eduport.com/kiosk.

MATH GOODIES - This site announces the addition of new lessons and puzzles on Topics in Pre-Algebra. It has 6 new lessons on order of operations, writing algebraic expressions and writing algebraic equations. You can find them at: http://www.mathgoodies.com/lessons/toc_vol7.shtm.

There are also new crossword and word search puzzles to go with these lessons at: http://www.mathgoodies.com/puzzles/ (from Gisele Glosser).

 

FYI - News, Institutes, Conferences and Events

The Public Health Informatics and Distance Learning Conference: Blending People and Technology to Improve Practice, will be held on August 7-11, 2000 in New Orleans as a forum for exchanging information on informatics and distance learning. For more information see: http://www.bixler.com/asph/conference/.

Technology in Teaching & Learning in Higher Education: an International Conference will be held on August 25-27, 2000 on Samos Island, Greece. The conference is jointly organized by National-Louis University, United States; the Research Institute of East Aegan, Greece and WSB-NLU, Poland. Further information is listed at: http://www2.nl.edu/conferences/.

The 6th International Conference on Asynchronous Learning Networks (ALN 2000) will take place November 3-5 at the University of Maryland University College Inn and Conference Center located in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. Details will be posted on the Conference web site as soon as they are available at: http://www.aln.org/alnconf2000.

The 10th Annual CREAD Conference, the Inter-American Distance Education Consortium, dedicated to the development of distance education in the Americas, will hold its conference November 19-22, 2000 at the Hilton Hotel Caracas. For complete information see: http://www.cde.psu.edu/CREAD/.