Editorial: ICT for development in Asia and the Pacific
Wal Taylor · 2005
Welcome to the fourth issue of the International Journal of Education and Development using Information and Communication Technology (IJEDICT) an e-journal that provides free and open access to all of its content. IJEDICT emphasises collaboration across disciplines, across professions, across institutions, across sectors, and across continents in an attempt to freely share and promote best practice and best research. This fourth issue deals with information and communication technology (ICT) for development in and the Pacific, and brings articles from and/or about India, Mongolia, South-East Asia, New Zealand and Australia. In Profiting from Empowerment? Investigating Dissemination Avenues for Educational Technology Content within an Emerging Market Solutions Project, Payal Arora explores the dissemination avenues of the Stills in Sync (SIS) folksongs product and its effects within the Inclusive Community (i-community) of HP in Kuppam, India. This community has functioned as a social and economic laboratory in which HP tested new technologies. Analyzing this test environment makes apparent the dichotomy between corporate responsibility and community development. Sambuu Uyanga writes about usage of ICT for secondary education in Mongolia. The author presents the current situation of usage of ICT in secondary education in Mongolia, including national policies, strategies and programs, hardware and software, teaching staffs, informatics curriculum and related projects and initiatives. SWOT (Strength, Weakness, Opportunity, and Threat) analysis and conclusions are also presented. Angelina Russo and Jerry Watkins, in their article Digital Cultural Communication: Enabling new media and co-creation in South-East Asia describe 'Digital Cultural Communication' as a new field of research and design which seeks to build a co-creative relationship between the cultural institution and the community by using new media to produce audience-focused cultural interactive experiences (Russo and Watkins 2005). The authors provide a number of examples from around to demonstrate how individuals and communities can benefit from the economy and immediacy offered by new media to co-create and distribute distinctive cultural content to broader audiences. Janet Toland and Pak Yoong, in their article Regions in New Zealand: The role of ICT, examine the potential for ICT to enhance the efforts of regions in New Zealand to achieve sustainable economic success, by improving the flows of knowledge, both within the region itself, and between the region and the outside world. Still in New Zealand, in Business Under-graduates Learning Online: A One Semester Snapshot, Krassie Petrova and Rowena Sinclair report on research conducted at Auckland University of Technology in the second half of 2004 as part of a broad review of online learning in a business program. The study presented here was aimed at identifying key characteristics of student perceptions about the two online models implemented, and the actual usage patterns of the online learning platform. …