Thursday, December 25, 2008

Inside WiMax


The XOHM WiMAX network works similar to cell phone technology to deliver the internet over a wide area। XOHM WiMAX coverage is divided into a series of overlapping areas called cells (represented by green circles in the diagram below). Each of these cells provides broadband internet coverage within a given area spanning homes, highways, outdoor locations, urban centers, businesses, coffee shops, etc. Compare WiMAX coverage areas with Wi-Fi in the diagram below (Wi-Fi is represented by gray circles).


At the center of each cell is a WiMAX tower with a base station that is connected to the internet using high capacity backhaul solutions. These towers broadcast radio signals to you at a set frequency called spectrum. Weather, large buildings and trees can all reduce signal strength and require more towers with overlapping broadcast areas. XOHM ready products - like laptops, modems and mobile internet devices - allow you to receive these signals within the XOHM coverage area.
XOHM WiMAX Advantages
The XOHM WiMAX network uses licensed spectrum and is built on advanced wireless technology breakthroughs. This enables higher performance* than most of today's wide area wireless technologies.
Licensed spectrum
Spectrum is either licensed or unlicensed. Most anyone can use unlicensed spectrum which can lead to interference from other devices. For example, most Wi-Fi networks use unlicensed spectrum. XOHM WiMAX works over licensed spectrum. So usage is limited to its members, which helps to make service more predictable and reliable.
Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access (OFDMA)
OFDMA breaks a signal into several independent parts before sending it over the air increasing the efficiency and speed of the network. These diverse signals can still be reconstructed on the other end, even if some of the parts don't make it through.
Multiple Input/Multiple Output (MIMO) smart antenna technology
MIMO uses multiple antennas at both ends of the XOHM WiMAX connection (base station and your device). This allows data to travel along multiple independent paths and still reach you. MIMO is particularly useful in areas with a great deal of interference, like big cities.
Together, these WiMAX technologies help XOHM provide consistent and reliable wireless internet to more people in more places.

For more on Mobile WiMAX technology, check out:

On the road to 4G

1G, by the way, was analog, and 2G was digital, but narrowband. 3G was initially defined entirely by (broadband) data throughput specifications: 144Kbit/sec. when moving at high speed, 384Kbit/sec. when moving relatively slowly, and up to 2Mbit/sec. when stationary or indoors. Rate of motion turns out to have a dramatic impact on effective throughput due to various forms of fading as well as Doppler shift. And while the above data rates are peak speeds (i.e., available under ideal conditions on the downlink from the cell to the user only), they are a dramatic improvement over the circuit-switched peak of 14.4Kbit/sec. on 2G networks. And 3G is in fact now widely available throughout the world.
Today, we are looking at deployments with greater than 2Mbit/sec. peaks, such as 1X EV-DO Revision A, which peaks at 3.1Mbit/sec., and HSDPA, which can range up to 14.4Mbit/sec. We often call these 3.5G systems, since 4G requires a little more, and not necessarily in terms of throughput.
And this is where it gets difficult, because, for example, like "broadband," 4G is an imprecise term. There are two schools of thought here. The first is to take the obvious path and simply define 4G as faster than 3G or 3.5G. One example is the UTRAN LTE (UMTS Terrestrial Radio Access Network Long-Term Evolution) project now under way within the Third Generation Partnership Project, which develops functional specifications for UMTS. The design points for UTRAN LTE are performance of 100Mbit/sec. downlink and 50Mbit/sec. uplink peak throughput. Mobile WiMax could have peak performance of around 75Mbit/sec., as could 1X EV-DO Revision B. These speeds are obtained via a combination of multiple-input, multiple-output, lots of bandwidth (20MHz channels at a minimum vs. today's 1.25-5MHz), more sophisticated modulation and advanced antennas. Throwing technology at this opportunity isn't a problem

Friday, December 19, 2008

HakimUunetCommunication




The architecture of the


The WiMAX Forum has defined an architecture that defines how a WiMAX network connects with other networks, and a variety of other aspects of operating such a network, including address allocation, authentication, etc. An overview of the architecture is given in the illustration.
This defines the following components, plus a number of interconnections (or reference points) between these, labeled R1 to R5 and R8:
SS/MS: the Subscriber Station/Mobile Station
ASN: the Access Service Network[7]
BS: Base station, part of the ASN
ASN-GW: the ASN Gateway, part of the ASN
CSN: the Connectivity Service Network
HA: Home Agent, part of the CSN
AAA: AAA Server, part of the CSN
NAP: a Network Access Provider
NSP: a Network Service Provider
It is important to note that the functional architecture can be designed into various hardware configurations rather than fixed configurations. For example, the architecture is flexible enough to allow remote/mobile stations of varying scale and functionality and Base Stations of varying size - e.g. femto, pico, and mini BS as well as macros.



WiMAX

WiMAX, meaning Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access, is a telecommunications technology that provides for the wireless transmission of data using a variety of transmission modes, from point-to-point links to portable internet access[citation needed]. The technology provides up to 75 Mb/s symmetric broadband speed without the need for cables. The technology is based on the IEEE 802.16 standard (also called Broadband Wireless Access). The name "WiMAX" was created by the WiMAX Forum, which was formed in June 2001 to promote conformity and interoperability of the standard. The forum describes WiMAX as "a standards-based technology enabling the delivery of last mile wireless broadband access as an alternative to cable and DSL".

Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Tunisia's economy is 59.3 percent free

Tunisia's economy is 59.3 percent free, according to our 2008 assessment, which makes it the world's 84th freest economy. Its overall score is 0.2 percentage point lower than last year, reflecting a deteriorated score in freedom from corruption. Tunisia is ranked 10th out of 17 countries in the Middle East/North Africa region, and its overall score is higher than the regional average.
Tunisia has high scores in business freedom and government size, which indicates a government limited in size and scope. Inflation is moderate, although the state can set prices in some circumstances. Tunisia maintains moderately high tax rates, but overall tax revenue is not particularly large as a percentage of GDP. There are regulatory obstacles, but businesses can be opened and closed without undue difficulty. The labor market is fairly flexible, and redundant workers can be fired without significant cost.
Tunisia faces challenges in labor freedom, investment freedom, and financial freedom. Protectionist economic policies have limited the opportunities for foreign investment. The financial sector is subject to heavy political influence, and much of its regulation and oversight falls short of international standards.
Background:Tunisia gained its independence from France in 1956 and developed a socialist economy. President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali has undertaken gradual free-market economic reforms since the early 1990s, including privatization of state-owned firms, simplification of the tax code, and more prudent fiscal restraint. The country's diverse economy includes significant agricultural, mining, energy, tourism, and manufacturing sectors. Tunisia's 1998 association agreement with the European Union, which has helped to create jobs and modernize the economy, was the first such agreement between the EU and a Maghreb country. The economy has also benefited from expanded trade and tourism.
Business Freedom - 79.2%
The overall freedom to start, close, and operate a business is relatively well protected by Tunisia's regulatory environment. Starting a business takes an average of 11 days, compared to the world average of 43 days. Obtaining a business license takes much less than the world average of 234 days, although costs are fairly high. Bankruptcy proceedings are easy and straightforward.
Trade Freedom - 71.8%
Tunisia's weighted average tariff rate was 9.1 percent in 2005. Import restrictions, some prohibitively high tariffs, import taxes and fees, import licensing requirements, export promotion programs, and inconsistent customs administration add to the cost of trade. An additional 10 percentage points is deducted from Tunisia's trade freedom score to account for non-tariff barriers.
Fiscal Freedom - 76.4%
Tunisia introduced a tax cut early in 2007. The top income tax rate is 35 percent, and the top corporate tax rate is 30 percent, down from 35 percent. Other taxes include a value-added tax (VAT) and a vehicle tax. In the most recent year, overall tax revenue as a percentage of GDP was 15.3 percent.
Freedom from Government - 77.1%
Total government expenditures, including consumption and transfer payments, are moderate. In the most recent year, government spending equaled 27.6 percent of GDP. Privatization has been uneven and sluggish, and the state retains a large role in economic activities.
Monetary Freedom - 77.6%
Inflation is moderate, averaging 3.8 percent between 2004 and 2006. Relatively unstable prices explain most of the monetary freedom score. The government can set prices for subsidized goods and influences prices through regulation, subsidies, and state-owned utilities and enterprises. An additional 10 percentage points is deducted from Tunisia's monetary freedom score to account for policies that distort domestic prices.
Investment Freedom - 30%
Tunisia restricts investment in some sectors to minimize the impact on domestic competitors. The Investment Code Law covers all major sectors except mining, energy, finance, and domestic trade. Foreign investment is screened. Foreign ownership of agricultural land is prohibited. The entry of French and Gulf capital indicates that discouragement of foreign investment in areas like restaurants, real estate, and retail distribution is moderating. The state telecommunications service privatized a major stake to a foreign investor in 2006. Non-tourism onshore companies with a capital share larger than 49 percent require government authorization. Residents and non-residents may hold foreign exchange accounts, subject to restrictions and approval. There are some controls, quantitative limits, and other restrictions on payments and transfers. There are many restrictions and controls on capital transactions.
Financial Freedom - 30%
Supervision and regulation are slowly being brought up to international standards but remain insufficient, although increased provisioning requirements have strengthened the banking environment. There are 14 commercial banks, six development banks, two merchant banks, and eight offshore banks. Five banks control 70 percent of deposits. The government sold its stake in two banks in 2002 and 2005 but remains the controlling shareholder in at least four banks that control 50 percent of assets. The percentage of non-performing loans remains high. State-mandated lending and the legal difficulty of settling with debtors have hindered financial development. The insurance sector is small, and the largest insurer is state-owned. Capital markets are nominal, but the stock market is active, although with little foreign participation.
Property Rights - 50%
The executive branch is the supreme arbiter of events in the cabinet, government, judiciary, and military. Commercial cases take long to resolve and face complex legal procedures. Tunisia's intellectual property rights law is designed to meet the WTO's Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) minimum standards. Copyright violations are not actively investigated by customs agents without a complaint by the copyright holder.
Freedom from Corruption - 46%
Corruption is perceived as significant. Tunisia ranks 51st out of 163 countries in Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index for 2006. Corruption is less pervasive than in neighboring countries. Most foreigners involved in the Tunisian market have not identified corruption as a primary obstacle to direct investment. There are no laws to provide government documents to citizens.
Labor Freedom - 55.3%
Somewhat flexible employment regulations could be improved to enhance overall productivity growth. The non-salary cost of employing a worker is high, and the rigidity of hiring and firing a worker creates a risk aversion for companies that would otherwise employ more people and grow.

Domaines Internet .fr et ultramarins : Résultats de la consultation

Domaines Internet .fr et ultramarins : Résultats de la consultation
Synthèse des contributions à la consultation publique sur les modalités de gestion du domaine Internet « .fr » et des extensions d’Outre-Mer
Le 25 avril 2008 le ministère de l’Economie, de l’industrie et de l’emploi a lancé une consultation publique afin de préparer les appels à candidatures pour la fonction d’office central d’enregistrement des domaines « .fr » et des extensions ultra-marines : « .fr » France ; « .gf » Guyane Française ; « .gp » Guadeloupe ; « .mq » Martinique, « .re » Réunion « .pm » Saint Pierre et Miquelon ; « .wf » Wallis et Futuna ; « .yt » Mayotte ; « .tf » Terres Australes et Antarctiques Françaises ; ainsi que les futurs domaines « .bl » Saint Barthelemy et « .mf » Saint Martin.
Le ministère a reçu 21 réponses de personnes morales, 1 d’un élu ainsi que 11 réponses de particuliers.
La synthèse des contributions (35 Ko)
Réponses des personnes morales par ordre alphabétique
Acsel (33 Ko) Afnic (274K) Agence Cahri (36 Ko) Apdui (355 Ko) Acfci- Ccip - Réponse commune (45 Ko)
Cci de la Martinique (22 Ko) Conseil régional de la Martinique (829 Ko)
Dataxy (355 Ko) Dot&Co (62 Ko)
France large (65 Ko)
Groupe France télécom (60 Ko) Group NBT (57 Ko)
Indom (543 Ko) Inria Renater (52 Ko) Isoc France (43 Ko)
Mailclub (93 Ko) Mediaserv (184 Ko)
Open IT (50 Ko)
Spt de Wallis et Futuna (40 K) Sasi (38 Ko) Sedo (330 Ko)
Réponse de Monsieur André Ferrand, sénateur, représentant les Français établis hors de France (17 Ko)
Réponses des personnes physiques par date d’arrivée (Ces réponses ont été rendues anonymes)
29 avril (40 Ko)
5 mai (41 Ko) 20 mai (22 Ko) 20 mai (72 Ko) 26 mai (41 Ko)
10 juin (34 Ko) 12 juin (22 Ko) 13 juin (89 Ko) 24 juin (35 Ko) 24 juin (49 Ko)
Réponse reçue par courrier (890 Ko)
La prochaine étape verra prochainement le lancement des appels à candidatures pour les offices d’enregistrement. Le ministère remercie toutes les personnes ayant contribué à cette consultation. Merci de nous informer si vous constatiez des erreurs ou des omissions dans les contributions ci-dessus.

Domaines Internet .fr et ultramarins : Résultats de la consultation

Domaines Internet .fr et ultramarins : Résultats de la consultation
Synthèse des contributions à la consultation publique sur les modalités de gestion du domaine Internet « .fr » et des extensions d’Outre-Mer
Le 25 avril 2008 le ministère de l’Economie, de l’industrie et de l’emploi a lancé une consultation publique afin de préparer les appels à candidatures pour la fonction d’office central d’enregistrement des domaines « .fr » et des extensions ultra-marines : « .fr » France ; « .gf » Guyane Française ; « .gp » Guadeloupe ; « .mq » Martinique, « .re » Réunion « .pm » Saint Pierre et Miquelon ; « .wf » Wallis et Futuna ; « .yt » Mayotte ; « .tf » Terres Australes et Antarctiques Françaises ; ainsi que les futurs domaines « .bl » Saint Barthelemy et « .mf » Saint Martin.
Le ministère a reçu 21 réponses de personnes morales, 1 d’un élu ainsi que 11 réponses de particuliers.
La synthèse des contributions (35 Ko)
Réponses des personnes morales par ordre alphabétique
Acsel (33 Ko) Afnic (274K) Agence Cahri (36 Ko) Apdui (355 Ko) Acfci- Ccip - Réponse commune (45 Ko)
Cci de la Martinique (22 Ko) Conseil régional de la Martinique (829 Ko)
Dataxy (355 Ko) Dot&Co (62 Ko)
France large (65 Ko)
Groupe France télécom (60 Ko) Group NBT (57 Ko)
Indom (543 Ko) Inria Renater (52 Ko) Isoc France (43 Ko)
Mailclub (93 Ko) Mediaserv (184 Ko)
Open IT (50 Ko)
Spt de Wallis et Futuna (40 K) Sasi (38 Ko) Sedo (330 Ko)
Réponse de Monsieur André Ferrand, sénateur, représentant les Français établis hors de France (17 Ko)
Réponses des personnes physiques par date d’arrivée (Ces réponses ont été rendues anonymes)
29 avril (40 Ko)
5 mai (41 Ko) 20 mai (22 Ko) 20 mai (72 Ko) 26 mai (41 Ko)
10 juin (34 Ko) 12 juin (22 Ko) 13 juin (89 Ko) 24 juin (35 Ko) 24 juin (49 Ko)
Réponse reçue par courrier (890 Ko)
La prochaine étape verra prochainement le lancement des appels à candidatures pour les offices d’enregistrement. Le ministère remercie toutes les personnes ayant contribué à cette consultation. Merci de nous informer si vous constatiez des erreurs ou des omissions dans les contributions ci-dessus.

Sécurité

Sécurité
Le flot d’informations qui circule librement sur les réseaux est devenu aujourd’hui considérable et pose de nombreux problèmes de sécurité, puisque nombre de ces informations sont privées ou confidentielles. Or, le piratage informatique et la fraude, liés à l’utilisation croissante de l’Internet, l’ouverture des réseaux d’entreprise, ont mis en évidence l’importance de la sécurité de l’information et ont conduit les acteurs des nouvelles technologies à engager des réflexions sur la sécurité et sur la cryptographie, qui en est la plus médiatisée des briques de base, et à proposer des produits de sécurité informatique ainsi que des mesures organisationnelles d’analyse et de gestion des risques. Il est aujourd’hui plus que jamais nécessaire de disposer de produits de sécurité assurant une protection adaptée à des menaces ciblées et qui soient faciles d’emploi et paramétrables. Des appels à projets lancés par les services du ministère soutiennent le développement de tels produits ou systèmes de sécurité

Cybercriminalité

Cybercriminalité
Internet est un espace de liberté qui est devenu le prolongement du monde réel et peut notamment être utilisé pour commettre tous types d’actes délictuels.
La révolution numérique et le développement de la communication en réseaux ont rendu indispensable l’adaptation des outils législatifs et répressifs et de coopération internationale. Un simple utilisateur d’Internet peut devenir l’acteur involontaire d’une diffusion virale, d’une attaque contre des serveurs d’entreprises ou d’institutions. Relais passif d’une machination technique mise en place par des pirates localisés à des milliers de kilomètres, une machine « zombie » peut être activée avec d’autres milliers d’ordinateurs, pour cibler une victime à l’autre bout de la planète, en quelques secondes
Conscients des risques encourus, les malfaiteurs de l’ère informationnelle, dissimulent des contenus illicites telles des images pédopornographiques, ou des fichiers illégaux sur des espaces de disques d’ordinateurs qu’ils ont préalablement piratés.
Manipulation, désinformation, informations mensongères, fausses rumeurs, diffamation deviennent l’apanage de groupuscules ou d’individus cherchant à déstabiliser une entreprise, un particulier ou un mouvement. Le racisme, la xénophobie, le négationnisme, l’incitation à la haine ou la violence sur Internet en sont désormais l’illustration courante.
En juin 2004, Thierry BRETON, alors à la tête de France Télécom avait répondu favorablement à la demande de Dominique de Villepin de se voir confier la présidence du groupe de travail sur la cybercriminalité, chantier qui constitue l’un des six chantiers prioritaires lancés pour ancrer dans la durée l’amélioration de la sécurité des Français engagée en 2002. Le rapport de mission de ce groupe de travail a été remis au ministre de l’Intérieur le 13 avril 2005.
Le groupe préconise de mieux cerner le phénomène par deux moyens :
Un développement de l’expertise technique et du savoir-faire des services d’investigation sur les outils leur permettant d’accomplir la mission de veille et de recherche des infractions.
L’amélioration du système d’information statistique de la cybercriminalité.
En matière pénale, le groupe de travail préconise deux mesures :
sanctionner les propositions sexuelles adressées à des mineurs via l’Internet,
habiliter les officiers et agents de police judiciaire, dans le cadre de leurs investigations à participer à des échanges électroniques sans être pénalement responsables. Le groupe de travail préconise de centraliser l’interface entre les pouvoirs publics et le « point de contact » des professionnels.
Le groupe de travail propose de décerner, au-delà de la charte signée en 2004, dans des conditions restant à préciser, notamment avec le Forum des Droits sur l’Internet, un certificat citoyen aux professionnels de l’Internet fournissant des efforts particuliers dans la lutte contre la cybercriminalité.
Au niveau européen, dans le cadre de la lutte contre la pédopornographie, la haine raciale et la violence sur Internet, la Commission européenne a mis en place un plan d’action pluriannule : Saferinternet +.

Sunday, November 30, 2008

Clark Quinn, Ph.D.

Learning Wisdom
Clark Quinn, Ph.D.
Quinnovation
Introduction
I hosted my first ITFORUM discussion 10 years ago this month. In the subsequent 10 years a lot has happened in the world, and to me: I changed and lost jobs, my two children were born, we moved back to the US from Australia, I had a book published, for some examples. One constant has been ITFORUM, even when I was too busy to contribute. When offered the chance to post again, there were several more typical things I could have talked about: emotionally-engaged learning design, mobile affordances, or elearning strategy. However, I wanted to take a somewhat different path, a bit broader and more reflective. So I’ve chosen to do that, with the attendant risks. This is a personal journey, one that I believe is important enough to ask you to join me on, at least for the duration of this week. It’s more about questions than answers, but in today’s turbulent times, I’d like you to consider that we might be able to do more than we do, and consider being willing to do so. If this sounds like just so much hazy cosmic jive, write it off to the fact that I’m a native Californian…
A while ago now, I had a chance to hear Lance Secretan, author of Inspire: What Great Leaders Do (http://www.secretan.com/inspire/index.php), talk about inspiration (as opposed to motivation). It’s a worthwhile distinction and an interesting subject, but what I most took away from the talk was his Why Be Do, “Why are we here on Earth, how we will Be while we are here and what we have been sent here to Do?” Maybe I’m of an age, but it caused me to ask these questions of myself. What is my mission? What am I here to do?
Now one of the ways I characterize what I do (and, by extension, what you all do) is that I make people smart (through the use of technology). Some of that is smart ‘in the moment’ through performance support, and some of that is ‘smart over time’ via elearning. It is broader, with a whole process about moving up the ‘value chain’ of elearning strategy (e.g. http://www.quinnovation.com/models.html), from improved design, through mobile, single-sourcing and more, up to performance ecosystems, but at core it’s about making people smart (or smarter). I like what I do; helping people achieve their goals is gratifying and worthwhile, and doing it through technology appeals because, as I say, “I’m a boy and I like toys”. And I immodestly think that I do it very well.
So, OK, that’s what I do, but that’s a career, not a mission. Where could I go? Following that old dictum of data becomes information becomes knowledge becomes intelligence becomes wisdom (e.g. http://www.co-i-l.com/coil/knowledge-garden/dkescop/dwcurve.shtml), I was led to the thought that maybe my mission was to take what I do to the next level: making people wise (through the use of technology). Or, rather, to help people make wiser decision (very much taking a stance).
This was something I could get behind. I can’t claim to be wise, but I’d like to be. I also think it is very clear that the world could use more wisdom. And so, that’s now been my mission for close to two years (though in many ways it’s merely a new articulation of a search I’ve been on for most of my life). Not what I do day to day, but instead my own personal quest, and it’s been an interesting one.
What is wisdom?
So, of course, the first question has to be: “What is wisdom? Answer this yourself before we move on, as I’ll ask you to do throughout.
Thinking Today as if Tomorrow Mattered - John Adams
I found out that’s not a trivial question. When I raised this question to a NextNow (http://www.human-landscaping.com/nextnow/) gathering, the resulting discussion was fascinating. Some of the answers included it’s something that can’t be defined, it’s a process, it’s an attitude, etc.
Some called me brave (read: foolish) for even trying to tackle it! Some notes from that discussion include that we know it when we see it (what characterizes those you think are wise?), that it takes compassion, it’s emergent from the earth, that it sees behind, it’s calm and reasoned versus “snap”, the intersection of earth mind and spirit mind.
Now, some of this is actionable, and some is not. I’ve looked at a wide variety of approaches, including previous work trying to understand myth and ritual. Life coaches Peter & Penny Fenner (http://www.skillfulaction.com/), in their book Essential Wisdom Teachings, in addition to talking about an open mental state without expectations, also talk about how trying to answer questions and understand things is not wise. Instead you need to accept what is.
Let me be very clear, I’m interested in finding ways we can improve ourselves. As a mission, I have to be in this for changing the world, not for personal gratification.. So, I’m rejecting those who say it’s ineffable, unitary and non-decomposable, or unteachable. It may well be, but I’ve got a mission, so don’t distract me…
So I’ll take that attitude of openness and non-judgement, the non-dual mind, as a useful attitude to maintain, but not that we shouldn’t examine wisdom and consider whether there are things we can do to develop it. So we need to be wiser, to rise to a higher-level of thinking.
“Wise people look out not just for themselves, but for all toward whom they have any responsibility” - Robert Sternberg
As a counterpart, we have the very western approach of Robert Sternberg, the respected psychologist. In addition to models of intelligence, he’s created a model of wisdom (e.g. http://www.cdl.org/resource-library/articles/teaching_wisdom.php). In it, he argues for:
considering short- and long-term consequences;
considering yourself, those in your direct circle, and society at large;
and using values to guide your decisions.
One thing that came up in the NextNow discussion that his model doesn’t include is humility, a recognition that you may not be smart enough to solve the problem, and a willingness to investigate and search. And the other thing I took away from the discussion is that there are many different aspects to wisdom.
Stan Lester, who I don’t know but I found his paper (http://www.devmts.demon.co.uk/wisdom.htm) on the web, has done an interesting job of researching the history of thoughts about wisdom and brings in a number of facets that constitute wisdom. I recommend reviewing his telegraphic but thorough notes. He suggests wisdom also includes taking a holistic approach to the problem, considering the context and a systematic view of the situation in your decision process.
Lester suggested that ill-structured problems are an important consideration. Well-defined problems are likely to have well-defined solutions, but the real world is more murky. We know some ambiguity serves learning if we accept some constructivist perspectives. David Jonassen (e.g. http://tiger.coe.missouri.edu/~jonassen/Well-Ill.pdf.zip) has also argued that the problems we typically teach in schools aren’t useful for the real world.
I urge you now to consider your own thoughts before listening to mine. Be wise, stop and reflect!
A wisdom model
The short version of my synthesis starts with a mental state of openness to the process, without desires or expectations of the outcome. We need to approach the process with an attitude of humility, curiosity, and patience. We must be willing and even eager to learn, and be willing to take the time necessary to achieve a truly wise decision.
I believe we need to consider the situation from a systemic perspective, as Lester would have us do. And I think we need to evaluate alternatives from a perspective of their contribution, guided by our values. This consideration needs to include, as Sternberg has it, considerations of both short- and long-term consequences, for not only ourselves and those we feel affiliated with, but society as a whole.
My take away is that wisdom is making decisions on a systemic basis that are in line with our interests in the long-term as well as the immediate moment, and in line with our values for not only ourselves but others and society and the world as a whole. It comes into it’s own when dealing with the messy world we really live in than the well-structured world of formal problems (cf. David Jonassen’s work on the problems given to learners versus what they face outside the classroom). And it’s very much a journey, not a destination.
How do we teach wisdom?
So, how do we teach wisdom? What are your thoughts?
“These days people seek knowledge, not wisdom. Knowledge is of the past, wisdom is of the future.” - Vernon Cooper
Sternberg includes elements of: active discussion around classic readings, lessons learned, and practical applications; studying values and evaluate thinking in terms of good outcomes; and having teachers model wisdom. Lester suggests we need to include ill-structured problems, evaluate our approaches systematically, and include values. Putting this together with our addition of attitude, we have identified components of attitude and habits of mind, process, and values. Each of those has it’s own pedagogy, and bears mention.
We’d want to introduce the humility, openness, and patience identified above as attitudes to be covered using an appropriate pedagogy. I’d suggest these aren’t necessarily attitudes someone could disagree with, but they’re also hard to acquire, so the pedagogy might circle around modeled examples, discussions of personal experiences, and ongoing support in change including strategies.
We’d need to discuss values and deliberately choose a value system to embody. Whichever one we choose (and this is difficult subject all on it’s own), we’ll want to make it explicit. My exploration of the literature makes me think the way to address deeply held values and achieve meaningful debate includes, at a coarse level, steps of:
One has to be made aware of one’s own values
Alternate value sets need to be presented, with an exploration their consequent costs and benefits
The learner needs to commit to one
Finally, the learner needs to be supported in adopting any value change
Then there’s the process of solving problems in a wise way. It appears that we want steps, again at a coarse level, of:
Characterize the problem systemically
Identify possible approaches and outcomes
Weigh these for the short and long-term
Weight these for ourselves, those others we have relationships with, and society as a whole
Choose the solution that strikes the best overall balance
We’ll want to explicitly discuss the process, show examples and case studies both good and bad and discuss them, reciprocally model them on sample problems, and discuss situations in our own lives. Clearly, we should address the barriers to wisdom, as well. Obstacles to creating wise decisions include the pressures to make quick decisions, the decrease in our ability to make objective decisions when we’re personally involved or other times there are emotions at risk, the lack of grounding experience when we’re young, and even our own egos. Making these explicit, and discussing strategies to address these is a worthwhile endeavor as well.
What is a wise curriculum?
Another extension of learning and wisdom is thinking through what would be a wise curriculum, one that prepares our learners for the coming future. It’s a hoary old cliché now that the half-life of information is now shorter than the average career, and we’re facing an exponentially growing rate of change. That sets the context in my mind, so then the question becomes: how do we cope with this? What do you think?
There are lots of other perspectives. The U.S. Departments of Labor and Education formed the Secretary's Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills (SCANS) to study the kinds of competencies and skills that workers must have to succeed in today's workplace (http://www.ncrel.org/sdrs/areas/issues/methods/assment/as7scans.htm). NCREL has organized the 21sst Century skills (http://www.ncrel.org/engauge/skills/skill21.htm). There are others, with various assumptions and tradeoffs.
More recently, Guy Kawasaki kicked off a bit of a blog-world discussion with his list of Ten Things to Learn This School Year (http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2006/08/ten_things_to_l.html). Stephen Downes responded with a well-reasoned response (http://halfanhour.blogspot.com/2006/08/things-you-really-need-to-learn.html) that is very close to my own (http://blog.learnlets.com/wp/?p=69), and very well stated. Giving you the short version rather than the long form, I have five major areas, in no particular order. An overall principle is to equip with skills rather than knowledge. These are very top-level categories:
Problem-solving
Systems-Thinking
Interpersonal
Learning
Values
“Communication is the ability to affect other people” - Jim Rohn
At core, we do need to communicate to be effective, and that starts with literacies visual, textual, and numerical, both to comprehend and to generate. I think leadership will also be necessary, to organize people to solve problems, and to understand when to lead, when to follow, and when to get out of the way.
"The proper study of mankind is the science of design” - Herb Simon
We don’t know what problems we’ll have to solve, so we’d better be capable problem-solvers. This breaks down into research and design. This is research into the problems and the effect of solutions, and design of solutions and design of ways to evaluate the solutions.
“We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.” - Albert Einstein
The ways we understand the problems needs to be at a higher level. Dennis Meadows’ illustration of the importance of systems thinking at the 2005 North American Simulation and Gaming Association, where he indicated that unless you do systems models, it’s too late to fix the problem once it’s detected. I include both thinking about breaking down problems in terms of systems and the specific skills of modeling systems.
“Learning to live, learning to learn, so as to be able to absorb new knowledge all through life; learning to think freely and critically” - Edgar Faure
Obviously, if the knowledge will be changing too fast to acquire it before participation, we’ll have to be able to learn ongoing. This will require skills around acquiring information, being effective in learning (meta-learning), as well as being able to critically evaluate information sources. It will also mean the ability to critically evaluate the information available.
“One of humankind’s biggest problems in decision-making is assigning the wrong weights to the variables…. If I have an ethical system, I have a way of assigning those weights” - Malcolm Gladwell
Finally, we’ve already argued that we need a set of values. There are lots of candidates, from religious ones to ones derived from a society’s tenets. The Center for Civic Education, (http://www.civiced.org) for example, has a suite of values that they cite as the foundations for democracy (disclaimer: I’m on their board), or the Cornerstone’s 8 Values (http://cornerstonevalues.org/).
I’m not going to propose any particular set of values here, as my point is not to guide the discussion nor necessarily even engage in it here (but instead to ignite it elsewhere). I will note that this is where you’re most likely to get some viewpoints that are, say, strongly held.
What is a wise pedagogy?
Also arising from the consideration of wisdom and learning is the question of: what is a wise pedagogy? What are your thoughts?
“A mind is a fire to be kindled, not a vessel to be filled” – Plutarch
I like Allan Collins & John Seely Brown’s Cognitive Apprenticeship as a design model. I maintain that most learning approaches are not static, but dynamic, with trajectories as they change. I further argue that they’re converging, and where they’ll end up is where Cognitive Apprenticeship already is: with modeling of behaviors, with meaningful practice, and guided reflection, amongst other elements.
Cognitive science considers that our learning is not only cognitive, as much instructional design would have it, but includes our emotional components as well: our individual characteristics as a learner, and our conative elements, which I currently construe as our intentions, anxieties, and beliefs about learning. Consequently, I argue for explicitly addressing these in our approaches, and have subversively incorporated these elements into my approach (e.g. http://www.elearnmag.org/subpage.cfm?section=best_practices&article=35-1).
“Give the pupils something to do, not something to learn; and the doing is of such a nature as to demand thinking; learning naturally results” - John Dewey
Most of what I have to say here is not new, so briefly I believe strongly that the instructor’s role needs to move from information presentation to experience design and reflection facilitation. I believe in integrated approaches, with spiral curricula and applied and active learning with case-based, problem-based, or service learning foci.
How do we use technology to develop wisdom?
Finally, there’s the question most closely aligned to the forum, how could we use technology to develop wisdom? What do you think?
“We invent things that make us smart. Through technology, we can think better and more clearly” - Donald Norman
There are several ways we can use technology to make us wiser. One quick answer is a performance support system, providing an available guide for making wise decisions. It could be a process checklist or interactive system, with a link to the values and an upfront reminder, though that might not be internalized.
Alternatively, we could also create an elearning course on wisdom. It could be an asynchronous course or even virtual classroom. Either one would be worth undertaking, and I’m sure you’re already ahead of me on the next step.
Now, there are times when immersion in a course can evoke the changes we need, and at other times, it’s a longer and slower learning relationship that leads to development over time and acquisition of deeply integrated ways of thinking, knowing, and acting. And I consider wisdom to fit into the latter case.
So perhaps we could combine the elearning course with the performance support system, with explicit instruction up front and then ongoing performance support. This sounds close to what we’d do without technology, at least in an ideal world. Though we’d really prefer a richer ongoing relationship than just tools.
Here we’re at a point that I don’t think instructional design has really taken to heart, and for probably sound reasons. It’s only recently (say, the past five years) when we’ve had the capability for systems to start maintaining a long-term relationship with us, knowing us, and having a long-term development plan, able to be available when and where we need it. Yet we now do have that capability, and I think we need to consider what we might do with it.
At a minimum, I have argued for slow learning (http://blog.learnlets.com/wp/?p=61), a different way to learn. The metaphor is drip irrigation versus watering via a hose. I don’t mean it as an alternative so much as a complement to other approaches to learning, but it’s for the long-term development of individuals, and I think technology could deliver such an approach.
The notion is some upfront presentation, and then instead of abandonment, or even performance support, there’s a wrapping of preparation before the event, perhaps support during performance, and reflection afterwards. As we increasingly indicate our schedule into calendars, and carry communication devices with us, we have the possibility of using the events in our lives as learning opportunities, instead of creating artificial practice events. We can even combine them, if insufficient practice is coming up in a particular stretch, we could pull in some artificial practice.
We also have other capabilities now, as well. We have the capability to pull from and deliver to almost anywhere. We can allow broad development of material, access a broad spectrum of people, and wrap structures including business models and commerce across it all. We can identify material by it’s meaning, not just it’s initial characterization.
So the content we draw upon might be dynamically pulled at the time of need, and it might be more serendipity than design whether it works, but that’s probably ok in a long-term relationship. And we could actually poll and find someone willing to serve as that reflection guider in the moment.
This becomes an approximation to eCoaching, but facilitated and optimized through technology. Individual coaching would be the ideal, but it’s not practical, and this comes very close in a more practical approach.
Is there more?
What’s the wise thing to do next?
“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world” - Nelson MandelaHaving come this far, I’d like to have the discussion talk about the questions I’ve raised, and one other. The questions I’ve raised include:
What is wisdom?
How do we teach wisdom?
What is a wise curriculum?
What is a wise pedagogy?
What can we do with technology to foster wisdom?
And the one other question I’d welcome your thoughts on is:
What can you and/or I do from here?
That latter one, if we’re being wise, means asking what does this mean for us today, next week, next year, and beyond? What does this mean for us, our learners, our organizations, and society? What do we need to do?Thanks for your time, and I look forward to the discussion.

Learning विस्दोम

Learning विस्दोम

Learning Wisdom
Clark Quinn, Ph.D.
Quinnovation
Introduction
I hosted my first ITFORUM discussion 10 years ago this month. In the subsequent 10 years a lot has happened in the world, and to me: I changed and lost jobs, my two children were born, we moved back to the US from Australia, I had a book published, for some examples. One constant has been ITFORUM, even when I was too busy to contribute. When offered the chance to post again, there were several more typical things I could have talked about: emotionally-engaged learning design, mobile affordances, or elearning strategy. However, I wanted to take a somewhat different path, a bit broader and more reflective. So I’ve chosen to do that, with the attendant risks. This is a personal journey, one that I believe is important enough to ask you to join me on, at least for the duration of this week. It’s more about questions than answers, but in today’s turbulent times, I’d like you to consider that we might be able to do more than we do, and consider being willing to do so. If this sounds like just so much hazy cosmic jive, write it off to the fact that I’m a native Californian…
A while ago now, I had a chance to hear Lance Secretan, author of Inspire: What Great Leaders Do (http://www.secretan.com/inspire/index.php), talk about inspiration (as opposed to motivation). It’s a worthwhile distinction and an interesting subject, but what I most took away from the talk was his Why Be Do, “Why are we here on Earth, how we will Be while we are here and what we have been sent here to Do?” Maybe I’m of an age, but it caused me to ask these questions of myself. What is my mission? What am I here to do?
Now one of the ways I characterize what I do (and, by extension, what you all do) is that I make people smart (through the use of technology). Some of that is smart ‘in the moment’ through performance support, and some of that is ‘smart over time’ via elearning. It is broader, with a whole process about moving up the ‘value chain’ of elearning strategy (e.g. http://www.quinnovation.com/models.html), from improved design, through mobile, single-sourcing and more, up to performance ecosystems, but at core it’s about making people smart (or smarter). I like what I do; helping people achieve their goals is gratifying and worthwhile, and doing it through technology appeals because, as I say, “I’m a boy and I like toys”. And I immodestly think that I do it very well.
So, OK, that’s what I do, but that’s a career, not a mission. Where could I go? Following that old dictum of data becomes information becomes knowledge becomes intelligence becomes wisdom (e.g. http://www.co-i-l.com/coil/knowledge-garden/dkescop/dwcurve.shtml), I was led to the thought that maybe my mission was to take what I do to the next level: making people wise (through the use of technology). Or, rather, to help people make wiser decision (very much taking a stance).
This was something I could get behind. I can’t claim to be wise, but I’d like to be. I also think it is very clear that the world could use more wisdom. And so, that’s now been my mission for close to two years (though in many ways it’s merely a new articulation of a search I’ve been on for most of my life). Not what I do day to day, but instead my own personal quest, and it’s been an interesting one.
What is wisdom?
So, of course, the first question has to be: “What is wisdom? Answer this yourself before we move on, as I’ll ask you to do throughout.
Thinking Today as if Tomorrow Mattered - John Adams
I found out that’s not a trivial question. When I raised this question to a NextNow (http://www.human-landscaping.com/nextnow/) gathering, the resulting discussion was fascinating. Some of the answers included it’s something that can’t be defined, it’s a process, it’s an attitude, etc.
Some called me brave (read: foolish) for even trying to tackle it! Some notes from that discussion include that we know it when we see it (what characterizes those you think are wise?), that it takes compassion, it’s emergent from the earth, that it sees behind, it’s calm and reasoned versus “snap”, the intersection of earth mind and spirit mind.
Now, some of this is actionable, and some is not. I’ve looked at a wide variety of approaches, including previous work trying to understand myth and ritual. Life coaches Peter & Penny Fenner (http://www.skillfulaction.com/), in their book Essential Wisdom Teachings, in addition to talking about an open mental state without expectations, also talk about how trying to answer questions and understand things is not wise. Instead you need to accept what is.
Let me be very clear, I’m interested in finding ways we can improve ourselves. As a mission, I have to be in this for changing the world, not for personal gratification.. So, I’m rejecting those who say it’s ineffable, unitary and non-decomposable, or unteachable. It may well be, but I’ve got a mission, so don’t distract me…
So I’ll take that attitude of openness and non-judgement, the non-dual mind, as a useful attitude to maintain, but not that we shouldn’t examine wisdom and consider whether there are things we can do to develop it. So we need to be wiser, to rise to a higher-level of thinking.
“Wise people look out not just for themselves, but for all toward whom they have any responsibility” - Robert Sternberg
As a counterpart, we have the very western approach of Robert Sternberg, the respected psychologist. In addition to models of intelligence, he’s created a model of wisdom (e.g. http://www.cdl.org/resource-library/articles/teaching_wisdom.php). In it, he argues for:
considering short- and long-term consequences;
considering yourself, those in your direct circle, and society at large;
and using values to guide your decisions.
One thing that came up in the NextNow discussion that his model doesn’t include is humility, a recognition that you may not be smart enough to solve the problem, and a willingness to investigate and search. And the other thing I took away from the discussion is that there are many different aspects to wisdom.
Stan Lester, who I don’t know but I found his paper (http://www.devmts.demon.co.uk/wisdom.htm) on the web, has done an interesting job of researching the history of thoughts about wisdom and brings in a number of facets that constitute wisdom. I recommend reviewing his telegraphic but thorough notes. He suggests wisdom also includes taking a holistic approach to the problem, considering the context and a systematic view of the situation in your decision process.
Lester suggested that ill-structured problems are an important consideration. Well-defined problems are likely to have well-defined solutions, but the real world is more murky. We know some ambiguity serves learning if we accept some constructivist perspectives. David Jonassen (e.g. http://tiger.coe.missouri.edu/~jonassen/Well-Ill.pdf.zip) has also argued that the problems we typically teach in schools aren’t useful for the real world.
I urge you now to consider your own thoughts before listening to mine. Be wise, stop and reflect!
A wisdom model
The short version of my synthesis starts with a mental state of openness to the process, without desires or expectations of the outcome. We need to approach the process with an attitude of humility, curiosity, and patience. We must be willing and even eager to learn, and be willing to take the time necessary to achieve a truly wise decision.
I believe we need to consider the situation from a systemic perspective, as Lester would have us do. And I think we need to evaluate alternatives from a perspective of their contribution, guided by our values. This consideration needs to include, as Sternberg has it, considerations of both short- and long-term consequences, for not only ourselves and those we feel affiliated with, but society as a whole.
My take away is that wisdom is making decisions on a systemic basis that are in line with our interests in the long-term as well as the immediate moment, and in line with our values for not only ourselves but others and society and the world as a whole. It comes into it’s own when dealing with the messy world we really live in than the well-structured world of formal problems (cf. David Jonassen’s work on the problems given to learners versus what they face outside the classroom). And it’s very much a journey, not a destination.
How do we teach wisdom?
So, how do we teach wisdom? What are your thoughts?
“These days people seek knowledge, not wisdom. Knowledge is of the past, wisdom is of the future.” - Vernon Cooper
Sternberg includes elements of: active discussion around classic readings, lessons learned, and practical applications; studying values and evaluate thinking in terms of good outcomes; and having teachers model wisdom. Lester suggests we need to include ill-structured problems, evaluate our approaches systematically, and include values. Putting this together with our addition of attitude, we have identified components of attitude and habits of mind, process, and values. Each of those has it’s own pedagogy, and bears mention.
We’d want to introduce the humility, openness, and patience identified above as attitudes to be covered using an appropriate pedagogy. I’d suggest these aren’t necessarily attitudes someone could disagree with, but they’re also hard to acquire, so the pedagogy might circle around modeled examples, discussions of personal experiences, and ongoing support in change including strategies.
We’d need to discuss values and deliberately choose a value system to embody. Whichever one we choose (and this is difficult subject all on it’s own), we’ll want to make it explicit. My exploration of the literature makes me think the way to address deeply held values and achieve meaningful debate includes, at a coarse level, steps of:
One has to be made aware of one’s own values
Alternate value sets need to be presented, with an exploration their consequent costs and benefits
The learner needs to commit to one
Finally, the learner needs to be supported in adopting any value change
Then there’s the process of solving problems in a wise way. It appears that we want steps, again at a coarse level, of:
Characterize the problem systemically
Identify possible approaches and outcomes
Weigh these for the short and long-term
Weight these for ourselves, those others we have relationships with, and society as a whole
Choose the solution that strikes the best overall balance
We’ll want to explicitly discuss the process, show examples and case studies both good and bad and discuss them, reciprocally model them on sample problems, and discuss situations in our own lives. Clearly, we should address the barriers to wisdom, as well. Obstacles to creating wise decisions include the pressures to make quick decisions, the decrease in our ability to make objective decisions when we’re personally involved or other times there are emotions at risk, the lack of grounding experience when we’re young, and even our own egos. Making these explicit, and discussing strategies to address these is a worthwhile endeavor as well.
What is a wise curriculum?
Another extension of learning and wisdom is thinking through what would be a wise curriculum, one that prepares our learners for the coming future. It’s a hoary old cliché now that the half-life of information is now shorter than the average career, and we’re facing an exponentially growing rate of change. That sets the context in my mind, so then the question becomes: how do we cope with this? What do you think?
There are lots of other perspectives. The U.S. Departments of Labor and Education formed the Secretary's Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills (SCANS) to study the kinds of competencies and skills that workers must have to succeed in today's workplace (http://www.ncrel.org/sdrs/areas/issues/methods/assment/as7scans.htm). NCREL has organized the 21sst Century skills (http://www.ncrel.org/engauge/skills/skill21.htm). There are others, with various assumptions and tradeoffs.
More recently, Guy Kawasaki kicked off a bit of a blog-world discussion with his list of Ten Things to Learn This School Year (http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2006/08/ten_things_to_l.html). Stephen Downes responded with a well-reasoned response (http://halfanhour.blogspot.com/2006/08/things-you-really-need-to-learn.html) that is very close to my own (http://blog.learnlets.com/wp/?p=69), and very well stated. Giving you the short version rather than the long form, I have five major areas, in no particular order. An overall principle is to equip with skills rather than knowledge. These are very top-level categories:
Problem-solving
Systems-Thinking
Interpersonal
Learning
Values
“Communication is the ability to affect other people” - Jim Rohn
At core, we do need to communicate to be effective, and that starts with literacies visual, textual, and numerical, both to comprehend and to generate. I think leadership will also be necessary, to organize people to solve problems, and to understand when to lead, when to follow, and when to get out of the way.
"The proper study of mankind is the science of design” - Herb Simon
We don’t know what problems we’ll have to solve, so we’d better be capable problem-solvers. This breaks down into research and design. This is research into the problems and the effect of solutions, and design of solutions and design of ways to evaluate the solutions.
“We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.” - Albert Einstein
The ways we understand the problems needs to be at a higher level. Dennis Meadows’ illustration of the importance of systems thinking at the 2005 North American Simulation and Gaming Association, where he indicated that unless you do systems models, it’s too late to fix the problem once it’s detected. I include both thinking about breaking down problems in terms of systems and the specific skills of modeling systems.
“Learning to live, learning to learn, so as to be able to absorb new knowledge all through life; learning to think freely and critically” - Edgar Faure
Obviously, if the knowledge will be changing too fast to acquire it before participation, we’ll have to be able to learn ongoing. This will require skills around acquiring information, being effective in learning (meta-learning), as well as being able to critically evaluate information sources. It will also mean the ability to critically evaluate the information available.
“One of humankind’s biggest problems in decision-making is assigning the wrong weights to the variables…. If I have an ethical system, I have a way of assigning those weights” - Malcolm Gladwell
Finally, we’ve already argued that we need a set of values. There are lots of candidates, from religious ones to ones derived from a society’s tenets. The Center for Civic Education, (http://www.civiced.org) for example, has a suite of values that they cite as the foundations for democracy (disclaimer: I’m on their board), or the Cornerstone’s 8 Values (http://cornerstonevalues.org/).
I’m not going to propose any particular set of values here, as my point is not to guide the discussion nor necessarily even engage in it here (but instead to ignite it elsewhere). I will note that this is where you’re most likely to get some viewpoints that are, say, strongly held.
What is a wise pedagogy?
Also arising from the consideration of wisdom and learning is the question of: what is a wise pedagogy? What are your thoughts?
“A mind is a fire to be kindled, not a vessel to be filled” – Plutarch
I like Allan Collins & John Seely Brown’s Cognitive Apprenticeship as a design model. I maintain that most learning approaches are not static, but dynamic, with trajectories as they change. I further argue that they’re converging, and where they’ll end up is where Cognitive Apprenticeship already is: with modeling of behaviors, with meaningful practice, and guided reflection, amongst other elements.
Cognitive science considers that our learning is not only cognitive, as much instructional design would have it, but includes our emotional components as well: our individual characteristics as a learner, and our conative elements, which I currently construe as our intentions, anxieties, and beliefs about learning. Consequently, I argue for explicitly addressing these in our approaches, and have subversively incorporated these elements into my approach (e.g. http://www.elearnmag.org/subpage.cfm?section=best_practices&article=35-1).
“Give the pupils something to do, not something to learn; and the doing is of such a nature as to demand thinking; learning naturally results” - John Dewey
Most of what I have to say here is not new, so briefly I believe strongly that the instructor’s role needs to move from information presentation to experience design and reflection facilitation. I believe in integrated approaches, with spiral curricula and applied and active learning with case-based, problem-based, or service learning foci.
How do we use technology to develop wisdom?
Finally, there’s the question most closely aligned to the forum, how could we use technology to develop wisdom? What do you think?
“We invent things that make us smart. Through technology, we can think better and more clearly” - Donald Norman
There are several ways we can use technology to make us wiser. One quick answer is a performance support system, providing an available guide for making wise decisions. It could be a process checklist or interactive system, with a link to the values and an upfront reminder, though that might not be internalized.
Alternatively, we could also create an elearning course on wisdom. It could be an asynchronous course or even virtual classroom. Either one would be worth undertaking, and I’m sure you’re already ahead of me on the next step.
Now, there are times when immersion in a course can evoke the changes we need, and at other times, it’s a longer and slower learning relationship that leads to development over time and acquisition of deeply integrated ways of thinking, knowing, and acting. And I consider wisdom to fit into the latter case.
So perhaps we could combine the elearning course with the performance support system, with explicit instruction up front and then ongoing performance support. This sounds close to what we’d do without technology, at least in an ideal world. Though we’d really prefer a richer ongoing relationship than just tools.
Here we’re at a point that I don’t think instructional design has really taken to heart, and for probably sound reasons. It’s only recently (say, the past five years) when we’ve had the capability for systems to start maintaining a long-term relationship with us, knowing us, and having a long-term development plan, able to be available when and where we need it. Yet we now do have that capability, and I think we need to consider what we might do with it.
At a minimum, I have argued for slow learning (http://blog.learnlets.com/wp/?p=61), a different way to learn. The metaphor is drip irrigation versus watering via a hose. I don’t mean it as an alternative so much as a complement to other approaches to learning, but it’s for the long-term development of individuals, and I think technology could deliver such an approach.
The notion is some upfront presentation, and then instead of abandonment, or even performance support, there’s a wrapping of preparation before the event, perhaps support during performance, and reflection afterwards. As we increasingly indicate our schedule into calendars, and carry communication devices with us, we have the possibility of using the events in our lives as learning opportunities, instead of creating artificial practice events. We can even combine them, if insufficient practice is coming up in a particular stretch, we could pull in some artificial practice.
We also have other capabilities now, as well. We have the capability to pull from and deliver to almost anywhere. We can allow broad development of material, access a broad spectrum of people, and wrap structures including business models and commerce across it all. We can identify material by it’s meaning, not just it’s initial characterization.
So the content we draw upon might be dynamically pulled at the time of need, and it might be more serendipity than design whether it works, but that’s probably ok in a long-term relationship. And we could actually poll and find someone willing to serve as that reflection guider in the moment.
This becomes an approximation to eCoaching, but facilitated and optimized through technology. Individual coaching would be the ideal, but it’s not practical, and this comes very close in a more practical approach.
Is there more?
What’s the wise thing to do next?
“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world” - Nelson MandelaHaving come this far, I’d like to have the discussion talk about the questions I’ve raised, and one other. The questions I’ve raised include:
What is wisdom?
How do we teach wisdom?
What is a wise curriculum?
What is a wise pedagogy?
What can we do with technology to foster wisdom?
And the one other question I’d welcome your thoughts on is:
What can you and/or I do from here?
That latter one, if we’re being wise, means asking what does this mean for us today, next week, next year, and beyond? What does this mean for us, our learners, our organizations, and society? What do we need to do?Thanks for your time, and I look forward to the discussion.

Security and Privacy Technologies in सोया

Since 1998, the Extensible Markup Language (XML) has become a fundamental platform to build technologies on the Web. XML is used to represent fine-grained data that originates in repositories in machine-readable format by providing structure and the possibility of adding type information. A Web service is a software system that supports interoperable application-to-application interaction over the Web. Web services are fundamentally based on a set of XML standards, such as Web Services Description Language (WSDL), Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP), and Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration (UDDI). The result of this approach is called service-oriented architecture (SOA).
This new architecture and set of protocols presents new security challenges such as confidentiality, integrity, anonymity, authentication, authorization, and availability. Several security solutions for Web services data have been proposed such as WS-Security and Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML). Privacy is one area of security; it is a state or condition of limited access to information. Privacy can often be guaranteed through security measures. To enable privacy protection for Web services, the World Wide Web Consortium published a document called "Web Services Architecture (WSA) Requirements" that defines some specific privacy requirements for Web services as a future research topic.
I have selected six articles to introduce you the relevant research works in the past five years. The article "Standards for XML and Web Services Security" by Martin Naedele presents a fundamental concept of XML with security protocols in Web services. The next the two articles—"Towards Standardized Web Services Privacy Technologies" and "Privacy Policy Compliance for Web Services"—discuss the basic components to implement a privacy framework in SOA. In "Exploring Privacy Issues in Web Services Discovery Agencies," Barbara Carminati and her colleagues address the privacy issues in service discovery.
One of the mandates of SOA is to support business processes. Wei Xu et al. discuss the composition of Web services to support business processes with privacy requirements in "A Framework for Building Privacy-Conscious Composite Web Services." Finally, the article "A Privacy Agreement Model for Web Services" by Salima Benbernou et al. discuss the privacy agreements in Web services to support business processes.
The readings in this TechSet will provide you with an understanding of how security and privacy issues are very critical to implement a full-scale SOA to support business processes.
Keywords: XML, standards, Web services security, privacy policies, UDDI, WSDL, SOAP, WS-Security, EPAL, P3P, Web services architecture, privacy issues, discovery agencies, service descriptions
Table of Contents
Standards for XML and Web Services Security
Martin Naedele, ABB Corporate Research
Summary: Several standards are establishing a framework for integrating security into domain-specific XML-based applications.
Towards Standardized Web Services Privacy Technologies
Patrick C. K. Hung, University of Ontario Institute of Technology, Canada
Elena Ferrari and Barbara Carminati, Universit� dell'Insubria at Como, Italy
Summary: To enable privacy protection for Web service consumers, the World Wide Web Consortium published a document that defines some specific privacy requirements for Web services. This article overviews the research issues of Web services privacy technologies.
Privacy Policy Compliance for Web Services
George Yee and Larry Korba, National Research Council Canada
Summary: This article examines privacy legislation to derive requirements for privacy policy compliance systems. The authors propose an architecture for a privacy policy compliance system that satisfies these requirements.
Exploring Privacy Issues in Web Services Discovery Agencies
Barbara Carminati, University of Insubria at Como, Italy
Elena Ferrari, University of Insubria at Como, Italy
Patrick C.K. Hung, University of Ontario Institute of Technology (UOIT), Canada
Summary: The increasing discussions concerning Web services privacy often neglect a key building block of the Web services architecture: discovery agencies. This overview of discovery agency privacy issues highlights the various challenges and proposes different technical approaches for addressing them.
A Framework for Building Privacy-Conscious Composite Web Services
Wei Xu, R. Sekar, I.V. Ramakrishnan, Stony Brook University
V.N. Venkatakrishnan, University of Illinois at Chicago
Summary: The authors propose a framework that addresses consumer privacy concerns in the context of highly customizable composite Web services. Their approach uses automated techniques to check for compliance of consumer privacy policies.
A Privacy Agreement Model for Web Services
Salima Benbernou, Hassina Meziane, Mohand-Said Hacid, Universit'e de Lyon
Yin Hua Li, University New South Wales
Summary: Privacy policies do not convince individuals to disclose their personal data, guarantee the protection of personal information, or provide a process for handling a possible evolution of the policies. The authors propose a framework based on a privacy agreement to help solve these problems. Recommended Resources -->

Saturday, November 29, 2008

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Thursday, November 27, 2008

Phishing

Phishing
What is Phishing?
Phishing is a type of deception designed to steal your identity. In phishing scams, con artists try to convince you to disclose valuable personal data, like credit card numbers, passwords, account data or other information, under false pretences. Phishing schemes can be carried out in person or over the phone, and are delivered online through spam email or pop-up windows.
Just when you thought it was safe to go back into your Inbox, there's a new form of spam e-mail on the horizon. This spam is more than just unwanted and annoying, it could lead to the theft of your personal data. Find out more about this new identity theft scam and to learn how to help protect your privacy.
How does phishing work?
A phishing scam may start with con artists who send millions of email messages that appear to come from popular or trusted websites, like your bank or credit card company. They appear official and legitimate, deceiving many unsuspecting people into responding with personal data, such as their credit card numbers.
What does a phishing scam look like?
As scam artists become more sophisticated, so do their phishing email messages and pop-up windows. They often include official-looking logos from real organisations and other identifying information taken directly from legitimate websites.

The following is an example of what a phishing scam email message might look like:
Example of a phishing email message, including a deceptive URL address linking to a scam website.
To make these phishing email messages look even more convincing, the scam artists may place a link in them that appears to go to the legitimate website (1).In fact it takes you to a phoney scam site (2) or possibly a pop-up window that looks exactly like the official site. Once you're at one of these “spoofed” websites, you might unwittingly send personal information to the con artists

Wireless Networking Tips for Homes

Wireless Networking Tips for Homes
About Wireless Networking at Home
Today's homes are getting more and more high tech as the number of computers per home increases and people use computers for both business and entertainment. Wireless networking at home using broadband is a convenient, flexible and mobile way of computing without messy cabling.
However, you should take great care not to expose your wireless networks to security risks. Wireless networks use radio signals for transmission and if they’re not secured, other people can access your network, intercepting your emails, accessing your documents and using your internet connection.
Why is it important to secure your wireless network at home?
Wireless networks are easy to find and hackers are always on the look out for vulnerable and open unsecured networks. An unsecured network can: · Compromise your privacy and lead to loss or corruption of data · Lead to a slow internet connection due to bandwidth usage by the hacker · Leave you legally responsible for any criminal activities carried out by the hacker.
Securing your wireless network at home
Enabling the router's firewall will block intrusions through the Internet. However this will not stop hackers accessing your network directly through the wireless gateway. Below are a few recommendations that you may follow to increase the security of your wireless home LAN.
1) Change default admin logins on network equipment.
Equipment manufacturers use a standard username and password on all their equipments and these are well known to the public. As a first step, you should change the admin username and password for your router.2) Change default SSID.
Service Set Identifier (SSID) is the unique name assigned to each wireless network to differentiate them from other wireless networks. Wireless devices have a default SSID set by the factory. Hackers may be aware of this default SSID and will try to use the same to access your network. Hence customers are advised to change the default SSID to a personal one, in order to make it difficult to be identified by others.
3) Do not broadcast the SSID.
Hackers use applications that can detect SSIDs and try to log on to the network. Hiding the SSID may not be the perfect method to secure your network, but by not broadcasting the SSID it becomes difficult for the hacker to detect your SSID and get into your network.
4) Enable encryption.
The most important step in securing your wireless communication is enabling encryption. In order to protect your data from hackers you can either use WEP encryption or WPA encryption.
a. Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP Encryption).
The first generation of wireless network equipment came with WEP encryption, which provides security by encrypting data over radio waves. Enable WEP encryption and use a non-obvious encryption key. WEP encryption doesn’t provide foolproof protection, but it does make the hacker's job more difficult.
b. Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA Encryption).
WPA is the latest, enhanced security standard for wireless networks, providing more sophisticated data encryption and better user authentication than WEP. WPA technology is designed to work with existing Wi-Fi products that have been enabled with WEP.
5) Use non-obvious WEP keys and periodically change them.
Don’t use simple keys like 123456 and keep changing your WEP keys every now and then to help keep your LAN secure.

6) Disallow router administration via wireless.
If possible, use the feature on your router/modem to shut off and disallow router administration of your access point via wireless.
7) Use MAC address based access and association control.
The MAC address filter lets you decide exactly who has access to your wireless network. You can find the MAC address on your network adapter device. MAC addresses can be imitated or copied, so it's not a guarantee of security, but it adds another obstacle for potential intruders.
مبادئنا
رؤيتنا.... عالم يتواصل فيه الناس مهما اختلفت الحواجز أو بعدت المسافات.
سوف يمتلك الناس حرية التنقل إلى أي مكان يريدون حول العالم مع البقاء على اتصال مع الأسرة وإقامة صداقات جديدة فضلاً عن تطوير مداركهم وتوسيع اهتماماتهم بالأسلوب الذي يريدون.
أما قطاع الأعمال بمختلف فئاته ، فلن تقيده المسافات وسيستطيع الوصول إلى أسواق جديدة. ستفتح التقنيات المبتكرة المجال واسعاً أمام استثمار الفرص العالمية مما يتيح توفير منتجات وخدمات جديدة تكون في متناول الجميع.

رســالتنا.... تعزيز قدرة الناس على التواصل
إننا نعمل بعزم على تطوير شبكات حديثة تمكن الناس من التقدم والتعلم والارتقاء إلى آفاق جديدة.
قيمنا الجوهرية
الحيوية
إننا نقدر ونعزز مفاهيم الحماس والحيوية الضرورية لتحقيق الأفضل في مجال الأعمال ونتطلع لمواجهة التحديات واغتنام الفرص المستقبلية.
الانفتاح
كمؤسسة تتسم مشاعرنا تجاه عملائنا وموظفينا وشركائنا بالود والتفهم ونتعامل مع الناس بوضوح وصدق وصراحة. إننا نتحرى الصدق والأمانة في كافة تعاملاتنا التجارية.
التمكين
هدفنا أن نوفر الفرص للناس ومساعدتهم بشكل فاعل على تحقيق أهدافهم.إننا دائماً نفي بما نعد به.

المستقبل هو عالم تعزز فيه التقنية ..... تواصلنا
لم تعد الموسيقى أو الكتب والخدمات تباع عبر الانترنت بشكلها العادي. الشبكات المتطورة ستوفر وعلى نحو متزايد التعليم والرعاية الصحية وغيرها من السلع والخدمات.فالاستشارات الطبية عن بعد ـ على سبيل المثال ـ تمكن المرضى من الحصول على أفضل النصائح والاستشارات من الأطباء حول العالم كما جعلت الآن أجهزة الإنسان الآلي القيام بإجراء العمليات الجراحية أمراً ممكنا.ومع تسارع وتيرة التغيرات التقنية ، ستسعى " اتصالات" لتوفير احدث التقنيات والخدمات والوصول إلى أسواق جديدة وخلق الفرص أمام مشتركيها لتحقيق تطلعاتهم والاستفادة من كل ما يقدمه العالم لهم.

اتصالات




أهلاً بك في "اتصالات". مهمتنا هي مساعدة الأشخاص على التواصل مع بعضهم البعض، وتمكين الشركات من الوصول إلى فرص جديدة، ومنح الجميع إمكانية تحقيق ذاتهم. إننا نوفر الخدمات الهاتفية والتلفزيونية والدخول إلى الإنترنت في جميع أنحاء الإمارات العربية المتحدة ومنها إلى كل العالم. بإمكان مشتركينا الاستمتاع بأحدث الخدمات وأرقى التقنيات، بالإضافة إلى خدمات الترفيه والتسلية. سيساعدك موقعنا على اكتشاف جميع خدماتنا. تواصل مع عالمك.

Etisalat

This month of november Fortune Cup 2008
Etisalat brings Cricket Fever to the UAE
Etisalat is the Presenting Sponsor for the 3 matches ODI series between Pakistan sand West Indies, which will be played from November 12 to 16, 2008 at Sheikh Zayed Cricket Stadium in Abu Dhabi, UAE. Titled "Fortune Cup", this will be the first ODI series coming to UAE since May 2007.
Etisalat plans to roll out a series of exciting offers for its cricket loving customers to make this event a great entertainment experience for them.
Expressing his delight on bagging the sponsorship Mr. Essa Al Haddad, Chief Marketing Officer, Etisalat said, “Cricket is an acclaimed sport that connects all nationalities and the game is especially popular with Etisalat's expat customer base from UK, India and Pakistan. At Etisalat we strongly believe in connecting with our customers and through this series we aspire to REACH out to all cricket lovers across the globe. We wish the participating teams and the organizers all the very best for the tournament."
Commenting on the sponsorships Mr. Dilawar Mani, CEO of Abu Dhabi Cricket Club said, “The Abu Dhabi Cricket Club is extremely delighted at receiving confirmations of sponsorship from both the Fortune Group and Etisalat. Etisalat has come forward for the first time to support cricket and it offers the game a unique experience of having a “national company” assume a role in sponsoring the sport of cricket in Abu Dhabi. This augurs well for the future of the game and we hope that Etisalat as a pioneer “Presenting Sponsor” will feel that they received good value as this step will also encourage other national companies to come forward and support the development of the game. We applaud the Fortune Group and Etisalat and intend to deliver unprecedented publicity and media value to our sponsors.”

The 3-day ODI tournament promises to be an exciting event in which two powerful giants of the cricketing world will be pitted against each other for the Fortune Cup. The matches will be telecast on Ten Sports and will be watched by over half a billion cricket crazy fans across the world.
Date, Time & Venue
Date: 12-16 November 2008
Time: 03:00pm onwards (Day & Night Match)
Venue : Sheikh Zayed Cricket Stadium in Abu Dhabi, UAE

etisalat

etisalat: UAE Internet users may experience degradation in Internet performance for one weekAbu Dhabi, 17 July 2006, Corporation to activate additional capacity to minimize effect etisalat today announced that Internet users in the UAE may experience a slight degradation in their Internet performance during peak hours starting from today, July 18th for around a week.
etisalat stated that this degradation in the internet performance is due to a planned shifting of three undersea cables (FLAG, SMW-3, SMW-4) off the coast of Fujairah due to the construction of a manmade island.

Ahmed Bin Ali, Manager Corporate Communications, etisalat said, "We are taking every precaution to minimize the impact on Internet performance in the UAE, and have kept our customers' interests as our top priority."

"The shifting of the three cables is being done in a phased manner. We will also be activating extra capacity during this period to minimize the impact of this operation“, he added.




-ends-

Press release issued by Corporate Communications Department – Etisalat
For further media information, please contact:
Engineer Ahmed Bin Ali, Manager Corporate Communications
Tel: 02 6182173
Fax: 02 6334448
prd@etisalat.ae
www.etisalat.ae