The website of the Presidency of the Republic [of Uruguay] takes the news. On Tuesday, in connection with the [Montevideo International] Book Fair, we held the pre-presentation of the book on Ceibal Plan and the OLPC model, collective work and shared invaluable colleagues in Argentina, Mexico, Spain, USA, and, of course, Uruguay.

Uruguay, through the Ceibal Plan, was the first country to adopt the One Laptop Per Child platform. Roberto Balaguer compiled an international, critical look into the initiative, that provides an extensive review. The following collaborators contributed to the volume:

1. Roberto Balaguer (Uruguay) “Plan Ceibal: Los ojos del mundo en el primer modelo OLPC a escala nacional” ["Plan Ceibal: The eyes of the world in the first OLPC nationwide model"].
2. Fernando Garrido (Spain) “¿Otra vez el mismo error? OLPC, Determinismo Tecnológico y Educación” ["Again the same mistake? OLPC technological determinism and education"].
3. Edgar Gómez Cruz (Mexico) “Domesticación de la Tecnología: una aproximación crítica al proyecto de OLPC” ["Domestication of technology: A critical approach to the OLPC project"].
4. Tíscar Lara (Spain) “Aprender a ser ciudadano desde las prácticas digitales” ["Learning to be a citizen from digital practices"].
5. Guillermo Lutzky (Argentina) “La Escuela Digital, un cambio obligatorio para los modelos 1 a 1″ ["The Digital School, a change required to 1 to 1 models"].
6. Mónica Baez-Graciela Rabajoli (Uruguay) “La escuela extendida. Impacto del Modelo CEIBAL” ["The school extended: Impact of the Ceibal model"].
7. Alicia Kachinovsky (Uruguay) “La Universidad de la República en tiempos del Plan Ceibal” ["The University of the Republic in times of the Ceibal Plan"].
8. Octavio Islas (Mexico) “Retos que representa la enseñanza en el imaginario de la ‘Generación Einstein’” ["Challenges posed by teaching in the imagination of the 'Einstein Generation'"].
9. Cristóbal Cobo (Mexico) “Aprendizaje de código abierto” ["Learning from open source"].
10. Raúl Trejo Delarbre (Mexico) “Un niño para cada laptop” ["A laptop for every child"].
11. John Moravec (USA) “¿Y ahora, qué?” ["So, what now?"].
12. Miguel Brechner (Uruguay) “Los tres si” ["The three yeses"].

I join many of the collaborators in dedicating my contribution to the volume to our colleague and co-author, Guillermo Lutzky, who passed away late last month.

HBS Working Knowledge, notes three key ideas from the book:

• “As an industry, education has certain elements that have made the market difficult to penetrate and lasting reform hard to come by.”
• “As a general rule, the most promising areas for innovation are pockets or areas that appear unattractive or inconsequential to industry incumbents and where there are people who would like to do something but cannot access the available offering.”
• “To improve education as an industry, businesspeople might consider investing in technological platforms that will allow for robust educational user networks to emerge.”

More in the interview…

Four primary scenarios were developed from the projects activities:

• Market Rules (business): The story of consolidation in the face of a system that has been so successful that it is collapsing under its own weight
• Whose Game? (geopolitics): The story of conflict in the face of changing geopolitical balances and competing ambitions
• Trees of Knowledge (society): The story of erosion in the face of diminishing societal trust
• Blue Skies (technology): The story of differentiation in the face of global systemic crises

These scenarios are driven by five driving forces that create the most uncertainty:

• Power: “globalisation has redefined this power structure, with established sources of authority – such as governments – challenged by the many new powerful actors that are forming alliances and cutting across traditional boundaries”
• Global Jungle: “economic, social and political competitive flattening of the world between a multiplicity of players that include countries, regions, hotspots and city states, market sectors, global companies, organisational and business models, consumer markets and workforces, business and universities as well as cultures. In this global jungle, there are many who are ill-equipped to adapt.”
• Rate of Change: “The growing divide between the short and long-term goals leads us to ask: How do humans and their institutions adjust to cope with the rate of change?”
• Systemic Risks: “There are also major risks created by our dependency on the complex natural and man-made systems that support humanity.”
• Knowledge Paradox: “The transformation of data into information and then into knowledge – information that can be utilised to build capabilities – is also far from straightforward. This raises the question: As information becomes increasingly abundant, what knowledge has value?”

More is available in the free “Scenarios for the Future” compendium, which is available from the EPO website.

In today’s colleges and universities, the influence of market forces has tended to alter faculty as well as institutional incentives, while Internet communications capabilities have blurred the boundaries of academic knowledge and created global research communities (Nowotny, Scott, and Gibbons 2001). Thacker begins the discussion regarding changes in the admissions process by asking in a section title, “Who Can Do What Needs to Be Done?” (Thacker, p. 181). His suggested initial steps to collective action are focused on students, parents, colleges, the College Board, and members of the media involved with ranking colleges. The suggestions of Zemsky, Wegner, and Massy for institutions seem less concrete. Yet, their book helps to explain the origins and broader context of the admissions arms race; it also furthers a larger discussion of importance to planners and policy makers by raising new questions about the “public good” purposes, or social value, of higher education in today’s increasingly globally connected world.

Read the entire review at Tomorrow’s Professor.

More information on my study, “A New Paradigm of Knowledge Production in Minnesota Higher Education,” is available at http://www.educationfutures.com/dissertation.

A few interesting, recent posts:

• Dad sues Wheaton College for unfair study abroad charges: somebody’s putting up the good fight against service fees that don’t return services
• Study abroad programs at 15 universities investigated–Bring on the shakedown! …including my alma mater…
• Personal U: How to create your own university: She argues we have a responsibility to educate ourselves

Since I work in a department that trains study abroad advisors, here’s my question for the day:  In a Web 2.0 world of knowledge sharing, do students and youth need study abroad advisors?  Or, is there a better solution?

From the article:

Efforts to assess the quality of what goes on in graduate education are minimal, the report says, and many professors aren’t excited about talking about these issues. “One finds attitudes of complacency (‘Our application numbers are strong and so is our national ranking’), denial (‘We don’t have problems with gender or ethnic diversity here’), and blame (‘Students these days just aren’t willing to make the kinds of sacrifices we did to be successful.’),” the book says.

While many programs resist change, many doctoral students find themselves uncertain about expectations or the rationale for requirements that are consuming years of their lives, the book says. “The rationale for program requirements has often been lost in the mists of history: Students may not well understand why certain elements are required or toward what end, and faculty, if pushed, will acknowledge that there is no unified vision underpinning many of the experiences students are expected to undertake.”

The book’s recommendations are built on themes of scholarly integration, intellectual community, and stewardship. Read more at Inside Higher Ed…

Play the video (requires Real Player).

• International Journal of Education and Development using Communication Technology. An e-journal focusing on both research and practice in ICT, education, and technology.
• Information Technologies and International Development. An e-journal focusing on the intersection of ICT and international development.
• ICT for Development Platform. Brings together ICT4D specialists, best practices, innovations, and experiences. Check out the Connecting People for a Better World book!
• UNDP ICT4D. The United Nations website for ICT4D resources.
• ICTlogy. A blog dedicated to ICT4D issues.