Handwriting vs Digitalwriting

Handwriting vs Digitalwriting

by Sedigheh Minachi - Saturday, 14 September 2013, 05:28 AM

Hi everyone. As we all noticed, more people use typing or digitalwriting rather than handwriting in the recent years and I often hear how the art of handwriting is deteriorating. I even heard a school in the US teaches students how to type instead of teaching them how to write text. The article in below link explains how the act of handwriting helps us clarify our thoughts, remember things better and reach our goals more surely.
http://lifehacker.com/5738093/why-you-learn-more-effectively-by-writing-than-typing

I will write more about this topic and would like to explore this question for now: do you think digital writing can effect the disappearance of handwriting by the next century?

How Women Can Help Build a Culture of Peace

From the U.S. Institute of Peace blog The Olive Branch. To read the post on the USIP web site, click here.

By Maria Jessop

 

For many in the United States, Iraq has become synonymous with violence and insecurity.  For those who are from there and those of us who have had the privilege of spending time there -- working with Iraqis and building friendships -- we know that Iraq is not defined by violence. Iraq has a proud culture and history, and the vast majority of its citizens lead peaceful lives and are trying to build a better life for their families.

Iraq is not unique in this sense. The aspiration to live in peace and security is one of the most important things that unites us.
What disunites us and what gives rise to violence is the erroneous belief that we are separate. Science has recently been catching up to what spiritual leaders all over the world have been teaching all along.
We know from the field of quantum physics, for example, that everything is energy and that all living things are connected by a field of energy.  We know from the science of DNA that we have infinitely more in common with the natural world than we ever imagined.
We may be different, but we are not separate. We are all connected.
Another false belief we have is that we are somehow hard-wired for violence. But there is no evidence of this. Concepts such as “survival of the fittest” have been misinterpreted and misused to justify this claim. The truth is that we are wired for cooperation and compassion. We would not have functioning societies at all if we weren’t.
Moreover, the results of research published in Foreign Policy magazine last year by academics in Texas showed that “the very best predictor of a state’s peacefulness is not its level of wealth, its level of democracy, or its ethno-religious identity; the best predictor of a state’s peacefulness is how well its women are treated.”  This corroborated other studies that have shown that the larger the gender gap between the treatment of men and women in a society, the more likely a country is to be involved in internal and interstate conflict, to be the first to wield force in such conflicts, and to resort to higher levels of violence.  The best predictors on matters of national health, economic growth, corruption, and social welfare, are also those that reflect the situation of women.
The Texas research, published in Foreign Policy last year, was conducted by a team led by Valerie M. Hudson, a professor and the George H.W. Bush chair at Texas A&M University. Their database rated countries based on several dimensions of women’s security from 0 (best) to 4 (worst). The world average is 3.04, which demonstrates the scope and severity of the problem of violence against women, even among the highly developed and free nations.
So the most important thing anyone, including women, can do to build a culture of peace is to improve the status of women. The general violence and insecurity in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, are often used as excuses to put the issue of women’s rights on the back burner. People say it’s not the right time, we have economic priorities, we have to contain the larger violence, etc.
But all violence is connected, and we now have plenty of empirical evidence that correlates women’s security with state security.
One of the first Iraqi women I met on my first trip to Iraq in 2008 was Dana, a young woman in her twenties who is a graphic arts instructor at a technical school in Baghdad.  Dana told me that the classroom she taught in had no computers, it had no desks, and it had no chairs.  She and her students sat on the floor.  Yet she showed up for her students every day and scraped together supplies, even using leftover wall paint.  She knew it would be better for the students to come to her class than be on the street.
There was one student, a 16-year-old boy, who looked despondent. So she sat and talked with him after class one day. She learned that the boy’s parents were pressuring him to join an armed group because they needed the money.  Eventually, he gained the strength to move in with his sister and her husband. Thanks to Dana’s support, the boy didn’t join the armed group.
That’s building a culture of peace.
There’s Zainab, a 40-year-old attorney from Basra, a socially conservative area in southern Iraq, who runs her own NGO to combat violence against women. I first met Zainab at a dialogue workshop co-sponsored by USIP.  She learned how dialogue can help bridge divides, and she subsequently found the courage to engage the conservative leadership in her community on women’s issues.
That’s building a culture of peace.
Women’s leadership in building a culture of peace is not rare, even in places like Iraq, where women still struggle for equality and security. It just doesn’t get noticed as much.
Still, prejudices and stereotypes keep women from working together effectively, and it weakens them as it weakens the whole society. Women who have gained political power, perhaps because of a society’s quota system, may lack experience and end up marginalized. Strengthening relationships with women from across the political and social spectrum puts them in a stronger position to accomplish positive changes. This is one reason that a significant area of focus for the Institute’s work with women in Iraq has been to build bridges among women from different backgrounds.
When we can dispel the falsehood that you and I are separate and we embrace the truth of our interconnectedness and interdependence, then we will all be taking actions that build a culture of peace.
Maria Jessop is a senior program officer in USIP’s Academy for International Conflict Management and Peacebuilding. This blog post is adapted from remarks she made on Aug. 23 to an audience at the Iraqi Cultural Center in Washington D.C. for a discussion entitled “The Role of Women in a Culture of Peace.”

Turkey provided education for Syrian children who have been displaced in Turkey

Journal # 3 Internationalization of the Western Universities

Internationalization of the Western Universities

Objective:                       

Bowen (2012) defines “glocalization”  as adapting a global product to fit local customs and needs. “For example, McDonald’s is a global company known for the consistency of its products, but in India it offers mostly chicken, lamb, and vegetarian food.” He then suggests in education, there is a need to localize the material and internationalize the product (e.g., New York University in Abu Dhabi). The objective of this journal is to critically discuss why major universities have become internationalized and how they take advantage of new technology to integrate active learning among student and faculty remotely.

Reflective:

In my perspective, internationalization of higher education is a great service to humanity in the long run as long as it’s not profit motivated. I like Bowen’s argument on the significant role of universities “at integrating the human and personal significance of content, enhancing the human    intellectual curiosity, increasing personal investment in the material, negotiating difference, and connecting information across disciplines.” (p. 285) Unfortunately, the decreasing financial support from the federal and provincial governments has forced many universities to compete at the global level for private donors to cover costly expenses, including updating or expanding their facilities.  

Traditionally, many students from developing countries located themselves in Western countries to gain knowledge and skills, and the expectation was for them to return to their home countries and advance their societies. While Canadian universities still admit thousands of international students, technological tools have made it possible for many other students to stay in their home countries and graduate from the same universities. In this case, those graduating from the University of British Columbia remotely don’t incur the high cost of living in Vancouver and mainly pay tuition fees and course related expenses.  

Interpretive:

The concept of Internationalization is not a foreign concept to many of us, particularly since the increasing pace of globalization in the world market and trade economy. “Internationalization describes the voluntary and perhaps creative ways of coping (Altbach, 2004:3).”  The process of internationalization of higher education involves voluntary interaction between individuals (students, faculty and staff) and between nations across borders.  Internationalization of higher education creates opportunities for education partnerships with governments and nations, academic institutions at the global level, non-governmental organizations, businesses, faculty and students, and diverse Canadian and global communities.    

Although I agree with Bowen that universities need to change their approaches and strategies in this era of globalization to become global universities, in recent years, advancements in technology have made it much easier for educational institutions and universities to offer distance education and on-line education to students and scholars who may study, work and live anywhere in the world.  Currently, distance education and on-line education is more popular in the fields of business, management and technology to middle class international students whose parents have money and who study and work in their home countries and receive their degrees from foreign universities.  This has been reported in the Vancouver Sun article “The Chinese connection”:

The number of students in China packing their bags to study in Canada is dropping, but that isn’t stopping many of them from getting a Canadian education.  Faced with declining numbers of international students seeking admission to programs here, Canadian institutions have been putting more emphasis on creative partnerships that deliver Canadian curriculum-seen as an advantage in a globalized economy-to students in China. (2005, E1)

As argued by Bowen, the focus of universities that market their service at the global level should be on motivating students to learn and to “…find new ways to connect with students.” (p. 288)  

As discussed, the integration of national markets into a global market has pushed the administrations of many Canadian universities to internationalize their campuses and to maximize revenue from international students.  Faced with increased cuts to education budgets at both provincial and federal levels since the early 1990s, many university administrations have been forced to accept funding from multinational companies, particularly for their science and technology departments.  Whether this new direction for Western universities puts quality of education ahead of profits or whether it’s beneficial for the survival of the universities is beyond the scope of this journal, my concern is whether educators are using opportunities offered by  “glocalization”     to create quality, effective education that is very accessible, interactive, inclusive, supportive and promotes active learning.

Decisional

Educational institutions need to encourage interactive relationships between students, faculty and staff to motivate participation of all groups in the design and delivery of international programs.  If I have some kind of decision making power in higher education at the global level, I will not force my way of thinking on anyone, including nations considered ‘financially poor’, but instead create equal opportunities for collaborative sharing and exchange of knowledge/skills with the aim of improving the quality of life for people worldwide.

As our experience has shown, in recent years, many educational institutions are pushed into privatizing departments and programs. In my perspective, individual students, staff and faculty members can make a big difference in moving campuses toward being inclusive, supportive, caring and passionate in rising to the challenge of making the world more humane and livable for everyone by transforming our institutions into needed societal leaders and role models.

The opportunities provided by the new technology have allowed all students to share their knowledge, expertise and related experiences with a broader audience at the global level.  This course has encouraged me to think more about the concept and practices of higher education in this fast growing era of technological advances in every aspect of our lives.  In this era of a knowledge economy, educators need to create and implement curricula that are relevant locally and internationally.  In this context,  “glocalization”     of education motivates me to create a curriculum that will meet the demands of the international community and meet the needs of local and remote learners. Therefore, my aim will be to share my knowledge and skills to make the world better for all humanity. 

References

Altbach, Philip.  (2004).  ‘Globalization and the University:  Myths and Realities in an Unequal World’.  Tertiary Education and Management (No. 1, 2001).  Centre for International Higher Education, Campion Hall, Boston College, Chestnut.

Bowen, J. A. (2012). Teaching Naked: How Moving Technology Out of Your College Classroom Will Imp

Shaw, Gillian. (2005).  ‘International program widens horizons for students in B.C. and Asia: The Chinese connection’.  Monday, March 14, 2005. E1, Vancouver Sun.