By Stephen Downes
April 20, 2004
Beyond Just School: Goa Project Tries to
Ensure Children Actually Learn
Interview with
Marita Adam, the coordinator of this project run out of the
health-focussed non-profit organisation Sangath in the Alto
Porvorim locality in Goa. She says: "Almost one of every
three children come to Sangath Centre with school problems.
This project aims to help children with school problems --
academic and behavioral -- develop their full learning
potential.... (Children can gain from achieving) success in
small tasks and enjoy the fulfillment of having achieved
them." By Frederick Noronha, Stephen's Web, April 20, 2004
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
Fundamental Issues With Open Source Software
Development
The five major issues outlined in
this article correspond with my own experience, especially
bad user interface, poor documentation. The other issues
speak more to the functionality of the software: feature
glut, programmer centered design, and blindness to good
features in commercial software. But for me, the biggest
issue so far has been software installation - more than
half (more like three quarters) of my attempts at sofwtare
installs fail on the first try, leaving me with an
appointment with Google and some detective work before this
plug-in, or that application, will run. Thanks to Rod for
passing this along. By Michelle Levesque, First Monday,
April, 2004
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
Recording Industry Drops Amnesty Program for
Online File-sharers
The headlines have
disappeared, only 1108 people signed up, and so the
recording industry is disbanding its file sharing amnesty
program and, as one commentator notes, "it's pretty clear
that their main goal is to use the stick of litigation." By
Alex Veiga, AP Wire, April 19, 2004
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
Writing on the Brain
This
commentary on Alice W. Flaherty's The Midnight Disease asks
the question: why do people write? Perhaps, the author
suggests, it's a disease? Certainly the list of great
writers has no shortage of manic and drug-addled basket
cases. But this explanation, and the mysteries of
neuroscience, don't offer any satisfying explanation of why
it is that people write. The best the author of this
article can come up with is that it is a passion. But this
appeal to folk psychology is equally barren. So the answer
may not have been found - but it's fun considering the
quetion. By Joseph Epstein, Commentary, April, 2004
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
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