TAD Consortium November 2001 Information Update No. 3

* * * The TAD Consortium * * *
-----------------------------------------
The TAD Consortium is an e-mail service aimed primarily at people interested
in using information and communication technologies to improve the quality
of education in the developing world.

If a colleague has forwarded this message to you and you wish to receive it
directly, please send an e-mail to [email][email protected] with a request to be
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Regards,

Neil Butcher

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CONTENTS
---------------------------
NEWS/TRENDS
--- Millions Of Euros Invested In Wave Of Accessibility Research.
--- The Myth Of Perfect Convergence
--- India Slates $2Bil Plan For In-School Internet
--- EU schools mostly online
--- Portal operators need to rethink strategy
--- Online Grade Books Tell Parents What Happened In The Classroom
PROFILED ORGANIZATIONS
--- Sri Lanka Environmental Television Project (SLETP)
ONLINE RESOURCES
--- Think Globally, Act Locally
--- Debt Relief - What Do We Know?
--- World Biodiversity Database
--- Labor Research Portal
--- Two for Teachers
--- TeachersFirst’s Biomes of the World
--- 'Improve your Writing Skills'
--- A Lesson in Domain Names and Trademarks from Bruce Springsteen
--- Computer Ergonomics For Elementary School
PRINTED AND OTHER RESOURCES
--- Ama: A Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade
--- Four very good distance education resource books
ARTICLES
--- Sowing Technology: Do We Really Want To Pit Agriculture Against Nature?
***************************
NEWS/TRENDS
-----------
Taken from E-Access Bulletin, October 2001
---
MILLIONS OF EUROS INVESTED IN WAVE OF ACCESSIBILITY RESEARCH.
By Phil Cain [email][email protected]

The European Commission's adoption of W3C accessibility guidelines follows a
significant new cash injection by the organisation in this field. In the
past nine months alone it has invested 3.7 million euros, or 2.5 million UK
pounds, in technology accessibility research projects.

The first access project to gain commission backing was 'IRIS', an
initiative that upholds the commission's proud tradition of acronymic
creativity - it stands for 'Incorporating Requirements of People with
Special Needs or Impairments to Internet Based Systems and Services'. The
1.8 million euro project received commission funding of 1.2 million euros in
January.

By the end of its 30-month lifespan IRIS aims to create a commercially
viable software package and user community to help designers create
accessible web sites. Project leader Nikitas Tsopelas of Greek web
consultancy European Dynamics (http://www.eurodyn.com) said development
would begin in 2002 and that news will be posted to the project's web site:
http://www.iris-design4all.org/progress.htm

According to Tsopelas the last nine months have been spent assessing user
requirements with the assistance of Belgian charity Information Society
disAbilities Challenge (ISdAC, http://www.isdac.org) According to IsDAC
chairman Tony Verelst, IRIS recently commissioned his organisation to
provide feedback on a web forum.

In August, the commission contributed a further 1.4 million euros towards a
2.0 million euro project snappily entitled Smart Interactive Tactile
Interface Effecting Graphical Display for the Visually Impaired. 'ITACTI',
as it is thankfully known for short, is a three-year project to use new
'smart' materials to make tactile displays and software to drive them from a
standard PC.

According to the project's funding statement, "It is expected that
electro-rheological fluid will be chosen to facilitate the production of a
matrix of moving dots." The technology referred to here is that of 'smart'
or 'intelligent' fluids that change their viscosity massively on application
of an electronic current, effectively temporarily solidifying.

The ITACTI project is the only one of the three commission-backed IT-access
research projects to be led by a UK-based organisation – the Faculty of
Applied Sciences at De Montfort University
(http://www.dmu.ac.uk/Faculties/AS ). The non-UK members of the ITACTI
consortium include Italy's Associazione Nazionale Subvedenti
(http://www.subvedenti.it ), a charity for the visually impaired.

The third and most recent commission-backed accessibility project is Voice
for Information Society Universal Access Learning (VISUAL), which in
September received 1.1 million euros from the commission towards its 1.6
million euro costs. The project will last for a year, with the first
partners' meeting scheduled for 17 October in Madrid.

VISUAL plans to use VoiceXML technology to develop software to enable people
to design web sites which can navigated by voice. The group aim to ensure
the design software itself is accessible and compatible with mainstream web
design packages.

Among VISUAL's other aims is the creation of a multilingual, voice-activated
e-learning portal. The cosmopolitan make up of the VISUAL team may prove
useful in achieving this ambition: Keith Gladstone of the RNIB and Helen
Petrie of the University of Hertfordshire are the only native English
speakers in the team.

The initiative is being led by Spanish telecoms technology firm Soluziona
Telecomunicaciones (http://www.ipt.es), with other participants including
French charity La Fédération des Aveugles et Handicapés Visuels de France
(http://www.faf.asso.fr ) and German and Italian charities Deutsche Blinden-
und Sehbehindertenverband (http://home.t-online.de/home/dbsv_) and Unione
Italiana dei Ciechi (http://www.uiciechi.it) and the European Blind Union
(http://www.euroblind.org).

All three of these new research projects could prove useful to the European
Commission in its attempt to kick-start the process of making the web sites
of European institutions and member states accessible. IRIS in particular
seems like it could be particularly useful resource for EU institutions
themselves - and who knows, one day EU sites might be voice-enabled in all
official member languages using VISUAL technology.
----------------------------------------
Taken from NEWS-ON-NEWS/The Ifra Trend Report: No. 115 (10 October 2001)
---
THE MYTH OF PERFECT CONVERGENCE

(FRANCE) -- A totally integrated multimedia company is still a figment
of the imagination because no media conglomerate has "converged" everything,
consultant Martha Stone told participants at the World Forum on Newspaper
Strategy held 27-28 Sept. in Manoir de Gressy, France. Stone, a member of
the Innovation International Media Consulting Group, noted, however, that
many newspapers have made great strides in converging various parts of their
key operations. WashingtonPost.com, for instance, has leveraged its
newspaper and online content assets to create a personalized Web section
called MyWashingtonPost.com. TBO.com, Media General's Tampa, Fla.,
multimedia venture, has completed integration of the company's local
newspaper, television and Internet service sites. FT.com staff work as an
integrated part of the whole operation in which print, online and broadcast
journalists work side by side. Recoletos in Madrid has solved staff turf war
problems by integrating journalists by topic, rather than by medium.
Edipresse, which owns three Swiss dailies, 10 magazines, a Web site, and an
online division, is moving to "re-merge" its Edipresse Online with the
parent company. The goal for the new company, said Edipresse Director of
Development Andre Jaunin, is to consolidate information in a "universal
content repository" that includes the technology to deliver the content
across several platforms. Meanwhile, publishers should never lose sight of
the consumer, said Monique van Dusseldorp, president & CEO of Van Dusseldorp
& Partners. The popularity of consumer gadgets such as 3G cell phones, PDAs
and interactive game consoles indicates that "personal communications is
about a million times more important than content," said van Dusseldorp. The
key to a successful newspaper site is interactivity, and the starting point
for publishers is to exploit their relationships with readers via e-mail.
"You have a million subscribers and you don't have their e-mail addresses,"
said van Dusseldorp. "That seems silly."
(Ifra-WAN World Forum on Newspaper Strategy, 27-28 Sep 2001)
http://www.wan-press.org
----------------------------------------
India Slates $2Bil Plan For In-School Internet
By Staff, Computers Today
NEW DELHI, INDIA,
10 Oct 2001, 8:14 AM CST

India's government plans to invest $2 billion to improve Internet access in
schools across the country. While $1 billion will be spent on providing Net
connectivity, another $833 million has been proposed for upgrading Education
and Research Network (Ernet). The blueprint drawn up by the Ministry of
Information Technology shows that multilateral funding agencies like the
World Bank would be recruited as a partner. The $1 billion project called
"Schoolnet" proposes to provide 128 kilobits per second connections in
60,000 schools in the first phase. In its second phase, the government
proposes to add another 40,000 schools, taking the total number to 100,000.

On Ernet - the network that interconnects the universities and research and
development institutions in the country - the government is also looking at
the possibility of private-sector participation.

The Ernet upgrade would involve increasing the available bandwidth and
upgrading the computer infrastructure as also providing value-added services
like educational content, setting up an educational portal, networking for
engineering institutions and implementation of UGC net. "Considering the
magnitude of the projects, the IT ministry is of the opinion that it will be
difficult to implement the project on its own," an official said.

The IT ministry, along with the Ministry of Communications and Educational
Institutes had already signed an agreement with the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology to set up Sankhya Vahini, which was to provide high-speed data
link between educational and research institutes. That project has, however,
been put on the backburner.

At present, Ernet provides ISP services to universities and research
institutions and also conducts research and development activities in the
area of computer networking. The satellite network of Ernet is operating on
one-fourth transponder space in the C-band of Insat-II DT since December
1998. At present 750 institutions are connected through Ernet.

Reported by Newsbytes.com, http://www.newsbytes.com
(C) 2001 The Washington Post Company
source:
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/170989.html
----------------------------------------
Taken from Nua Internet Surveys: October 15, 2001
---
European Commission: EU schools mostly online

Oct 12 2001: Nine in ten schools in the European Union now have Internet
access, and pupils have access in eight in 10 of those, according to the
European Commission.

The average number of students per computer with Internet access is 24,
while the average number of students per offline computer is 12.

The level of Internet access in schools varies from country to country,
however. The number of students per online computer is between three and 50,
and the number per offline computer is between three and 25.

The European Commission says the provision of the Internet in schools is a
priority in all Member States. Schools in most of the Member States use
narrowband technology, but broadband is emerging in some countries.
----------------------------------------
Taken from Nua Internet Surveys: October 15, 2001
---
Ovum: Portal operators need to rethink strategy

Oct 08 2001: Portal operators must ensure their sites can be accessed by all
sorts of Internet devices if they wish to stay in business, says Ovum.

The research firm believes that global revenues from multi-access portals
will reach almost USD70 billion by 2006.

Multi-access portals are those that can be accessed across all Internet
devices, and that maintain the same look and feel on all devices.

Ovum says the current shakeout in the portal sector will leave only a few
global players and some smaller niche portals, such as sports.com or aa.com.

The portals that survive will be those that form both short and long-term
alliances with other content and service providers, so they can offer new
revenue-generating services such as ecommerce, subscription fees, placement
fees, and premium content.

Portals can no longer rely on advertising revenues to survive. Only 36
percent of revenues will derive from advertising by 2006, down from over 90
percent a few years ago.
----------------------------------------
Taken from Benton Foundation Communications-related Headlines for 10/18/01
---
ONLINE GRADE BOOKS TELL PARENTS WHAT HAPPENED IN THE CLASSROOM
Issue: EdTech
Online grade books posted by teachers provide thousands of parents with a
direct channel into their children's classroom through. With a password and
user ID, parents can log in at any time to check on their children's grades,
attendance, practice-test scores for standardized exams and, in some cases,
a comparison of their children's grades with those of the rest of the class.
Some systems also have an e- mail setup in which parents and teachers can
communicate directly. Many teachers acknowledge that the parents who respond
favorably to the online postings are often the same parents who would be
involved in their child's work if no Internet existed. Other parents never
log into the program, perhaps because they do not have easy Internet access.
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Lisa Guernsey]
(http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/18/technology/circuits/18HOME.html)
(requires registration)
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PROFILED ORGANIZATIONS
-----------
Sri Lanka Environmental Television Project (SLETP): Moving images informing
and inspiring people
The "unseen" women workers of Sri Lanka

We are proud to introduce SLETP - one of the latest partners to set up shop
on the Pan Asia E-commerce Mall. SLETP is a non-profit, educational service
dedicated to effectively using the audiovisual and electronic media -
Television, Video and Internet - to enhance awareness on environmental and
development issues.

"We are excited to be the latest partners to join Pan Asia's Electronic Mall
and its online community of like-minded organisations working in sustainable
development and social justice issues. We have something useful and
interesting to offer, and our shop on the e-mall will enable us to reach out
to a global audience." - Nalaka Gunawardene, Executive Director, SLETP

The following video titles are now available from the Pan Asia E-Mall
***************************
ONLINE RESOURCES
-----------
Taken from the tweney report
---
THINK GLOBALLY, ACT LOCALLY

from Business 2.0, November 2001 issue:
http://www.business2.com/articles/mag/0,1640,17423,00.html

Most websites take a Model T approach to overseas marketing: You can access
them in any language you want, as long as it's English. Eighty-five percent
of the Web's pages are in English, but only 45 percent of the Web's users
are native speakers of that language, according to research firm IDC, and
the percentage is dropping year by year.

Many non-native speakers can read English, sure, but making potential
customers speak your language -- instead of soliciting them in theirs -- is
a backward way of doing business. English-only might suffice for routine
transactions between established business partners (or for American tourists
in Paris), but if you really want to sell something to someone, you'd better
speak that person's language.

... READ ON:

Think Globally, Act Locally
Adding foreign language versions of your website can easily pay for itself
in fresh leads and revenues.
by Dylan Tweney

http://www.business2.com/articles/mag/0,1640,17423,00.html
----------------------------------------
Taken from KABISSA-FAHAMU-SANGONET NEWSLETTER 37
---
DEBT RELIEF - WHAT DO WE KNOW?
http://www.debtchannel.org/cgi-bin/babel/showdoc.cgi?root=1410&url=http://nt
1.ids.ac.uk/eldis/poverty/wider.htm
More than 60 papers from a conference that reviewed what is known about the
relationship between debt, development and poverty reduction, and assessed
progress on debt relief and its implications for the relationship between
aid donors and recipients. Presented by the Electronic Development and
Environment Information System.
----------------------------------------
>From The Scout Report, Copyright Internet Scout Project 1994-2001.
http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/
---
World Biodiversity Database
http://www.eti.uva.nl/Database/WBD.html

The World Biodiversity Database, provided by the Expert Center for Taxonomic
Identification (ETI), seeks to "document all presently known species (about
1.7 million) and to make this important biological information worldwide
accessible." This continually growing database "provides taxonomic
information, species names, synonyms, descriptions, illustrations and
literature references when available" on 200,000 taxa. The searchable
database can be explored using an expandable tree of the five taxonomic
kingdoms or by typing in a common or scientific name. Both educators and
students should find this site easy to navigate, informative, and useful.
[JB]
----------------------------------------
>From The Scout Report, Copyright Internet Scout Project 1994-2001.
http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/
---
Labor Research Portal
http://iir.berkeley.edu/~iir/library/webguides.html

Berkeley's Institute of Industrial Relations Library offers this useful
metasite. While not new, the site is kept current, and the information here
will be useful for anyone involved in any aspect of labor relations.
Resources are divided into nine sections, including Labor Unions,
Government, Labor Libraries, Globalization, and more. While these sections
bill themselves as "Web guides," many span a host of resource types, such as
print works, songs, and videos. Brief annotations are supplied where useful,
but in other cases, such as the links to labor unions around the country and
world, having all of these references in one list is sufficiently helpful.
Some of the lists are far from comprehensive, but they will surely grow over
time. This is a must-bookmark for labor activists and researchers. [TK]
----------------------------------------
>From The Scout Report, Copyright Internet Scout Project 1994-2001.
http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/
---
Two for Teachers
Apple Learning Exchange [QuickTime]
http://ali.apple.com/ali/
TeacherNet
http://www.dfes.gov.uk/teachers/

The Apple Learning Interchange (API) site contains a wealth of educational
resources, spanning the full spectrum from preschool through to college.
Subject areas (including math, science, English, language arts, the
humanities, and even philosophy) are highlighted and indexed cleanly with an
eye to satisfying both students and teachers. Arguably the site's strongest
assets are its QuickTime clips, several of which feature the University of
Chicago's Tyrannosaurus Rex, Sue. For all its glitziness, ALI offers a great
deal, especially from a pedagogical point of view, including a list of ready
reference materials, such as the new Roget II Thesaurus and a periodic table
as well as games and puzzles to teach science and math facts. As if all of
this weren't enough, ALI's site also provides registered users (registration
is free) with online pedagogical instruction. Of course, as the name
implies, the site does prominently feature Apple technology. The second site
listed above, Teachernet, is geared toward British educators and those
interested in the British educational system, especially parents. The site
gives a full overview of Britain's educational apparatus, its nationally
administered curriculum, as well as extensive lists of national, regional,
and community contacts for organizations of all sorts. While not yet
operational, another attractive feature of the site will allow anyone to ask
an "expert" questions regarding education in Britain. From a pedagogical
perspective, one of the most useful elements of the site is its Teaching and
Learning component, which offers a fully stocked bank of lesson plans across
numerous disciplines. An interactive discussion area, a repository of
educational case studies across the curriculum, and suggested plans for
classroom day trips round out the site. [WH]
----------------------------------------
Taken from TeachersFirst Update - October 15, 2001
---
Want to visit a desert? How about the arctic? Take a trip to the biome of
your choice with TeachersFirst’s Biomes of the World unit. Students must
complete a research project on a given biome as part of the unit. If you
prefer, you can simply use the information and web resources as part of your
own lessons. The Biomes are all at:
http://www.teachersfirst.com/lessons/biomes/index.html
----------------------------------------
Taken from Mantex newsletter
---
'Improve your Writing Skills'

Would you like to be able to write clearly and effectively? Do you get stuck
with issues of punctuation?

Here's the answer to your problems - a FREE, downloadable e-Book. It's a
guide which takes you through writing skills from commas and paragraphs to
editing and presentation. It even tells you how to overcome writer's block
if you're stuck for ideas.

You can give the book away to your friends, or put it onto your own web site
to attract visitors. Full details -
http://www.mantex.co.uk/samples/ebooks.htm
----------------------------------------
Taken from GigaLaw.com Weekly Update, October 15, 2001
---
A Lesson in Domain Names and Trademarks from Bruce Springsteen ***
http://www.gigalaw.com/articles/2001/hoffman-2001-10-p1.html

In a domain name dispute that surprised many people, a panel of arbitrators
ruled that Bruce Springsteen was not entitled to the domain name
brucespringsteen.com. The controversial ruling provides some useful lessons
about domain name disputes, trademarks and the arbitration process. A new
article on GigaLaw.com explains the brucespringsteen.com ruling and what it
means for other trademark owners.

To read the article, go to
http://www.gigalaw.com/articles/2001/hoffman-2001-10-p1.html
----------------------------------------
Taken from Network Nuggets
---
COMPUTER ERGONOMICS FOR ELEMENTARY SCHOOL
http://www.open.k12.or.us/cergos/

This site is geared towards anyone who uses computers in an elementary
school, but I believe it is worthwhile reading for any teacher or student
who spends time on a computer.

As our students work through their academic lives, they will probably be
spending some time on computers, and there is no time like the present to
begin practising "Good Work Habits," and learning about "Work Station
Setup."

Using a combination of cartoon drawings, pictures, and simple explanations,
this site addresses the issue of student comfort and ergonmics while working
on computers, without spending lots of money on fancy equipment.

There is additional information with case studies showing the layout of
mouse, monitor, and seat height, as well as a range of accessories such as
back pillows and foot rests.

Many middle elementary students will be able to read this site on their own,
do an analysis on computer workstations in their school, and prepare a
report on their findings.
***************************
PRINTED AND OTHER RESOURCES
-----------
I have two stories which might be of interest to your subscribers,
particularly to teachers of African history and African literature and to
African authors looking for publishers.

My novel, (Ama: A Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade by Manu Herbstein,
paperback - 450 pages; published by [e-reads]; ISBN: 1585869325) has
recently been published in "print-on-demand" format. What that means is
that if you place an order with, for instance, Amazon.com
(www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1585869325/ama-20) the order is transmitted
electronically to Lightning Source, which is owned by Ingrams, the wholesale
book distributors. Lightning Source has the digital file in storage. Press a
button and the book is printed, bound, packed, labeled and despatched. The
accounting information between Amazon, Lightning Source and my publisher,
e-reads (www.e-reads.com) is all transmitted electronically. In addition, if
the buyer arrives at the Amazon site by clicking on a link at my web-site
(www.ama.africatoday.com/order_ama.htm) Amazon credits my account with a
commission on the sale. For those who prefer to read their novels on a
computer screen, Ama is also available for downloading in various electronic
formats (more information at www.ama.africatoday.com/order_ama.htm together
with links to download sites for Microsoft's free Reader and Adobe's free
Acrobat eBook Reader.

The novel tells the story of a young woman who, in 1773, is captured and
enslaved in what is now northern Ghana . It follows her through Yendi, the
Dagomba capital, Kumase, capital of the Asante empire, Elmina, seat of the
Dutch West India Company and across the Middle Passage to a sugar estate in
the Reconcavo of Bahia.

The book is divided into four sections, Africa, Europeans, the Love of
Liberty and America. The web site offers primary and secondary texts which
fill in the background in each of these sections and thus serves as a tool
for scholars and students who would like to test the authenticity and
plausibility of Ama's story.

Dr. Kofi Ellison writes of the web-site: "As we say in Asante Twi, "meda
w'ase ensa"! I think you are doing a great job in enhancing our common
history. I've been at your site for nearly 2 hrs now! History attracts me
like bees to honey!!"

Prof. Allen F. Roberts writes: "Thanks for sending this along -- the
complexity of your project is astounding! It's really exciting to see the
way that you're creating a parallel resource base through your website, and
I'll look forward to your final products."

I have publicized the web-site, and through it, the book, by sending e-mail
messages to some five thousand people whom I have good reason to believe
would be interested in the subject. During the first two weeks of October my
site has had 1000 visitors who have viewed 5000 pages. 100 have jumped
directly to the Ama page at Amazon.

Regards

Manu Herbstein, Accra, Ghana.
----------------------------------------
Four very good distance education resource books are:

Speaking Personally about Distance Education

This book of readings presents a compilation of the thirty-nine engaging
interviews published in The American Journal of Distance Education since
1987 and an interview of Michael G. Moore (a Readings No. 6 exclusive). It
is a one-of-a-kind "collection of knowledge" which reveals perspectives on
the changing field of distance education as seen by many prominent leaders
and pioneers, and provides a better understanding of the evolving
environment.
http://www.ed.psu.edu/acsde/readings/annread6.asp

Web-Based Communications, the Internet, and Distance Education
Online, Web-based communication-seen by many as the key technological
innovation of the last decade of the twentieth century-has attracted the
attention of educators and trainers to the idea of distance education in a
way that no earlier technology managed to do. With explosive growth of the
technology, knowledge of how to best apply it-in designing and delivering
instructional programs and in facilitating learner-instructor and
learner-learner interactions-lags very far behind. The American Journal of
Distance Education (AJDE) has published a growing number of articles related
to Web-based delivery of distance education, and a selection of these have
been brought together in this book of readings. They are offered here in a
single volume in the hope that they will prove valuable in informing and
guiding readers-whether instructors, administrators, researchers, or
students-as they enter and begin to explore this exciting world of online
distance education. We hope that, as readers understand better what is known
about distance education via the Web, it will become more clear how much is
not known, and that, by linking the questions about the application of this
new technology to the theories and knowledge acquired through research in
earlier technologies, the general quality of research and practice in this
field will be advanced. -Michael G. Moore
http://www.ed.psu.edu/acsde/readings/annread7.asp

Distance Education in the Health Sciences
The contents of this book are articles submitted to The American Journal of
Distance Education or the ACSDE's electronic journal DEOSNEWS. There are an
equal number of articles that have already been published in the AJDE and
others that are published here for the first time. While the articles in
this Book of Readings deal with various health professions and deal with
various aspects of both teaching and learning, they fall into two sets in
terms of technology. In the first part of the book, the communication
technology used in most of the studies reported was group-focused
teleconferencing-i.e., one-way video/two-way audio, two-way video or two-way
audioconferencing. In the second part of the book the technology used is the
more individually focused Internet/World Wide Web. This dichotomy directly
mirrors the trends in technology used in distance education during the past
fifteen years.

The book contains reports covering nearly twenty years of experience, from
states across the nation and some from abroad, from a range of health
professions and examining teaching practices, communication tools, student
attitudes and achievements, and even a glimpse at some of the politics
involved.
http://www.ed.psu.edu/acsde/readings/annread8.asp

The American Journal of Distance Education
Created in 1987, the AJDE is the internationally recognized journal of
research and scholarship in the field of American distance education. It is
designed for use by teachers in schools, colleges, and universities;
trainers in corporate, military, and professional fields; adult educators;
researchers; and other specialists in education, training, and
communications.
Distance education describes teaching-learning relationships where the
actors are geographically separated and communication between them is
through technical media such as audio and video teleconferences, audio and
video recordings, personal computer, correspondence texts, and multimedia
systems. The principal technology of current research interest is the World
Wide Web.

http://www.ed.psu.edu/acsde/ajde/jour.asp

For more information, please visit:
http://www.ed.psu.edu/acsde/

Suzanne Bienert
ACSDE Marketing Manager
***************************
ARTICLES
-----------
Taken from NetFuture #123
---
SOWING TECHNOLOGY
Do We Really Want To Pit Agriculture Against Nature?
Craig Holdrege and Steve Talbott

(The following is a somewhat expanded version of an article that appeared in
*Sierra*, July/August, 2001.)

Drive the Nebraskan backroads in July and you will encounter one of the
great technological wonders of the modern world: thousands of acres of corn
extending to the vanishing point in all directions across the table-flat
landscape. It appears as lush and perfect a stand of vegetation as you will
find anywhere on earth -- almost every plant, millions of them, the same,
uniform height, the same deep shade of green, free of blemish, emerging
straight and strong from clean, weed-free soil, with every cell of every
plant bearing genetically engineered doom for the over-adventurous worm.

If you reflect on the sophisticated tools and techniques lying behind this
achievement, you will likely feel some of the same awe that seizes so many
people when they see a jet airliner taking off. There can be no doubt about
the magnitude of the technical accomplishment on those prairie expanses.
And yet, the question we face with increasing urgency today is whether this
remarkable cornucopia presents a picture of health and lawful bounty, or
instead the hellish image of nature betrayed.

Actually, it is difficult to find much of nature in those corn fields. While
nature manifests itself ecologically -- contextually -- today's advanced
crop production uproots the plant from anything like a natural, ecological
setting. This, in fact, is the whole intention. Agricultural technology
delivers, along with the seed, an entire artificial production environment
designed to render the crop independent of local conditions. Commercial
fertilizer substitutes for the natural fertility of the soil. Irrigation
makes the plants relatively independent of the local climate. Insecticides
prevent undesirable contact with local insects. Herbicides discourage
social mixing with unsavory elements in the local plant population. And the
crop itself is bred to be less sensitive to the local light rhythm.

Where, on the farm shaped by such technologies, do we find any recognition
of the fundamental principle of ecology -- namely, that every habitat is an
intricately woven whole resisting overly ambitious efforts to carve it into
separately disposable pieces?

But all this represents only one aspect of agriculture's abandonment of
supporting environments. The modern, agribusiness operation in its entirety
has wrenched itself free from the rural economic and social milieu that once
sustained it. The farm itself is run more and more like a self-contained
factory operation. And the trend toward vast monocultures -- where entire
ecologies of interrelated organisms are stripped down to a few, discrete
elements -- has become more radical step by step: first a single crop
replacing a diversity of crops; then a single variety replacing a diversity
of varieties; and now, monocultures erected upon single, genetically
engineered traits.

As the whole process drives relentlessly forward, the organism itself
becomes the denatured field in which genes are moved to and fro without
regard to their jarring effect upon the living things that must endure them.
Want to make a tobacco plant glow in the dark? Easy -- inject a firefly
gene! Want a frost-resistant strawberry? Try a gene or two from a
cold-water flounder. Yet, despite such freakish prodigies, the overriding
question about biotechnology is not whether we are for or against this or
that technical achievement, but whether the debate will be carried out in
just such fragmented terms. In focusing on technological wonders to improve
agriculture, are we losing sight of the things that matter most – the
diverse, healthy, and complex communities and habitats we would like to live
in? The question to ask of every technology is how it serves, or disrupts,
the environment into which we import it.

Is Genetic Engineering New?
---
The natural setting whose integrity we need to consider first of all is that
of the individual organism. The challenge we're up against here emerges in
the frequently heard argument that genetic engineers are only doing what
we've always done, but more efficiently. Writing in the *New York Times*,
Carl B. Feldbaum, president of the Biotechnology Industry Organization,
objected to the claim by critics that "what [traditional breeders] do is
`natural' while modern biology is not":

Archaeologists have documented twelve thousand years of agriculture
throughout which farmers have genetically altered crops by selecting certain
seeds from one harvest and using them to plant the next, a process that has
led to enormous changes in the crops we grow and the food we eat. It is
only in the past thirty years that we have become able to do it through
biotechnology at high levels of predictability, precision and safety.

But the concern about genetic engineering today isn't that it enables us to
commit altogether new mistakes. Rather, it's that it perfects our ability
to commit old ones. No one is suggesting that the abuse of our technical
powers began with the discovery of the double helix. Using conventional
techniques, breeders have, for example, produced Belgian cattle with such
overgrown muscles that they cannot be delivered naturally; birth requires
Caesarian section. Likewise, there are hobbyist chicken breeders who -- to
judge from the pictures in their magazines -- are more interested in bizarre
effects that tickle human fancies than in the welfare of the chickens
themselves.

The difference is that with genetic engineering we can now manipulate living
organisms much more efficiently and more casually than ever before. The
technician need scarcely be distracted by the animal itself. There's none
of the Frankenstein drama and messiness. We can construct our monsters in a
clean and well-lit place.

Moreover, Feldbaum's claim completely glosses over what *is* unprecedented
about genetic engineering: that it selects isolated genes, not entire
healthy organisms. Writing in *Science* (March 26, 1999), geneticist Jon W.
Gordon assesses the failed attempts to create heavier farm animals by
inserting appropriate genes. In pigs, the addition of growth
hormone-producing genes did not result in greater growth, but unexpectedly
lowered body-fat levels. In cattle, a gene introduced to increase muscle
mass "succeeded," but the growth was quickly followed by muscle degeneration
and wasting. Unable to stand up, the experimental animal had to be killed.

Such results are hardly surprising when you consider the isolated and
arbitrary intrusion represented by single-gene changes. By contrast -- and
this is what Feldbaum ignores -- traditional breeding allows everything
within the organism to change together in a coordinated way. As Gordon
writes,

Swine selected [by traditional methods] for rapid growth may consume more
food, produce more growth hormone, respond more briskly to endogenous growth
hormone, divert proteins toward somatic growth, and possess skeletal anatomy
that allows the animal to tolerate increased weight. Dozens or perhaps
hundreds of genes may influence these traits.

If there's a logic to ecological relationships that says, "Change one thing
and you change everything," the same applies to the interior ecology of the
organism. Responsible traditional breeding is a way of letting everything
change without violating the whole -- because it is the organism *as a
coherent and healthy whole* that manages the change.

Do Organisms Need Preserving?
---
This points to another consideration as well. In traditional breeding the
integrity of the organisms themselves places limits upon what can be done --
limits you could reasonably call "natural." For example, you could not
cross a strawberry with a cold-water fish in order to obtain strawberries
with "anti-freeze" genes.

The problem now is that we can break through these limits, but we have not
replaced the safeguard they represented. Today, such a safeguard can come
only from our own, intimate, respectful understanding of the organism as a
whole and of the ecological setting in which it exists.

This is the decisive question: does the organism possess a wholeness, an
integrity, that demands our respect? And can we gain a deep enough
understanding of it to say, "*This* change is a further expression of the
organism's governing unity, and *that* change is a violation of it"?

A difficult challenge, and not one we have trained ourselves to meet. You
have to see a plant or animal in its own right and in its natural
environment in order to begin grasping who or what it is. But given what
ecologists David S. Wilcove at Environmental Defense and Thomas Eisner at
Cornell University have called the "demise of natural history" in our time,
there is not much hope of greater familiarity with the organisms whose
natures we manipulate -- certainly not by those laboratory- and test
tube-bound researchers who are doing the manipulating.

Nevertheless, some things are fairly obvious. It's hard to understand how
the Mad Cow debacle could have occurred if anyone had bothered to notice the
cow. How could we possibly have fed animal parts to ruminants? *Everything*
about the cow, from its teeth to its ruminating habits to its four-chambered
stomach, fairly shouts at us, *herbivore!* Can we violate an organism's
integrity in such a wholesale manner without producing disasters -- for the
organism, if not also for ourselves?

What the Mad Cow episode illustrates is that our notions of safety are
relative to our understanding of the organism. And nothing has tended to
fragment our view of the organism as powerfully as genetic engineering.
Instead of a coherent whole expressing an organic unity through every aspect
of its being, the engineers hand us a bag of separate traits and molecular
instrumentation.

Are Bioengineered Products Adequately Tested?
---
Only such a fragmenting mentality could suggest (in the words of former U.S.
Secretary of Agriculture, Dan Glickman) that "test after rigorous scientific
test has proven these [genetically engineered] products to be safe." This
suggestion is simply false on its face. The application to cows of bovine
growth hormone (rBGH) produced by genetically engineered bacteria was
approved primarily on the basis of tests with rats – not cows, and not
people who consume cow products. Genetically altered Bt corn was approved
without being tested for its effects on beneficial species such as green
lacewings or on "incidental" species such as the Monarch butterfly.
(Subsequent research has suggested the possibility of harm to both Monarchs
and lacewings.)

But the more fundamental problem is that, because the organism is an organic
unity, its assimilation of foreign DNA potentially changes *everything*.
Gene expression and protein levels are altered in ways that have proven
consistently unpredictable. About one percent of genetic transfers yield
the looked-for result; the other ninety-nine percent are all over the map.
For example, when scientists engineered tomatoes for increased carotene
production, they indeed got some plants with more carotene -- but those
plants were unexpectedly dwarfed. No one expected this experiment to yield
dwarfed plants.

So even the one percent statistic paints too optimistic a picture. This
"success" rate reflects a focus on the particular trait that was looked for;
but even when this trait is obtained and the resulting organism is used as
the founding ancestor of a new, genetically altered line, it remains to ask:
what about the subtle changes throughout the rest of the organism -- changes
not directly related to the researcher's intent? If there can be
immediately obvious changes such as dwarfing, there can be many more
unobvious ones. It's hard to test for changes when anything can happen and
you don't know what you're looking for. In actual practice, almost no such
testing is done.

Is Biotechnology Good for the Environment?
---
Against this backdrop, the biotech companies' promotion of genetically
altered crops as the Great Green Hope of the environment due to the promise
of reduced pesticide applications is puzzling at best. After all, the
entire thrust of the factory-farmed monocultures encouraged by these
companies is to eliminate across huge acreages all traces of any
environmental richness that might have been worth preserving in the first
place. And now the corporate research laboratories are poised to release
into this devastated landscape a continuing stream of alien genes that, in
their own right, promise to become the ultimate, uncontrollable pollutants.
Chemical spills can eventually be cleaned up, but there is no recalling the
replicating genes we have loosed upon the natural world.

If there's any claim that must be evaluated ecologically, it's the claim of
environmental benefit. Yet, as Michael Pollan remarks in a *New York Times
Magazine* piece on genetically engineered potatoes: those who simply take
vast monocultures for granted will always think they have, say, a Colorado
potato beetle problem -- rather than the total environmental problem of
potato monoculture.

Certainly there are silver bullets to be had, even if their unfortunate
tendency is to rip crudely through the delicate, ecological fabric they are
aimed at. Perhaps the most obvious silver bullet is Bt cotton. The
relatively mild Bt toxin engineered into the crop is highly effective
against the bollworm and substitutes for an extraordinarily nasty series of
sprayings in conventional cotton fields. Yet, to leave the matter there is
to accept the conventional approach as the only alternative. And it is
also, as Charles Benbrook points out, extremely irresponsible.

Benbrook is former executive director of the National Academy of Sciences
Board on Agriculture and now an agricultural consultant in Sandpoint, Idaho.
He sees Bt, in its normal, externally applied form, as perhaps the most
valuable pesticide ever developed. It is approved for organic as well as
conventional use, and controls many serious pests not otherwise easily
controlled. He calls it a "public good," and suggests that engineering it
into crops on a massive scale is the moral equivalent of loading everyone's
toothpaste with antibiotics. Yes, the antibiotics would yield an immediate
"benefit" in terms of reduced incidence of certain diseases. But the
consequences for both immediate and long-term health would be ugly indeed,
since disease microbes would develop resistance much more rapidly than
otherwise. In the case of Bt, the inevitable development of resistance by
pests will reduce the useful lifetime of this invaluable pesticide to a
small fraction of what it would otherwise be. Then we'll be off to search
for the next silver bullet.

It's a measure of the narrow vision of the biotech industry's environmental
assessment that the Bt toxin in the crop itself is never added into the
calculations of pesticide use. Yet, speaking of corn, Benbrook estimates
that (depending on how you frame the question) there is 10 to 10,000 times
as much Bt toxin produced in the crop as would have been applied in the
usual external applications -- and that's assuming a year in which the corn
borer *needed* to be controlled at all. It can hardly be doubted that the
amount of Bt toxin in Bt corn intended for human consumption exceeds any
residue on conventional, Bt-sprayed corn.

Moreover, researchers have recently discovered that the Bt toxin released by
the crop into the soil binds to soil particles and is then highly resistant
to biodegradation. The implications for beneficial soil organisms are
almost completely unknown -- although the researchers found that a high
percentage (90 - 95%) of insect larvae exposed to the toxin died.

Crops genetically modified for resistance to herbicides pose similar
problems. Knowing that their crops will more or less tolerate an herbicide,
farmers are not likely to *reduce* their applications. Monsanto has
requested and received from the Environmental Protection Agency a threefold
increase in allowance for glyphosate residue on Roundup Ready soybeans.
(Glyphosate is the active ingredient in the company's Roundup herbicide.)
The increased residues are hardly an environmental improvement, especially
in light of the fact that glyphosate has been linked to non-Hodgkin's
lymphoma (a cancer of white blood cells) in a study reported in the journal,
*Cancer* (March 15, 1999).

The vast expansion of acreage in herbicide-resistant crops has led to huge
increases in the use of glyphosate -- a 72% increase in 1997 alone,
according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. This large-scale adoption
of single-pronged weed-control strategies is deeply troubling because it
encourages herbicide-resistance in weeds (already observed with glyphosate)
and wholesale shifts in weed populations. These shifts require additional
herbicides, and the resulting treadmill, as Benbrook puts it, "is on
hyperdrive today. We'll burn up the current generation of herbicides in
five, ten, or fifteen years instead of three to five decades."

The alternative to the treadmill is to turn our attention away from silver
bullets and look at ecological integrity. Mary-Howell Martens, who was
formerly a genetic engineer and conventional farmer, now farms 1100 acres
organically in New York state. Like many other organic growers, she and her
husband, Klaas, grow soybeans without using any herbicides. They work
instead with nature, relying on soil fertility (the calcium-magnesium ratio
in particular affects weed vigor); long, diverse rotations, including corn,
soybeans, clover, and grains, to disrupt weed cycles; clean seeds;
well-timed tillage early on, so that the crop gets ahead of the weeds and
tends to smother them; and avoidance of high-salt fertilizers, since salt
compounds stimulate weed growth. Later weed control can be done
mechanically, on a spot basis, as needed.

Orchestrating Nature's Complexity
---
Most people regard genetic engineering as the future of agriculture, if only
because it is sophisticated, cutting-edge science. But impressive
procedures in the laboratory do not automatically equate to precise effects
upon nature. Even if it were true that DNA presents us with a kind of
master computer program controlling the living organism, every software
engineer knows about the unpredictable and sometimes disastrous consequences
for massively intricate programs when someone goes in and "twiddles the
bits." Already in 1976, when computer programs were vastly simpler than
today, MIT computer scientist Joseph Weizenbaum could write a now-classic
chapter entitled "Incomprehensible Programs" where he pointed out that any
substantial modification of a large, complex program "is very likely to
render the whole system inoperative."

In its application to agriculture, genetic engineering is crude,
blindfolded, trial-and-error science -- and not only because the
consequences of particular genetic alterations are largely unknown. The
farmer is often prevented from exercising skilled judgment based on the
ecological realities of the local environment.

Take, for example, the farmer who plants Bt corn as protection against the
European corn borer. (Bt corn has been engineered so that the Bt toxin -- a
pesticide naturally produced by the bacterium, Bacillus thuringiensis -- is
manufactured in each cell of the plant.) Such a farmer commits to
round-the-clock, season-long application of a pesticide in his fields before
he knows whether the corn borer will even be a problem. In major parts of
the corn belt, the answer is that, during most seasons, it will not.

If you really want technical sophistication, don't look at the latest
biotech application, but at the many successes of Integrated Pest
Management. IPM is founded on decades of painstaking investigation into the
incredibly complex and subtle weave of natural ecologies. Where the main
trend of today's biotech agriculture is to isolate the farm from its
environment, reducing the operation to the simplistic terms of a few
manageable variables, IPM at its best tries to work *with* the environment,
penetrating the boundless complexity with an understanding that can turn
intricate equilibria to good use.

It's one thing to take the heavy-handed biotech approach and engineer a
pesticide into every cell of a crop; it's quite another to manage the
ecological interrelationships of the farm so that the offending insect is
controlled by the natural balances of the larger context. Tragically, the
more simple-minded, heavy-fisted approach tends to destroy the possibilities
inherent in the more subtle practice. Among other problems, converting an
entire crop into a pesticide virtually guarantees the rapid emergence of
pest resistance, which IPM has taken such pains to avoid.

Working with natural complexity rather than against it is the aim of a
remarkable research organization in Kenya, the International Centre of
Insect Physiology and Ecology (ICIPE). The Centre brings together molecular
biologists, entomologists, behavioral scientists, and farmers in an
interdisciplinary effort to control the various threats to African crops.

The most important pests of corn and sorghum on that continent are the
stemborer and striga (witchweed), which, together, can easily destroy an
entire crop. ICIPE researchers developed a "push-pull" system: a grass
planted outside the cornfield attracts the stemborer; a legume planted
within the cornfield repels the insect and also suppresses witchweed by a
factor of forty compared to a corn monocrop -- all while adding nitrogen to
the soil and preventing erosion; and, finally, an introduced parasite
radically reduces the stemborer population.

ICIPE director Hans Herren won the World Food Prize in 1995 after the Centre
gained control over the mealy bug that threatened the cassava crop, a staple
for 300 million people. (A small, parasitic wasp was instrumental in the
success.) No chemical applications and no costs to the farmers were
involved. Yet Herren doubts he could obtain funding for such a project now.
"Today," he says, "all funds go into biotechnology and genetic engineering."
Biological pest control "is not as spectacular, not as sexy."

The Real Future of Agriculture
---
Fortunately, some work on Integrated Pest Management continues, and the
results are often so dramatic that one wonders why the genetic engineering
labs have secured all the glamour for themselves. Even the simplest step
toward balance sometimes yields striking results. In what the *New York
Times* called "a stunning new result" from a vast Chinese agricultural
experiment, tens of thousands of rice farmers in Yunnan province "have
doubled the yields of their most valuable crop and nearly eliminated its
most devastating disease -- without using chemical treatments or spending a
single extra penny."

The farmers, guided by an international team of scientists, merely
interplanted two varieties of rice in their paddies, instead of relying on a
single variety. This minimal step toward biodiversity led to a drastic
reduction of rice blast, considered the most important disease of the
world's most important staple. The fungicides previously used to fight rice
blast were no longer needed after just two years.

The experiment, covering 100,000 acres, "is a calculated reversal of the
extreme monoculture that is spreading throughout agriculture, pushed by new
developments in plant genetics," observed Martin S. Wolfe in an August 17,
2000 commentary in *Nature*. The problem, Wolfe suggests, is that
monocultures provide a field of dreams for the development of super pests.
The conventional solution -- to breed resistant varieties and develop new
fungicides -- leads to rapid pest resistance. "Continual replacement of
crops and fungicides is possible, but only at considerable cost to farmer,
consumer, and environment."

These costs make the virtues of the new rice system all the more dramatic.
How was rice blast overcome? Researchers, Wolfe says, have identified
several factors in play. To begin with, a more disease-resistant crop,
interplanted with a less resistant crop, can act as a physical barrier to
the spread of disease spores. Second, when you have more than one crop
variety, you also have a more balanced array of beneficial and potentially
harmful pests that hold each other in check. A single pathogen, such as the
one involved in rice blast, is therefore less likely to gain the upper hand.

Also, of the two varieties of rice used in the Chinese experiment, the
taller variety was the one more susceptible to blast. But, when planted in
alternating rows with the shorter variety, the taller rice enjoyed sunnier,
warmer, and drier conditions, which appeared to inhibit the fungus.

And, finally, a kind of immunization occurs when crops are exposed to a
diversity of pathogens. Upon being attacked by a less virulent pathogen, a
plant's immune system is stimulated, so that it can then resist even a
pathogen that it would "normally" (that is, in a monoculture) succumb to.

This last point reminds us that disease susceptibility is not a fixed trait
of a crop variety, but relative to the conditions under which the crop is
grown. Many existing susceptibilities reflect the crop's extreme isolation
from anything like a natural or supportive environment, with its checks and
balances. This environment includes not only other plants, but also the
complex, teeming life of the soil -- life that is badly compromised by
"efficient" applications of fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides. And,
as these new findings indicate, even a "healthy" variety of disease
organisms is important. What biotech company, focused on the latest,
profit-promising lethal gene, would encourage such a balanced awareness
among farmers?

Should the Students Re-engineer the Teacher?
---
When biotech proponents say, as they often do, "Prove to us that anyone has
died or been made seriously sick by genetically engineered foods," the
pathology is in the question itself. The underlying stance is, "If you
can't show us the corpses, where the hell's the problem?" This suggests a
complete unawareness of the ecological, social, economic, and ethical
questions posed by the whole trend of technological agriculture.

If the right questions were being asked by those pushing biotech on farmers,
they would be saying, "Look, here's why we think this kind of crop -- and
farm, and business structure, and community -- is better for society than a
highly diversified, local, small farm-based, organic agriculture."

But they do not address this larger picture, continually drawing our
attention instead to particular technological achievements. They offer the
farmer specific "solutions," but, as Amory Lovins, co-founder of the Rocky
Mountain Institute, has remarked, "If you don't know how things are
connected, then often the cause of problems is solutions." Nor are they
quick to mention the one way their systems *do* surpass all alternatives:
they offer more patent opportunities for biotechnology concerns. It's hard
to package all the local variations and contingencies of an environmentally
healthy agriculture into a proprietary, uniform, for-all-purposes commercial
system.

The question is why we would *want* such a package. The assembly-line
uniformity and near-sterility of those endless Nebraskan corn fields
certainly do appeal to some of our current inclinations, but they are not
the inclinations of nature. It's true that we must work creatively upon
nature. But eliciting the yet-unrealized potentials of an ecosystem is one
thing; firing silver bullets at it is quite another. We have scarcely begun
to understand all that nature can teach us about the bounty of the earth,
and it would be a shame for the students, having gained a little knowledge,
to attempt an ambitious re-engineering of the teacher.

---
Biologist Craig Holdrege is author of *Genetics and the Manipulation of
Life: The Forgotten Factor of Context*, and director of The Nature Institute
in Ghent, New York (www.natureinstitute.org). Steve Talbott is a senior
researcher at The Nature Institute and editor of its hardcopy newsletter,
*In Context*.

Related articles:
** "Golden Genes and World Hunger: Let Them Eat Transgenic Rice?" in NF
#108.
http://www.netfuture.org/2000/Jul0600_108.html#2
** "Pharming the Cow" by Craig Holdrege in NF #43.
http://www.netfuture.org/1997/Mar2097_43.html#4
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* For resources on distance education and
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www.saide.org.za/worldbank/Default.htm

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